Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio. Did the arrested x FBI executive Charles McGonagall start working for the Russian oligarch connected to Trump's campaign manager only after McGonagall left the bureau? Or was he doing so while he McGonagall was still ordering events within the bureau. Was Charlie McGonagall a Russian asset inside the FBI? Because since Friday, I have had that sinking feeling that we are watching the proverbial drip, drip, drip, the slow reveal of something so shocking that the details must be parceled out. Because it is one thing for me to line up these and ask what does it mean if they are all connected? And it is one thing for Professor Tim Snyder of Yale to ask that, And it is one thing for the author, Greg Olier to ask that it is something else altogether, for the New York Times to ask that. Yet there were all the dots scattered under the by lines of Ken Vogel and Michael Rothfeld and William Roschbaum, without the lines drawn to connect them, and without the adjectives and emphasies that caused the jaw to drop and largely sitting in the back row of the narrative of the story behind the fact that McGonagall has been indicted for taking money to act on behalf of an Albanian thug while he was still a top official at the FBI Field Office in New York. But there it is in the back, not jumping up and down, not waving its arms at us, but still clear with discernible features. But sources and writers and editors at the New York Times all looked at and said, you know, you can print this, the stinct and distinctly new possibility that when the FBI New York office went rogue in two thousand sixteen and went pro Trump and manipulated the Anthony Weiner laptop story and basically blackmailed James Comey into reopening both Pandora's box and but her emails. While that was happening, the key man at the FBI in New York investigating Old Egg derri Posca was maybe already getting money from Old Egg derri Posca, and Paul Manafort owed Old Egg derri Posca money, and Paul Manafort was Donald Trump's campaign manager for free. It's a lot of dots. This is the legitimacy the New York Times can, when it is not stepping on its own private parts, still bestow. It can state the raw facts of mcgonagall's indictment in Albania, and two paragraphs later it can quote the former FBI counterintelligence official Holden triplet as saying, quote, it puts a question mark next to everything he McGonagall was involved in. You'd be trying to figure out, Okay, when did this start and what did he touch after it started? Going back and thinking about what the damage could be is painful. After forty six years of dealing as a professional with virtually every news organization in this country, and working for nearly every news organization in this country, I do not believe any of them say, well, we have the whole picture here in the office, so let's make sure whatever we do we do not show the whole picture all at once. Let's parcel it out. They do not do that. That kind of thinking is q and on. But the sources for stories like the New York Times extraordinary piece on McGonagall do exactly that, and always have. You only have to read all the President's men to recognize at once that nearly all the evidence and information that the source deep Throat, the FBI's then associate director, their number two, Guy Mark, felt had in his hands on June two was all the evidence he would ever have in his hands. That was the first day he talked to Bob Woodward. He did not share the last of all that evidence until March nineteen seventy three, nearly a year later. The earliest crimes of which Mr McGonagall is accused right Raschbauman, Rothfeld, and Vogel in the Times date to August two thousand seventeen, but the FBI's damage assessment likely is looking back much further. Former officials said that he may have lied while with the bureau about his acceptance of cash from a business associate, and contact with foreign individuals has also raised concerns about the breadth and duration and of his possible deceptions. I have written sentences like that. Let me translate this one. He's under indictment for taking cash from a representative of one foreign government while he was still working with the FBI. We now have to assume he could have taken cash from a representative of a different foreign government. That's what the word breadth means in this context. And we just haven't found evidence of it yet. And where should we start looking for that evidence? How about involving the foreigner. He's also under indictment for taking money from later. That's what duration refers to in this context. Concerns about the breadth and duration of his possible deceptions means the FBI and the Department of Justice are investigating right now this morning whether or not Charles McGonagall got any money from Oleg Deri Posca or any other Russian while McGonagall still worked at the FBI. And the bending over backwards to make sure it is not phrased that way in the New York Flipping Times is what happens when a source says, look this, this is what we are doing. If you say we are doing this, they will know it was me what told you. So you gotta hide it and blur it and fuzz it up. So let's work on how you can say it. There are a lot of other hands dropped into this New York Times piece, almost buried within it that should set alarm bells ringing everywhere, especially in Trump Landia. Quote. Mr mcgonagall's high ranking role would have given him a wide view of what was happening across the agency and intelligence community. The article continues, that's not tough to translate. This is confirmation of the known chronology. Mcdonagall was in the Bureau in Washington as the Trump events culminating in the Komi letter and the Times owned tragic and false clearing of Trump in Russia at the end of October two thousand sixteen happened, and he was detailed to New York on October two. And one of the Times sources is reminding you that McGonagall knew damn well, quote what was happening across the agency in October two thousand sixteen, like in any other month where he was so prominent in the bureau. And if you still somehow have not read between the lines, the Time sources are kind enough to now show you their math. Literally. McGonagall retired from the FBI in two thousand eighteen. The Times writes quote that the suspected crimes occurred shortly before his retirement, suggests Mr mcdonagall might have started or increased illicit activities after taking the last of his required polygraph tests, which are supposed to be administered every five years. Mm hmm. This is advanced math. But I was once mistaken for a math prodigy. Let me see if I can do this. Two thousand eighteen minus five is carrying on ginist slept through the entirety of tenth grade. Two thousand thirteen, the FBI New York Office became trump Landia in the phrase Greg Olier wrote about in two thousand sixteen. Even if McGonagall took his last lie detective test in two thousand fourteen or two thousand fifteen, that leaves plenty of space on the timeline for him to be suspected of working for Manaforts Russian in two thousand sixteen. Just in case you're reading that, we're listening to this and beginning to think Russia, Russia, Russia, Trump Trump Trump McGonagall McGonagall o mc gonagal. But you're saying no, no, no, no no, I've been led down this path before. No way. The next paragraph contains one sentence, floating out there adrift in a labyrinthine and on the record analysis of the money McGonagall took from the Albanian while he was still at the FBI, And that one sentence is quote Robert P. Hansen, the FBI agent turned spy who fed classified information to Russia for two decades and is serving a life sentence. Began cooperating with the Russians in the late nineteen seventies while in a counter intelligence unit in New York. Unquote, oh wait, where did mcdonagall work New York? And what unit counter intelligence? What was his job? Encounter intelligence? He was Special Agents in charge of the counter Intelligence division for the New York Field Office. That's what it says in the press release issued on October four, two thousand sixteen. Hintintintintintint, just happened to pull out of all the American spies ever in the FBI just happened to pull out Robert Hansen, the FBI agent in the counter intelligence office who sold out to the Russians. If you are still with the Times, here in paragraph number thirty six, the Times buries what is not now the lead but could very shortly become it. I'll just read this. It's kind of short quote. After leaving the FBI, Mr mcdonagall went to work where Mr Derri Pasca, the sanctioned oligarch, according to the New York indictment, but it was not his first encounter with Mr Derri Pasca's circle. Prosecutors suggested that Mr mcdonagall began wooing Mr Derrick Pasca shortly before his retirement. In two thousand eighteen, he helped the daughter of an employee of Mr Derrick Pasca get an internship with the New York Police Department. According to the New York indictment, Mr McGonagall explained to another FBI official that the girl's father was a Russian intelligence officer he wanted to recruit, Prosecutors said in two thousand nineteen, continuing with their times, wrote after his retirement, Mr mcdonagall introduced Mr Derrick Posca to a law firm that would seek to get his sanctions lifted, and Mr mcdonagall was paid twenty five thousand dollars a month through March by Mr Derrick Posca through