Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. So House Republicans have fully embraced Donald J. Trump's tiny, ugly Johnson one threatening social media posts from the man whose only true skill is threatening social media posts. And these independent, rogue, deep thinking men and women of the people fell right in line and picked the Eddie Haskell of the Trump Christo fascist, homophobic authoritarian theocracy, Mike Johnson of Louisiana to lead their jackal pack. The man who once said, you know the allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software by dominion, there's a lot of merit to that was in the new Speaker was in fact much deeper in the election subversion weeds than generally known. Hours after his election, yesterday, sources produced a quote record unquote of a closed door Republican meeting on January fifth, twenty twenty one, one sunset before the more violent of those who agreed with Trump and Speaker Johnson tried to seize the capital and overthrow the election by violent revolution. Politico obtained the quote record, which, based on the precision of the quotes, therein must be a recording or a transcript of a recording, but Politico's not saying that in any event, Johnson was as strong an advocate in that meeting for the lie that the election was rigged and the outcome in doubt and the Constitution on Trump's side as Steve Bannon or Sean Hannity or any proud boy. He is a bastard insurrectionist. It is well known that Mike john led the effort to get House Republicans to send an amicus brief to the Supreme Court for Ken Paxton's authoritarian lawsuit on behalf of the state of Texas, which was an attempt to get Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito and their fellow travelers to disenfranchise Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin because each state had voted for Joe Biden. That evil compendium of sophistry was so manipulative, so full of lawyer crap, that Congressman Mobrooks and Matt Gates would later say that Trump should pardon Congressman Mike Johnson and every other Congressman who signed the Mike Johnson brief. It is not as well known that in the weeks prior to the January sixth coup attempt, Trump and Johnson quote traded phone calls and discussed legal strategy repeatedly. Johnson was Trump's man on the inside, and finally, at the January fifth Republican meeting, which turned out to be the House insurrection pregame show, this record Politico obtained shows that Johnson insisted to his colleagues that quote, it's not over yet, and echoed things he'd said in public months before, like I don't concede anything, and that the Dominion voting machines had quote a software system that is used all around the country that is suspect because it came from Ugo Chavez's Venezuela unquote. I'll add the footnote here that talk like that cost Fox News seven hundred and eighty seven million dollars after Dominion sued them but did not sue Mike Johnson. All Mike Johnson got was to become Speaker of the House, which circles back to lawsuits and Johnson's fervent conviction that the only reason, and he still feels this way, that Trump did not overturn the twenty twenty election was that he did not have good enough lawyers he only had Rudy Giuliani. Back to the January fifth meeting, which the Washington Post reports separately was at the House's Visitor Center. Visitors to the House on January fifth irony There, the Post says, Johnson constructed elaborate constitutional talking points to use so his fellow Republican congressman could justify overturning an election for constitutional reasons, not for fraud reasons, not for usurpation reasons, per Politico. Johnson continued to argue on January fifth that the next day the House had to object to counting the electoral votes submitted by at least a minimum number of states won by Joe Biden, and he threw in somebody he thought was on his side and Trump's side in the whole dispute God. Politico quotes Johnson on January fifth as saying, this is a very weighty decision. All of us have prayed for God's discernment. I know I've prayed for each of you individually. Well he was praying for Politico. Rep awarded was that they would all join him in blocking certification. There was pushback at the January fifth meeting from Republican congressman like Don Bacon and Chip Roy. If you're wondering where the providence of the quote record of this meeting that suddenly appeared after Johnson's election, and where this all might have come from Politico quotes Huh, chip Roy is telling Johnson on January fifth, quote, let us not turn the last firewall for liberty we have remaining on its head in a bit of populist rage for political expediency. Golly, I can't guess who gave Politico the record. Of course, chip Roy and Don Bacon both voted for Mike Johnson yesterday. They all did. They all voted for him a couple of presents. Nobody voted against him. And it is in retrospect amazing that it even took the idiots in the House GOP caucus that long to find their Johnson with both hands, he checks all the boxes. Full on election denihialist nihilists, as noted above, full on homophobe wrote newspaper editorials advocating for the criminalization of gay sex. Quote your race, creed, and sex are what you are, while homosexuality and cross dressing are things you do. States have many legitimate grounds to proscribe same sex deviate sexual intercourse, full