the law firm as a consultant. According to the indictment, the work stopped at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. In one Mr mcdonagall and his associate, Mr. Shastakov negotiated a deal with the Derrick Pasca employee whose daughter got the police internship to work for Mr Derrick Posca to investigate a rival Oligarc unquote. So here in the late thirties of paragraphs, nearly at the end of this odyssey, this remark couples story from The New York Times, which began by hinting that there were FBNI and Justice Department officials and ex officials who knew the lay of the land, who were now looking for evidence that maybe Charlie McGonagall was working for others before he retired from the bureau. That's the way the article began. But here at the end, where you're now told, well, yeah, there is evidence that he did that. In two thousand eighteen, he just happens to be getting this daughter of one of Derrick Pasca's employees an internship in the New York City Police Department. And though mcgonagall's got this excuse he wanted to flip her dad Derrick Posca's employee, Derrick Posca's employee, who he says was a Russian intelligence officer. And then three years later, when Derrick Posca is looking for somebody to investigate a rival Oligarch, here's the guy whose daughter got the police internship. Only mcdonagall is not turning this Russian guy into an American asset. The Russian intelligence officer is hiring McGonagall and making him into a Russian asset. Let me just strip that down one more time. By two thousand eighteen, while he's still at the FBI, McGonagall, who had been investigating Olelegg derri Posca, is now tight enough with the people around Oleg derri Posca that he knows Oleg Derrick Posca's employee is a Russian intelligence officer, a spy. And McGonagall thinks that Derrick posca employee is so ready to start working for American intelligence that he could be swede if McGonagall can only get his daughter an internship. So at the FBI, McGonagall already knows at least one Derri Posca employee. He already knows this employee is in Russian intelligence. He already knows this employee's daughter wants an internship and wants it at the New York Police Department. And then within three years, the Russian intelligence officer is hiring McGonagall. Because McGonagall getting an internship for the Russians daughter is not enough to get the Russians spy to defect to the United States, but it was enough three years later to get the Russian spy to hire McGonagall to work for Derra Posca again. Now me, that's my lead in this story, but I'm not at the times. No, I don't know if they were scared. I tend to doubt that, which means I think the only other excuse for it would be they did it this way intentionally. And if they did it this way intentionally, it is to protect and thank their sources. And if they are protecting and thanking their sources, it's because their sources have more information later. And it means that when I have that sinking feeling that we are watching the proverbial drip, drip drip, the slow reveal of something as shocking as just to pick something at random. McGonagall was already working for dry Posca before the two thousand sixteen presidential election, while he was still inside the FBI. Yeah, it's it's my feeling those details must kind of be parceled out, and and when I have that feeling, it's only my opinion, but I'm right still ahead. So a Republican congressman now confirms the Defense Department breathed Congress that there were at least five sightings of Chinese fine balloons from United States States during the Trump administration. But when a different Republican congressman tells Chuck it's odd that that is a lie, Chuck says, Okay, let me tell you about what it was like to work with Chuck and to be in a fantasy football league with Chuck in ings. I promised not to tell Schmuck Todd. The National Hockey League is just gonna pretend it has not endorsed making room for players who subscribe to a religion that says it's okay to kill Ukrainians because their country has pride parades. It is a huge scandal in hockey, and I suspect it's going to consume the entire season. And that missing eagle owl in Central Park in New York City, well he's not missing. I saw him yesterday. In fact, he's my new neighbor. Also, he showed up at my bank, No seriously, at my branch, not a tree branch, a bank branch. He showed up at my bank branch. That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith old Woman. Postscripts to the news some headlines, some updates, some snarks, some predictions Los Angeles. They held the Grammy Awards last night. I'll be damned if I know why. Washington, the Trump docu drama roars back to life. The do o J and the Director of National Intelligence have unofficially offered the so called Gang of eight House and Senate leaders and Intel Committee chairman a closed door briefing about what exactly Trump stole, an overview of the three classified documents found at Mari Lago and elsewhere. Nothing is set yet on this, and a reminder first go to Bedminster dig up Ivana because in this scandal, we literally all know where the bodies are buried. Dateline, Washington. Jim Jordan has gotten the letter. Assistant Attorney General Carlos Rarte has spelled out the circumstances under which Jordan's witch hunt can see or hear stuff from Justice. Short version. Those circumstances are when hell has frozen over the actual terms or any engagement. You get nothing on active investigations. You may only hear from senior supervisors. You must prioritize your requests, not all will be granted, and if you have a hearing, you want somebody there two weeks notice or you'll get nothing and You'll like it. Dateline, Los Angeles. The actor Charles Kimbro has died. He played anchorman Jim Dial in the CBS Candice Bergen series Murphy Brown, and I can tell you I once had the accidental privilege of meeting him and telling him on board of New York City subway train, of all places, that, as somebody who had himself anchored the news for twenty years, I thought his portrayal off air and on air was almost precise and as good as any I have ever seen. The man blushed, his wife blushed. He shook my hand, He shook my hand again. He shook my hand. As I got off the train. I mentioned all this to somebody who knew him that was him. Never really got over his surprise that people were watching or that they loved his work. Charles Kimbro was eighty six a Dateline Central Park. That last word Flocco, the missing Central Park Zoo Eurasian eagle owl is still out there in a comparatively low branch of a tree in Central Park in New York, roughly between the pond in the park southeast quarter and the Woolman Ice Rink. He has been on the loose since Thursday night, when vandals cut a hole in his enclosure in the zoo and he flew away. I saw him Saturday. I went down there and saw him yesterday. He has startling orange eyes. He's got orange eyes. And I say, he's still out there. I could go and check. He's my neighbor. And as you say, there goes Keith again making it about him. I'd like to point out and when Flacco first escaped, he flew out onto the city streets adjoining the park, and he landed at the door or of a city bank branch, my city bank branch. Now he's in my neighborhood. Now he's on the path where I walk my dogs. I'm thinking maybe he's an identity thief eagle owl. One way or another. He's changed trees each day, and he's flown around a little. Thank you, Nancy Faust. The good news is Flacco survived wind chills of minus seven on Friday night. Here. The bad news is he's been in captivity since two thousand ten. I'm guessing that's why he went first to the bank. This means he does not know how to hunt for food. The good news is owls can go about two weeks between meals. Some breeds much much longer, and the zoo is keeping an eye on him at all times, as am I out my window. The bad news, of course, is the Republicans want Biden to shoot him down as well. This is Sports Center. Wait, check that, not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith Alberan in sports. Our condolences to the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association. They have traded for anti Semitic, flat earther, conspiracy theorist, and anti maxer Kyrie Irving, sending Dorian Finney Smith Spencer Dinwitty first and seconds to the Brooklyn Nets for him and another player. This is especially big news for Kyrie Irving because, on top of the rest of that crap, he has stated he believes that John F. Kennedy was killed because he wanted to end the banking cartel. Now Kyrie can drive over to Deely Plaza and see the place of Kennedy's assassination for himself, and then believe whatever the hell he wants to believe anyway, because that's what stupid people like him do. Hockey's All Star break is over, and the sport roars back into business with Commissioner Gary Bettman under the mistaken impression that the biggest cultural scandal in hockey in a decade just went away. The NHL completely screwed up Pride Night in Philadelphia and then somehow made it worse in New York. A Philly player was able to hide behind his religion, which says the Russians are justified in trying to destroy Ukraine because Ukraine has Pride parades there and he was not forced or even asked to explain why he did not take the minimum step of just wearing a warm up jersey with his number in rainbow colors. Then the New York Rangers bailed out completely minutes before their team was to wear the same kind of uniforms on their seventh Pride Night. Yet Commissioner Gary Bettman now says the two Pride nights were great and quote, we also have to respect some individual choice and some people are more comfortable embracing themselves in causes than others. And part of being diverse and welcoming is understanding those differences. Unquote. The hell it is, Commissioner, You're completely wrong, completely wrong. The diversity you are welcoming in this case is this big group of people's hatred of gay people, and this so called religion, Russian Orthodox wants gay people and those who defend them to be killed and their countries destroyed. That is not diversity, it's ethnic cleansing. You are proclaiming that the National Hockey League, Gary Bettman has room for murderers. You may want to go through this again with some of your idiot advisers. Let's try this one as an example. I just joined a new religion last night, and this religion says Russia is evil and America and Canada should never let any Russian citizens stay or work here. So if this is about diversity and accepting all opinions, you, Commissioner Bettman, have to let me participate in events at your games, at which I will demand that you expel alex Ovechkin, Ivan provarov, Igor Shasterkin, the goalie, and all the other Russians from the league, because you know it's a religion. Now, the daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and Donning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The Bronze your Supreme Court of Religion of the United States, Scrotus, CNN reporting that long before somebody leaked the Roe v. Wade opinion draft, security at Scrotus had basically evaporated. Justices were transferring ultra secret things like you know, opinion drafts via personal email instead of by secure servers that had been set up for them. The court also used printers that produced no logs or other tracking methods and could print in other places, and while there were burn bags for sensitive materials, they were usually just left open, unsecured in hallways. Runner up Jenna Ellis is sometimes Trump lawyer. She tweeted then quickly delete an image of a woman in a bathroom at Los Angeles International Airport quote breaking l a X is installing urinals in the women's bathrooms, she wrote. Turns out no, l a X is not doing that. It is reconstructing part of a terminal, and it is converting one women's bathroom into a men's bathroom, which would explain the urinals when as somebody who identifies herself as quote America's lawyer, Jenna Ellis probably should have known the tweeting an image of a woman in a bathroom is an open and shut violation of the woman's privacy, and it might be worse than that. Please somebody sue Jenna Ellis for every dollar she isn't worth. America's lawyer, try America's moron, but our winner, and it's a tie first. James t Already, Doug Cameron and a runa of Viswanatha of the Wall Street Journal quote the appearance of a possible Chinese reconnaissance craft and US airs base raises the specter of a balloon gap being potentially added to a list of concerns about China, and the headline for their piece was Chinese craft raises fears of a balloon gap in intelligence gathering. It is balloon and besides f troop. If suddenly you are hearing George C. Scott as General Buck Turgidson from Dr Strangelove warning about a post apocalyptic mind shaft gap, a mind shaft gap. We have to prevent a mind shaft gap. You're not alone sharing the honors at the Wall Street Gap Journal. Mississippi State Senator Joel R. Carter, who apparently thinks he is a balloon expert because coincidentally he looks like one with a face drawn on it, tweeting Biden administration currently and then below that a photo of a balloon with this written on the balloon, quoting him whether Barroon Totary not for spying, that would be Barrun with two rs, and Totari spelled t O T A R y. On top of this, pig Carter's cross racism and the Wall Street Journals abject fascist imbecility. Both of them did these things literally hours before the Chinese balloon was shot down by the President on his orders. Mississippi State Senator Joel R. Bars for Cracker, Carter and the Wall Street Journal, which should really be worried about its own We can't find any smart people to work here gap two days, worst persons in the world, it is, by still ahead on countdown. Chuck Todd rides again. He asks Congressman Mike sure Biden shot it, but Trump would have shot it sooner. Turner of Ohio about the three Chinese balloons in US airspace while Trump was president. Turner dismisses that as a lie. Chuck's follow up was about the U S blocking Chinese access to the info gathered by the balloon. He asked Turner, you buy that, and Turner said no, and clearly you don't either. Schmuck Todd rides again the inside story of working with this idiot. Next. First in each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need you can help. Every dog has its day here in New York. Andre only got to the pound a week ago yesterday. He's already on death row. He's sociable, easy going with people, doesn't act like a pity, but he's terrified in the pound. He needs to be an only dog somewhere. He's not getting pledges. He may die at the age of two. Despite the magic words in his right up, takes treats gently. He needs pledges to defray rescues, cost to pull him and save him, and train him and find him a home him. You can find Andre on my Twitter feeds. Please retweet him and pledge if you can. I thank you, and Andre, thanks you. Now our number one story in the Countdown, And back to my favorite topic, me things about my career, Things I promised not to tell. You may be one of the many, many listeners who have complaints about Chuck Todd of NBC's Meet the Press. I know this because I can read. But it is unlikely that you have ever been able to do anything about Chuck Todd, So I wanted to tell you of the day that I did do something about him. That day was August eleven, two thousand nineteen. I knew Chuck for about fifteen years early in his career, when he was with the d C Insider publication the Hotline. He was a frequent guest on Out Down, and in two thousand seven, when Tim Russer was thinking of hiring him at NBC News, mine was one of dozens of temperatures Tim took. As Chuck later wrote to me, quote, you certainly were a tremendous advocate and cheerleader for me over the years, and I don't forget that. Yeah, well that wasn't true. He forgot it all right, But I'm veering away from the main story. In two thousand and eight, a couple of Washington political types started a fantasy football league. If you don't think fantasy football leagues are important, you should know that last spring, a major League baseball player in uniform walked up to another major League baseball player in uniform on a Major League baseball field with thousands of people already in the stands, and he slapped him in the face over a roster move that the second player had made in their fantasy football league. The second guy had managed to retain the rights to an injured player, and the first guy was upset about this. So six months after their fantasy season ended, this major league baseball player walked up and slapped the other Major League baseball player. If slaps or duels or kidnappings are not everyday occurrences in fantasy football, they do represent the kind of baseline intensity of the thing. So when I and others were approached about this Washington centric league in two thousand eight, it was already a big deal, even before we were all sworn to secrecy, because a spot in the league was being held open for some DC guy named Barack Obama. It turned out he did not join our league, some excuse about too much work, when obviously he was just afraid of my fantasy football skills. But some people in his white House did join the league, and I still will not identify them, because the premise of this league was the first rule of Fantasy football club is you do not talk about fantasy football club. I will say that Chuck Todd, like me, was an original player. We call ourselves owners because we are nuts, and it's a fantasy It's in the title Fantasy Football Fantasy Football Owners. And one year, I think it was I had assembled in this league, mostly by accident, a team that was almost perfect. It literally lost one game all season, and that was in the middle of the year to Chuck Todd's team. And the night after I lost to Chuck Todd's team, he was giving a speech I think at the University of Virginia, and witnesses called to tell me that he began his speech by saying, I have much to tell you, but first I have to tell you that I am in a fantasy football league with Keith Alderman, and he has a great team this year, and this week I upset him by a final score of hutter hundred forty one or whatever the score was. I thought it was pretty dumb. But by Chuck was the NBC News White House correspondent, and we all cringed whenever we saw he was going to be on with one of us on MSNBC. See, some people respond well to pressure and success and some people do not, and some people be entirely different people. So when Chuck violated the prime directive of this fantasy football league, and talked about it. I shrugged. The other guys in the league did not. Chuck was actually punished. The commissioner of the league ordered that he had to skip his fourth choice in the following years player draft. Chuck was bereft. He believed this would destroy his chances. He apologized