on forced breeder. He tweeted advocating jail time for Louisiana doctors who provide reproductive care to women. Quote for form an abortion and get imprisoned at hard labor for one to ten years and find ten to one hundred thousand dollars full on forcing of religion. He defended programs at twenty five public universities like Louisiana State as In State school that paid with taxpayer money for Christian chaplains for their football teams. He insists the first requires student led prayers in public schools. This guy is effing nuts, full on Hunter Biden DOJ paranoid conspiracy theorist. He liked tweets on the subject by Stephen Miller, Matt Gates, and others. He demanded Biden administration officials testify three years after he demanded the Trump administration officials ignore how subpoena is because executive privilege. Full on theocrat. He's the former senior spokesman for the ironically named Alliance Defending Freedom, which sues to overturn abortion rights, to overturn LGBTQ rights. In order to work for the Alliance, you must publicly take an oath insisting that you believe God opposes gay people, abortion, transgender therapy, anybody who doesn't believe in Jesus Christ and God opposes divorce, and most importantly, Mike Johnson is full on anonymous. Politico asked Senator Tom Barrasso, number three Republican in the Senate, about Johnson. I don't know him. I know what I've read in the paper. CNN asked Susan Collins about working with Johnson. She said she doesn't know him but was going to google him this morning. My god, it actually makes you yearn for Susan Collins saying something smarter than that, like, I don't know, like Johnson has learned his lesson. And yet, while Mike Johnson has ascended out of the wreckage of the Republican Party and has already begun to enslave what is left of it into fealty to Trump and MAGA, while he's made it to the top by virtue of having no public profile and no rap sheet and no enemies, there is a hidden time bomb that could and I emphasized this as a long shot. Only long shots seem to be paying off lately. For America's fascists. There is a hidden time bomb, a long shot that could undo brand new, freshly minted speaker Mike Johnson because the House rule on the vacate the chair motion that off Kevin McCarthy, it's still there and it still requires only one member to trigger all this all over again. One of the largely unaddressed aspects of the disease that is Donald Trump is the reality that there is almost no politician or public figure he has not embraced then denounced, or denounced then embraced. As I often point out as proof of my theorem, Donald Trump once wrote a fan letter to me. And apart from the fact that the Politico report about the January fifth meeting confirms that at least one Republican who voted for Mike Johnson yesterday seems to be ready to unseat him tomorrow and release that report, Johnson has another and in this time when we live through the trumping looking glass, potentially far more lethal skeleton in his closet, and it is this Mike Johnson criticized Donald Trump on January sixth, during the insurrection, we heard.

Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. So House Republicans have fully embraced Donald J. Trump's tiny, ugly Johnson one threatening social media posts from the man whose only true skill is threatening social media posts. And these independent, rogue, deep thinking men and women of the people fell right in line and picked the Eddie Haskell of the Trump Christo fascist, homophobic authoritarian theocracy, Mike Johnson of Louisiana to lead their jackal pack. The man who once said, you know the allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software by dominion, there's a lot of merit to that was in the new Speaker was in fact much deeper in the election subversion weeds than generally known. Hours after his election, yesterday, sources produced a quote record unquote of a closed door Republican meeting on January fifth, twenty twenty one, one sunset before the more violent of those who agreed with Trump and Speaker Johnson tried to seize the capital and overthrow the election by violent revolution. Politico obtained the quote record, which, based on the precision of the quotes, therein must be a recording or a transcript of a recording, but Politico's not saying that in any event, Johnson was as strong an advocate in that meeting for the lie that the election was rigged and the outcome in doubt and the Constitution on Trump's side as Steve Bannon or Sean Hannity or any proud boy. He is a bastard insurrectionist. It is well known that Mike john led the effort to get House Republicans to send an amicus brief to the Supreme Court for Ken Paxton's authoritarian lawsuit on behalf of the state of Texas, which was an attempt to get Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito and their fellow travelers to disenfranchise Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin because each state had voted for Joe Biden. That evil compendium of sophistry was so manipulative, so full of lawyer crap, that Congressman Mobrooks and Matt Gates would later say that Trump should pardon Congressman Mike Johnson and every other Congressman who signed the Mike Johnson brief. It is not as well known that in the weeks prior to the January sixth coup attempt, Trump and Johnson quote traded phone calls and discussed legal strategy