to me like every week, and finally I said, you know, guys, maybe this is too much. And as the supposed victim in the equation, I got final say and Chuck got to keep his fourth draft choice. Chuck was because Tim Russer died, Tom Broke all retired, and David Gregory flamed out. Chuck was the host to Meet the Press. He was also political director of NBC News, another part of russer It's old portfolio. But whereas Tim was a master who could convince the Republicans, he was ordering that I be punished for what I said, when in fact he would be calling me and asking me what stupid, meaningless thing I could think of to tell the Republicans. He was punishing me with or four. He was sublime, subtlety. Not Chuck. No subtlety. There. In two thousand sixteen, Chuck was preparing to not name my ex lib In girlfriend Katie Turre as the new NBC White House correspondent, even though she had suffered as the primary NBC correspondent covering the Trump campaign. And out of nowhere, Chuck emails me that he's going to be in New York and he wants to take me to dinner. I had known him more than a decade by then, we had never as much as shared pieces of the same pizza. I had not seen him in the flesh in more than five years. And I knew as we sat down that Chuck's idea was to get me to tell Katie that she was not gonna be White House correspondent, so he did not have to. He kept bringing it up, what do you think Katie would think? And then I'd switched the topic to, uh, fantasy football, and then he'd say, but let me ask you about Katie in the White House job. We did this for ninety minutes, and finally I said, Okay, Chuck, I've avoided it long enough. Maybe I could call her and soften the blow for her. And that's when he said, well, I'm going back to d C tonight, so if I want to catch that last train, I better leave five Chuck is not subtle. I'll spare you the other crap from the Fantasy League. Suffice to say, I was reminded of how annoyingly and obviously he used to conduct himself when I read that last May, one of Chuck's guest bookers for the now no longer on TV Meet the Press Daily show had emailed the office of Alaska Congressman Don Young hoping to get Young to appear the next day, which would have been the ultimate great guest get because Don Young had died two months earlier. Anyway, this fantasy football league was fun and unique in that there had only been one change in its composition in all that time. Chuck's team defeated mine and the Fantasy Football super Bowl one year, and mostly he was just annoying, like he was on the air. Nothing worse than that. And then on June nineteen, Representative Alexandria Occasio Cortes AOC ripped the Trump administration's migrant policies. She said, quote, the United States is running concentration camps on our southern border, and that is exactly what they are. They are concentration camps. End quote. Chuck went on MSNBC and said the following in response, quote, you can call our government's detention of migrants many things, depending on how you see it. It's a stain on our nation, maybe, a necessary evil to others to deal with an untenable situation, perhaps, But do you know what you can't call it? Chuck then played the clip of aoc calling it concentration camps, and Chuck resumed, if you want to criticize the shameful treatment of people at our southern border, fine, you'll have plenty of company, but be careful comparing them to Nazi concentration camps, because they're not at all comparable. In the slightest A lot of people me included, were stunned. Ocasio Cortes never mentioned the Nazis, and concentration camps did not begin with Nazis or Hitler. They began with the British in the Boer War in South Africa at the turn of the nineteenth and twenty centuries. Yet here was Chuck putting a word in her mouth, and that word was Nazi, and then he attacked her for something she never said. He lied about her. He lied, Chuck Todd made it up on the news. I was furious enough to email him that night. I thought by now somebody at NBC would have pointed out that concentration camps and Nazi death camps are not the same thing. But no, NBC had simply tweeted out the clip of Chuck lying about the congresswoman and putting the word Nazi in her mouth, as if it were something NBC News should be proud of. Chuck was furious at me. He emailed back, quote, come on, own up, that she invoked the wrong image and should have simply walked the imagery back. And I wrote him back that the person who had to walk back imagery here was him, since he had said Nazi and she had not said Nazi. On my angriest day, he now replied, I'd like to think I treated you with more respect than this, sad. I feel like we won't recover from this, and we had recovered from a lot. I wrote back to Chuck that we were going to recover from anything if he insisted that all concentration camps were Nazi death camps and that somebody who never said Nazis owed somebody else an apology for what not saying Nazis. There was no getting past the reality that Chuck had no idea that he was one dent in the wrong here, historically wrong, factually wrong, ethically wrong, not a leg to stand on. So I of course began to contemplate the year ahead in fantasy football. I couldn't face it. I'm sorry, I let real life and fantasy sports mix, and I just I just couldn't spend another autumn having to deal with Chuck Todd. Chuck had often said that he was now just too busy to play in the league anymore, and he would have to leave it this year. So on August eleven, two thousand nineteen, more in sadness than an anger, I asked the commissioner of the league if Chuck was coming back for the two thousand nineteen season. I don't know, Maybe not, was the answer. I said, Look, this is not him or me. I'm not asking you to not let him come back. It's not like that. But if he tells you one way or the other, let me know, because I just can't stand another year of him. He takes all the fun of it out of it for me, I understand, said the commissioner. It's a shame, but why do it if it's not fun? At eight am. On the morning of August two thousand nineteen, the official email notifying everybody of the new fantasy football season went out. I was not listed among the players. Nineteen minutes later, I got an email from Chuck Todd, subject line, it's just a game content quote just play. I won't speak to you, and please do me the same courtesy grow the f up, and no, I am not editing this. He really wrote grow the f up. I wrote back that I thought he'd become part of the problem that imperils our nation and I didn't want to have anything more to do with him. I ended it with quote, do not contact me again. At ten thirteen am, he contacted me again, amazing how you believe what you believe about me. I'm sorry for ever helping you get credibility, and I did not reply. At ten eighteen he wrote me again again, I'm happy to never speak with you again. I'd prefer to pretend you don't exist. Don't make me care about you. No, boy, when Chuck Todd asks you to not make him care about you, you're in deep and dangerous waters. Boy. Another Chuck email at nine you are truly a tiny little man. I don't even feel sorry for you anymore. You have done this to yourself. And here I made a mistake. I did not ask him what he felt sorry for me about and what I had done to myself. I assume he was about losing the Fantasy Football super Bowl to him. At eleven o nine, another email quote, you deliberately misinterpreted what I said shot first, and then rationalize the mistaken shot with some convoluted, full of bleef explanation. This presumably was the silly little detail about him lying and saying Representative Accio Cortez had referred to Nazi concentration camps. Then he wrote that what she said quote evokes Gash Chambers, and I think that's where we should leave it. A fantasy sports league is just a fantasy sports league, and having been in various kinds of them since nineteen good God, I often wonder if they aren't a kind of therapeutic cathartic pressure valve for our inner demons. I do know this. You find out a lot about the other people in a fantasy sports league. So when that baseball players slapped the other baseball player over the reserve running back that he kept on his roster, and most people said, I just don't understand why he slapped him. I said, oh, I understand why he slapped him. Two good weeks of follow up questions from schmuck Todd, and clearly one of his bosses told him never to do that again in his life. Countdown has come to you from the world headquarters of Alderman Broadcasting Empire. Here in the Sports Capsule building in New York. Just look for the owl. Thank you for listening Here the credits. Most of the music, including our theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle, who are the Countdown musical directors. Guitars bassed and drums by Brian Ray, All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip, Channel produced by t Ko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No Horns allowed. The sports music is the Aulderman theme from ESPN two, and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was Jonathan Banks. Owls wrangled by the Central Park Zoo. Everything else is pretty much my fault. So let's countdown for this, the seven and sixty second day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him now while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith all Reman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith all Reman is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio. Did the arrested x FBI executive Charles McGonagall start working for the Russian oligarch connected to Trump's campaign manager only after McGonagall left the bureau? Or was he doing so while he McGonagall was still ordering events within the bureau. Was Charlie McGonagall a Russian asset inside the FBI? Because since Friday, I have had that sinking feeling that we are watching the proverbial drip, drip, drip, the slow reveal of something so shocking that the details must be parceled out. Because it is one thing for me to line up these and ask what does it mean if they are all connected? And it is one thing for Professor Tim Snyder of Yale to ask that, And it is one thing for the author, Greg Olier to ask that it is something else altogether, for the New York Times to ask that. Yet there were all the dots scattered under the by lines of Ken Vogel and Michael Rothfeld and William Roschbaum, without the lines drawn to connect them, and without the adjectives and emphasies that caused the jaw to drop and largely sitting in the back row of the narrative of the story behind the fact that McGonagall has been indicted for taking money to act on behalf of an Albanian thug while he was still a top official at the FBI Field Office in New York. But there it is in the back, not jumping up and down, not waving its arms at us, but still clear with discernible features. But sources and writers and editors at the New York Times all looked at and said, you know, you can print this, the stinct and distinctly new possibility that when the FBI New York office went rogue in two thousand sixteen and went pro Trump and manipulated the Anthony Weiner laptop story and basically blackmailed James Comey into reopening both Pandora's box and but her emails. While that was happening, the key man at the FBI in New York investigating Old Egg derri Posca was maybe already getting money from Old Egg derri Posca, and Paul Manafort owed Old Egg derri Posca money, and Paul Manafort was Donald Trump's campaign manager for free. It's a lot of dots. This is the legitimacy the New York Times can, when it is not stepping on its own private parts, still bestow. It can state the raw facts of mcgonagall's indictment in Albania, and two paragraphs later it can quote the former FBI counterintelligence official Holden triplet as saying, quote, it puts a question mark next to everything he McGonagall was involved in. You'd be trying to figure out, Okay, when did this start and what did he touch after it started? Going back and thinking about what the damage could be is painful. After forty six years of dealing as a professional with virtually every news organization in this country, and working for nearly every news organization in this country, I do not believe any of them say, well, we have the whole picture here in the office, so let's make sure whatever we do we do not show the whole picture all at once. Let's parcel it out. They do not do that. That kind of thinking is q and on. But the sources for stories like the New York Times extraordinary piece on McGonagall do exactly that, and always have. You only have to read all the President's men to recognize at once that nearly all the evidence and information that the source deep Throat, the FBI's then associate director, their number two, Guy Mark, felt had in his hands on June two was all the evidence he would ever have in his hands. That was the first day he talked to Bob Woodward. He did not share the last of all that evidence until March nineteen seventy three, nearly a year later. The earliest crimes of which Mr McGonagall is accused right Raschbauman, Rothfeld, and Vogel in the Times date to August two thousand seventeen, but the FBI's damage assessment likely is looking back much further. Former officials said that he may have lied while with the bureau about his acceptance of cash from a business associate, and contact with foreign individuals has also raised concerns about the breadth and duration and of his possible deceptions. I have written sentences like that. Let me translate this one. He's under indictment for taking cash from a representative of one foreign government while he was still working with the FBI. We now have to assume he could have taken cash from a representative of a different foreign government. That's what the word breadth means in this context. And we just haven't found evidence of it yet. And where should we start looking for that evidence? How about involving the foreigner. He's also under indictment for taking money from later. That's what duration refers to in this context. Concerns about the breadth and duration of his possible deceptions means the FBI and the Department of Justice are investigating right now this morning whether or not Charles McGonagall got any money from Oleg Deri Posca or any other Russian while McGonagall still worked at the FBI. And the bending over backwards to make sure it is not phrased that way in the New York Flipping Times is what happens when a source says, look this, this is what we are doing. If you say we are doing this, they will know it was me what told you. So you gotta hide it and blur it and fuzz it up. So let's work on how you can say it. There are a lot of other hands dropped into this New York Times piece, almost buried within it that should set alarm bells ringing everywhere, especially in Trump Landia. Quote. Mr mcgonagall's high ranking role would have given him a wide view of what was happening across the agency and intelligence community. The article continues, that's not tough to translate. This is confirmation of the known chronology. Mcdonagall was in the Bureau in Washington as the Trump events culminating in the Komi letter and the Times owned tragic and false clearing of Trump in Russia at the end of October two thousand sixteen happened, and he was detailed to New York on October two. And one of the Times sources is reminding you that McGonagall knew damn well, quote what was happening across the agency in October two thousand sixteen, like in any other month where he was so prominent in the bureau. And if you still somehow have not read between the lines, the Time sources are kind enough to now show you their math. Literally. McGonagall retired from the FBI in two thousand eighteen. The Times writes quote that the suspected crimes occurred shortly before his retirement, suggests Mr mcdonagall might have started or increased illicit activities after taking the last of his required polygraph tests, which are supposed to be administered every five years. Mm hmm. This is advanced math. But I was once mistaken for a math prodigy. Let me see if I can do this. Two thousand eighteen minus five is carrying on ginist slept through the entirety of tenth grade. Two thousand thirteen, the FBI New York Office became trump Landia in the phrase Greg Olier wrote about in two thousand sixteen. Even if McGonagall took his last lie detective test in two thousand fourteen or two thousand fifteen, that leaves plenty of space on the timeline for him to be suspected of working for Manaforts Russian in two thousand sixteen. Just in case you're reading that, we're listening to this and beginning to think Russia, Russia, Russia, Trump Trump Trump McGonagall McGonagall o mc gonagal. But you're saying no, no, no, no no, I've been led down this path before. No way. The next paragraph contains one sentence, floating out there adrift in a labyrinthine and on the record analysis of the money McGonagall took from the Albanian while he was still at the FBI, And that one sentence is quote Robert P. Hansen, the FBI agent turned spy who fed classified information to Russia for two decades and is serving a life sentence. Began cooperating with the Russians in the late nineteen seventies while in a counter intelligence unit in New York. Unquote, oh wait, where did mcdonagall work New York? And what unit counter intelligence? What was his job? Encounter intelligence? He was Special Agents in charge of the counter Intelligence division for the New York Field Office. That's what it says in the press release issued on October four, two thousand sixteen. Hintintintintintint, just happened to pull out of all the American spies ever in the FBI just happened to pull out Robert Hansen, the FBI agent in the counter intelligence office who sold out to the Russians. If you are still with the Times, here in paragraph number thirty six, the Times buries what is not now the lead but could very shortly become it. I'll just read this. It's kind of short quote. After leaving the FBI, Mr mcdonagall went to work where Mr Derri Pasca, the sanctioned oligarch, according to the New York indictment, but it was not his first encounter with Mr Derri Pasca's circle. Prosecutors suggested that Mr mcdonagall began wooing Mr Derrick Pasca shortly before his retirement. In two thousand eighteen, he helped the daughter of an employee of Mr Derrick Pasca get an internship with the New York Police Department. According to the New York indictment, Mr McGonagall explained to another FBI official that the girl's father was a Russian intelligence officer he wanted to recruit, Prosecutors said in two thousand nineteen, continuing with their times, wrote after his retirement, Mr mcdonagall introduced Mr Derrick Posca to a law firm that would seek to get his sanctions lifted, and Mr mcdonagall was paid twenty five thousand dollars a month through March by Mr Derrick Posca through the law firm as a consultant. According to the indictment, the work stopped at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. In one Mr mcdonagall and his associate, Mr. Shastakov negotiated a deal with the Derrick Pasca employee whose daughter got the police internship to work for Mr Derrick Posca to investigate a rival Oligarc unquote. So here in the late thirties of paragraphs, nearly at the end of this odyssey, this remark couples story from The New York Times, which began by hinting that there were FBNI and Justice Department officials and ex officials who knew the lay of the land, who were now looking for evidence that maybe Charlie McGonagall was working for others before he retired from the bureau. That's the way the article began. But here at the end, where you're now told, well, yeah, there is evidence that he did that. In two thousand eighteen, he just happens to be getting this daughter of one of Derrick Pasca's employees an internship in the New York City Police Department. And though mcgonagall's got this excuse he wanted to flip her dad Derrick Posca's employee, Derrick Posca's employee, who he says was a Russian intelligence officer. And then three years later, when Derrick Posca is looking for somebody to investigate a rival Oligarch, here's the guy whose daughter got the police internship. Only mcdonagall is not turning this Russian guy into an American asset. The Russian intelligence officer is hiring McGonagall and making him into a Russian asset. Let me just strip that down one more time. By two thousand eighteen, while he's still at the FBI, McGonagall, who had been investigating Olelegg derri Posca, is now tight enough with the people around Oleg derri Posca that he knows Oleg Derrick Posca's employee is a Russian intelligence officer, a spy. And McGonagall thinks that Derrick posca employee is so ready to start working for American intelligence that he could be swede if McGonagall can only get his daughter an internship. So at the FBI, McGonagall already knows at least one Derri Posca employee. He already knows this employee is in Russian intelligence. He already knows this employee's daughter wants an internship and wants it at the New York Police Department. And then within three years, the Russian intelligence officer is hiring McGonagall. Because McGonagall getting an internship for the Russians daughter is not enough to get the Russians spy to defect to the United States, but it was enough three years later to get the Russian spy to hire McGonagall to work for Derra Posca again. Now me, that's my lead in this story, but I'm not at the times. No, I don't know if they were scared. I tend to doubt that, which means I think the only other excuse for it would be they did it this way intentionally. And if they did it this way intentionally, it is to protect and thank their sources. And if they are protecting and thanking their sources, it's because their sources have more information later. And it means that when I have that sinking feeling that we are watching the proverbial drip, drip drip, the slow reveal of something as shocking as just to pick something at random. McGonagall was already working for dry Posca before the two thousand sixteen presidential election, while he was still inside the FBI. Yeah, it's it's my feeling those details must kind of be parceled out, and and when I have that feeling, it's only my opinion, but I'm right still ahead. So a Republican congressman now confirms the Defense Department breathed Congress that there were at least five sightings of Chinese fine balloons from United States States during the Trump administration. But when a different Republican congressman tells Chuck it's odd that that is a lie, Chuck says, Okay, let me tell you about what it was like to work with Chuck and to be in a fantasy football league with Chuck in ings. I promised not to tell Schmuck Todd. The National Hockey League is just gonna pretend it has not endorsed making room for players who subscribe to a religion that says it's okay to kill Ukrainians because their country has pride parades. It is a huge scandal in hockey, and I suspect it's going to consume the entire season. And that missing eagle owl in Central Park in New York City, well he's not missing. I saw him yesterday. In fact, he's my new neighbor. Also, he showed up at my bank, No seriously, at my branch, not a tree branch, a bank branch. He showed up at my bank branch. That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith old Woman. Postscripts to the news some headlines, some updates, some snarks, some predictions Los Angeles. They held the Grammy Awards last night. I'll be damned if I know why. Washington, the Trump docu drama roars back to life. The do o J and the Director of National Intelligence have unofficially offered the so called Gang of eight House and Senate leaders and Intel Committee chairman a closed door briefing about what exactly Trump stole, an overview of the three classified documents found at Mari Lago and elsewhere. Nothing is set yet on this, and a reminder first go to Bedminster dig up Ivana because in this scandal, we literally all know where the bodies are buried. Dateline, Washington. Jim Jordan has gotten the letter. Assistant Attorney General Carlos Rarte has spelled out the circumstances under which Jordan's witch hunt can see or hear stuff from Justice. Short version. Those circumstances are when hell has frozen over the actual terms or any engagement. You get nothing on active investigations. You may only hear from senior supervisors. You must prioritize your requests, not all will be granted, and if you have a hearing, you want somebody there two weeks notice or you'll get nothing and You'll like it. Dateline, Los Angeles. The actor Charles Kimbro has died. He played anchorman Jim Dial in the CBS Candice Bergen series Murphy Brown, and I can tell you I once had the accidental privilege of meeting him and telling him on board of New York City subway train, of all places, that, as somebody who had himself anchored the news for twenty years, I thought his portrayal off air and on air was almost precise and as good as any I have ever seen. The man blushed, his wife blushed. He shook my hand, He shook my hand again. He shook my hand. As I got off the train. I mentioned all this to somebody who knew him that was him. Never really got over his surprise that people were watching or that they loved his work. Charles Kimbro was eighty six a Dateline Central Park. That last word Flocco, the missing Central Park Zoo Eurasian eagle owl is still out there in a comparatively low branch of a tree in Central Park in New York, roughly between the pond in the park southeast quarter and the Woolman Ice Rink. He has been on the loose since Thursday night, when vandals cut a hole in his enclosure in the zoo and he flew away. I saw him Saturday. I went down there and saw him yesterday. He has startling orange eyes. He's got orange eyes. And I say, he's still out there. I could go and check. He's my neighbor. And as you say, there goes Keith again making it about him. I'd like to point out and when Flacco first escaped, he flew out onto the city streets adjoining the park, and he landed at the door or of a city bank branch, my city bank branch. Now he's in my neighborhood. Now he's on the path where I walk my dogs. I'm thinking maybe he's an identity thief eagle owl. One way or another. He's changed trees each day, and he's flown around a little. Thank you, Nancy Faust. The good news is Flacco survived wind chills of minus seven on Friday night. Here. The bad news is he's been in captivity since two thousand ten. I'm guessing that's why he went first to the bank. This means he does not know how to hunt for food. The good news is owls can go about two weeks between meals. Some breeds much much longer, and the zoo is keeping an eye on him at all times, as am I out my window. The bad news, of course, is the Republicans want Biden to shoot him down as well. This is Sports Center. Wait, check that, not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith Alberan in sports. Our condolences to the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association. They have traded for anti Semitic, flat earther, conspiracy theorist, and anti maxer Kyrie Irving, sending Dorian Finney Smith Spencer Dinwitty first and seconds to the Brooklyn Nets for him and another player. This is especially big news for Kyrie Irving because, on top of the rest of that crap, he has stated he believes that John F. Kennedy was killed because he wanted to end the banking cartel. Now Kyrie can drive over to Deely Plaza and see the place of Kennedy's assassination for himself, and then believe whatever the hell he wants to believe anyway, because that's what stupid people like him do. Hockey's All Star break is over, and the sport roars back into business with Commissioner Gary Bettman under the mistaken impression that the biggest cultural scandal in hockey in a decade just went away. The NHL completely screwed up Pride Night in Philadelphia and then somehow made it worse in New York. A Philly player was able to hide behind his religion, which says the Russians are justified in trying to destroy Ukraine because Ukraine has Pride parades there and he was not forced or even asked to explain why he did not take the minimum step of just wearing a warm up jersey with his number in rainbow colors. Then the New York Rangers bailed out completely minutes before their team was to wear the same kind of uniforms on their seventh Pride Night. Yet Commissioner Gary Bettman now says the two Pride nights were great and quote, we also have to respect some individual choice and some people are more comfortable embracing themselves in causes than others. And part of being diverse and welcoming is understanding those differences. Unquote. The hell it is, Commissioner, You're completely wrong, completely wrong. The diversity you are welcoming in this case is this big group of people's hatred of gay people, and this so called religion, Russian Orthodox wants gay people and those who defend them to be killed and their countries destroyed. That is not diversity, it's ethnic cleansing. You are proclaiming that the National Hockey League, Gary Bettman has room for murderers. You may want to go through this again with some of your idiot advisers. Let's try this one as an example. I just joined a new religion last night, and this religion says Russia is evil and America and Canada should never let any Russian citizens stay or work here. So if this is about diversity and accepting all opinions, you, Commissioner Bettman, have to let me participate in events at your games, at which I will demand that you expel alex Ovechkin, Ivan provarov, Igor Shasterkin, the goalie, and all the other Russians from the league, because you know it's a religion. Now, the daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and Donning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The Bronze your Supreme Court of Religion of the United States, Scrotus, CNN reporting that long before somebody leaked the Roe v. Wade opinion draft, security at Scrotus had basically evaporated. Justices were transferring ultra secret things like you know, opinion drafts via personal email instead of by secure servers that had been set up for them. The court also used printers that produced no logs or other tracking methods and could print in other places, and while there were burn bags for sensitive materials, they were usually just left open, unsecured in hallways. Runner up Jenna Ellis is sometimes Trump lawyer. She tweeted then quickly delete an image of a woman in a bathroom at Los Angeles International Airport quote breaking l a X is installing urinals in the women's bathrooms, she wrote. Turns out no, l a X is not doing that. It is reconstructing part of a terminal, and it is converting one women's bathroom into a men's bathroom, which would explain the urinals when as somebody who identifies herself as quote America's lawyer, Jenna Ellis probably should have known the tweeting an image of a woman in a bathroom is an open and shut violation of the woman's privacy, and it might be worse than that. Please somebody sue Jenna Ellis for every dollar she isn't worth. America's lawyer, try America's moron, but our winner, and it's a tie first. James t Already, Doug Cameron and a runa of Viswanatha of the Wall Street Journal quote the appearance of a possible Chinese reconnaissance craft and US airs base raises the specter of a balloon gap being potentially added to a list of concerns about China, and the headline for their piece was Chinese craft raises fears of a balloon gap in intelligence gathering. It is balloon and besides f troop. If suddenly you are hearing George C. Scott as General Buck Turgidson from Dr Strangelove warning about a post apocalyptic mind shaft gap, a mind shaft gap. We have to prevent a mind shaft gap. You're not alone sharing the honors at the Wall Street Gap Journal. Mississippi State Senator Joel R. Carter, who apparently thinks he is a balloon expert because coincidentally he looks like one with a face drawn on it, tweeting Biden administration currently and then below that a photo of a balloon with this written on the balloon, quoting him whether Barroon Totary not for spying, that would be Barrun with two rs, and Totari spelled t O T A R y. On top of this, pig Carter's cross racism and the Wall Street Journals abject fascist imbecility. Both of them did these things literally hours before the Chinese balloon was shot down by the President on his orders. Mississippi State Senator Joel R. Bars for Cracker, Carter and the Wall Street Journal, which should really be worried about its own We can't find any smart people to work here gap two days, worst persons in the world, it is, by still ahead on countdown. Chuck Todd rides again. He asks Congressman Mike sure Biden shot it, but Trump would have shot it sooner. Turner of Ohio about the three Chinese balloons in US airspace while Trump was president. Turner dismisses that as a lie. Chuck's follow up was about the U S blocking Chinese access to the info gathered by the balloon. He asked Turner, you buy that, and Turner said no, and clearly you don't either. Schmuck Todd rides again the inside story of working with this idiot. Next. First in each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need you can help. Every dog has its day here in New York. Andre only got to the pound a week ago yesterday. He's already on death row. He's sociable, easy going with people, doesn't act like a pity, but he's terrified in the pound. He needs to be an only dog somewhere. He's not getting pledges. He may die at the age of two. Despite the magic words in his right up, takes treats gently. He needs pledges to defray rescues, cost to pull him and save him, and train him and find him a home him. You can find Andre on my Twitter feeds. Please retweet him and pledge if you can. I thank you, and Andre, thanks you. Now our number one story in the Countdown, And back to my favorite topic, me things about my career, Things I promised not to tell. You may be one of the many, many listeners who have complaints about Chuck Todd of NBC's Meet the Press. I know this because I can read. But it is unlikely that you have ever been able to do anything about Chuck Todd, So I wanted to tell you of the day that I did do something about him. That day was August eleven, two thousand nineteen. I knew Chuck for about fifteen years early in his career, when he was with the d C Insider publication the Hotline. He was a frequent guest on Out Down, and in two thousand seven, when Tim Russer was thinking of hiring him at NBC News, mine was one of dozens of temperatures Tim took. As Chuck later wrote to me, quote, you certainly were a tremendous advocate and cheerleader for me over the years, and I don't forget that. Yeah, well that wasn't true. He forgot it all right, But I'm veering away from the main story. In two thousand and eight, a couple of Washington political types started a fantasy football league. If you don't think fantasy football leagues are important, you should know that last spring, a major League baseball player in uniform walked up to another major League baseball player in uniform on a Major League baseball field with thousands of people already in the stands, and he slapped him in the face over a roster move that the second player had made in their fantasy football league. The second guy had managed to retain the rights to an injured player, and the first guy was upset about this. So six months after their fantasy season ended, this major league baseball player walked up and slapped the other Major League baseball player. If slaps or duels or kidnappings are not everyday occurrences in fantasy football, they do represent the kind of baseline intensity of the thing. So when I and others were approached about this Washington centric league in two thousand eight, it was already a big deal, even before we were all sworn to secrecy, because a spot in the league was being held open for some DC guy named Barack Obama. It turned out he did not join our league, some excuse about too much work, when obviously he was just afraid of my fantasy football skills. But some people in his white House did join the league, and I still will not identify them, because the premise of this league was the first rule of Fantasy football club is you do not talk about fantasy football club. I will say that Chuck Todd, like me, was an original player. We call ourselves owners because we are nuts, and it's a fantasy It's in the title Fantasy Football Fantasy Football Owners. And one year, I think it was I had assembled in this league, mostly by accident, a team that was almost perfect. It literally lost one game all season, and that was in the middle of the year to Chuck Todd's team. And the night after I lost to Chuck Todd's team, he was giving a speech I think at the University of Virginia, and witnesses called to tell me that he began his speech by saying, I have much to tell you, but first I have to tell you that I am in a fantasy football league with Keith Alderman, and he has a great team this year, and this week I upset him by a final score of hutter hundred forty one or whatever the score was. I thought it was pretty dumb. But by Chuck was the NBC News White House correspondent, and we all cringed whenever we saw he was going to be on with one of us on MSNBC. See, some people respond well to pressure and success and some people do not, and some people be entirely different people. So when Chuck violated the prime directive of this fantasy football league, and talked about it. I shrugged. The other guys in the league did not. Chuck was actually punished. The commissioner of the league ordered that he had to skip his fourth choice in the following years player draft. Chuck was bereft. He believed this would destroy his chances. He apologized to me like every week, and finally I said, you know, guys, maybe this is too much. And as the supposed victim in the equation, I got final say and Chuck got to keep his fourth draft choice. Chuck was because Tim Russer died, Tom Broke all retired, and David Gregory flamed out. Chuck was the host to Meet the Press. He was also political director of NBC News, another part of russer It's old portfolio. But whereas Tim was a master who could convince the Republicans, he was ordering that I be punished for what I said, when in fact he would be calling me and asking me what stupid, meaningless thing I could think of to tell the Republicans. He was punishing me with or four. He was sublime, subtlety. Not Chuck. No subtlety. There. In two thousand sixteen, Chuck was preparing to not name my ex lib In girlfriend Katie Turre as the new NBC White House correspondent, even though she had suffered as the primary NBC correspondent covering the Trump campaign. And out of nowhere, Chuck emails me that he's going to be in New York and he wants to take me to dinner. I had known him more than a decade by then, we had never as much as shared pieces of the same pizza. I had not seen him in the flesh in more than five years. And I knew as we sat down that Chuck's idea was to get me to tell Katie that she was not gonna be White House correspondent, so he did not have to. He kept bringing it up, what do you think Katie would think? And then I'd switched the topic to, uh, fantasy football, and then he'd say, but let me ask you about Katie in the White House job. We did this for ninety minutes, and finally I said, Okay, Chuck, I've avoided it long enough. Maybe I could call her and soften the blow for her. And that's when he said, well, I'm going back to d C tonight, so if I want to catch that last train, I better leave five Chuck is not subtle. I'll spare you the other crap from the Fantasy League. Suffice to say, I was reminded of how annoyingly and obviously he used to conduct himself when I read that last May, one of Chuck's guest bookers for the now no longer on TV Meet the Press Daily show had emailed the office of Alaska Congressman Don Young hoping to get Young to appear the next day, which would have been the ultimate great guest get because Don Young had died two months earlier. Anyway, this fantasy football league was fun and unique in that there had only been one change in its composition in all that time. Chuck's team defeated mine and the Fantasy Football super Bowl one year, and mostly he was just annoying, like he was on the air. Nothing worse than that. And then on June nineteen, Representative Alexandria Occasio Cortes AOC ripped the Trump administration's migrant policies. She said, quote, the United States is running concentration camps on our southern border, and that is exactly what they are. They are concentration camps. End quote. Chuck went on MSNBC and said the following in response, quote, you can call our government's detention of migrants many things, depending on how you see it. It's a stain on our nation, maybe, a necessary evil to others to deal with an untenable situation, perhaps, But do you know what you can't call it? Chuck then played the clip of aoc calling it concentration camps, and Chuck resumed, if you want to criticize the shameful treatment of people at our southern border, fine, you'll have plenty of company, but be careful comparing them to Nazi concentration camps, because they're not at all comparable. In the slightest A lot of people me included, were stunned. Ocasio Cortes never mentioned the Nazis, and concentration camps did not begin with Nazis or Hitler. They began with the British in the Boer War in South Africa at the turn of the nineteenth and twenty centuries. Yet here was Chuck putting a word in her mouth, and that word was Nazi, and then he attacked her for something she never said. He lied about her. He lied, Chuck Todd made it up on the news. I was furious enough to email him that night. I thought by now somebody at NBC would have pointed out that concentration camps and Nazi death camps are not the same thing. But no, NBC had simply tweeted out the clip of Chuck lying about the congresswoman and putting the word Nazi in her mouth, as if it were something NBC News should be proud of. Chuck was furious at me. He emailed back, quote, come on, own up, that she invoked the wrong image and should have simply walked the imagery back. And I wrote him back that the person who had to walk back imagery here was him, since he had said Nazi and she had not said Nazi. On my angriest day, he now replied, I'd like to think I treated you with more respect than this, sad. I feel like we won't recover from this, and we had recovered from a lot. I wrote back to Chuck that we were going to recover from anything if he insisted that all concentration camps were Nazi death camps and that somebody who never said Nazis owed somebody else an apology for what not saying Nazis. There was no getting past the reality that Chuck had no idea that he was one dent in the wrong here, historically wrong, factually wrong, ethically wrong, not a leg to stand on. So I of course began to contemplate the year ahead in fantasy football. I couldn't face it. I'm sorry, I let real life and fantasy sports mix, and I just I just couldn't spend another autumn having to deal with Chuck Todd. Chuck had often said that he was now just too busy to play in the league anymore, and he would have to leave it this year. So on August eleven, two thousand nineteen, more in sadness than an anger, I asked the commissioner of the league if Chuck was coming back for the two thousand nineteen season. I don't know, Maybe not, was the answer. I said, Look, this is not him or me. I'm not asking you to not let him come back. It's not like that. But if he tells you one way or the other, let me know, because I just can't stand another year of him. He takes all the fun of it out of it for me, I understand, said the commissioner. It's a shame, but why do it if it's not fun? At eight am. On the morning of August two thousand nineteen, the official email notifying everybody of the new fantasy football season went out. I was not listed among the players. Nineteen minutes later, I got an email from Chuck Todd, subject line, it's just a game content quote just play. I won't speak to you, and please do me the same courtesy grow the f up, and no, I am not editing this. He really wrote grow the f up. I wrote back that I thought he'd become part of the problem that imperils our nation and I didn't want to have anything more to do with him. I ended it with quote, do not contact me again. At ten thirteen am, he contacted me again, amazing how you believe what you believe about me. I'm sorry for ever helping you get credibility, and I did not reply. At ten eighteen he wrote me again again, I'm happy to never speak with you again. I'd prefer to pretend you don't exist. Don't make me care about you. No, boy, when Chuck Todd asks you to not make him care about you, you're in deep and dangerous waters. Boy. Another Chuck email at nine you are truly a tiny little man. I don't even feel sorry for you anymore. You have done this to yourself. And here I made a mistake. I did not ask him what he felt sorry for me about and what I had done to myself. I assume he was about losing the Fantasy Football super Bowl to him. At eleven o nine, another email quote, you deliberately misinterpreted what I said shot first, and then rationalize the mistaken shot with some convoluted, full of bleef explanation. This presumably was the silly little detail about him lying and saying Representative Accio Cortez had referred to Nazi concentration camps. Then he wrote that what she said quote evokes Gash Chambers, and I think that's where we should leave it. A fantasy sports league is just a fantasy sports league, and having been in various kinds of them since nineteen good God, I often wonder if they aren't a kind of therapeutic cathartic pressure valve for our inner demons. I do know this. You find out a lot about the other people in a fantasy sports league. So when that baseball players slapped the other baseball player over the reserve running back that he kept on his roster, and most people said, I just don't understand why he slapped him. I said, oh, I understand why he slapped him. Two good weeks of follow up questions from schmuck Todd, and clearly one of his bosses told him never to do that again in his life. Countdown has come to you from the world headquarters of Alderman Broadcasting Empire. Here in the Sports Capsule building in New York. Just look for the owl. Thank you for listening Here the credits. Most of the music, including our theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle, who are the Countdown musical directors. Guitars bassed and drums by Brian Ray, All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip, Channel produced by t Ko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No Horns allowed. The sports music is the Aulderman theme from ESPN two, and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was Jonathan Banks. Owls wrangled by the Central Park Zoo. Everything else is pretty much my fault. So let's countdown for this, the seven and sixty second day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him now while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith all Reman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith all Reman is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.