repeatedly. Johnson was Trump's man on the inside, and finally, at the January fifth Republican meeting, which turned out to be the House insurrection pregame show, this record Politico obtained shows that Johnson insisted to his colleagues that quote, it's not over yet, and echoed things he'd said in public months before, like I don't concede anything, and that the Dominion voting machines had quote a software system that is used all around the country that is suspect because it came from Ugo Chavez's Venezuela unquote. I'll add the footnote here that talk like that cost Fox News seven hundred and eighty seven million dollars after Dominion sued them but did not sue Mike Johnson. All Mike Johnson got was to become Speaker of the House, which circles back to lawsuits and Johnson's fervent conviction that the only reason, and he still feels this way, that Trump did not overturn the twenty twenty election was that he did not have good enough lawyers he only had Rudy Giuliani. Back to the January fifth meeting, which the Washington Post reports separately was at the House's Visitor Center. Visitors to the House on January fifth irony There, the Post says, Johnson constructed elaborate constitutional talking points to use so his fellow Republican congressman could justify overturning an election for constitutional reasons, not for fraud reasons, not for usurpation reasons, per Politico. Johnson continued to argue on January fifth that the next day the House had to object to counting the electoral votes submitted by at least a minimum number of states won by Joe Biden, and he threw in somebody he thought was on his side and Trump's side in the whole dispute God. Politico quotes Johnson on January fifth as saying, this is a very weighty decision. All of us have prayed for God's discernment. I know I've prayed for each of you individually. Well he was praying for Politico. Rep awarded was that they would all join him in blocking certification. There was pushback at the January fifth meeting from Republican congressman like Don Bacon and Chip Roy. If you're wondering where the providence of the quote record of this meeting that suddenly appeared after Johnson's election, and where this all might have come from Politico quotes Huh, chip Roy is telling Johnson on January fifth, quote, let us not turn the last firewall for liberty we have remaining on its head in a bit of populist rage for political expediency. Golly, I can't guess who gave Politico the record. Of course, chip Roy and Don Bacon both voted for Mike Johnson yesterday. They all did. They all voted for him a couple of presents. Nobody voted against him. And it is in retrospect amazing that it even took the idiots in the House GOP caucus that long to find their Johnson with both hands, he checks all the boxes. Full on election denihialist nihilists, as noted above, full on homophobe wrote newspaper editorials advocating for the criminalization of gay sex. Quote your race, creed, and sex are what you are, while homosexuality and cross dressing are things you do. States have many legitimate grounds to proscribe same sex deviate sexual intercourse, full on forced breeder. He tweeted advocating jail time for Louisiana doctors who provide reproductive care to women. Quote for form an abortion and get imprisoned at hard labor for one to ten years and find ten to one hundred thousand dollars full on forcing of religion. He defended programs at twenty five public universities like Louisiana State as In State school that paid with taxpayer money for Christian chaplains for their football teams. He insists the first requires student led prayers in public schools. This guy is effing nuts, full on Hunter Biden DOJ paranoid conspiracy theorist. He liked tweets on the subject by Stephen Miller, Matt Gates, and others. He demanded Biden administration officials testify three years after he demanded the Trump administration officials ignore how subpoena is because executive privilege. Full on theocrat. He's the former senior spokesman for the ironically named Alliance Defending Freedom, which sues to overturn abortion rights, to overturn LGBTQ rights. In order to work for the Alliance, you must publicly take an oath insisting that you believe God opposes gay people, abortion, transgender therapy, anybody who doesn't believe in Jesus Christ and God opposes divorce, and most importantly, Mike Johnson is full on anonymous. Politico asked Senator Tom Barrasso, number three Republican in the Senate, about Johnson. I don't know him. I know what I've read in the paper. CNN asked Susan Collins about working with Johnson. She said she doesn't know him but was going to google him this morning. My god, it actually makes you yearn for Susan Collins saying something smarter than that, like, I don't know, like Johnson has learned his lesson. And yet, while Mike Johnson has ascended out of the wreckage of the Republican Party and has already begun to enslave what is left of it into fealty to Trump and MAGA, while he's made it to the top by virtue of having no public profile and no rap sheet and no enemies, there is a hidden time bomb that could and I emphasized this as a long shot. Only long shots seem to be paying off lately. For America's fascists. There is a hidden time bomb, a long shot that could undo brand new, freshly minted speaker Mike Johnson because the House rule on the vacate the chair motion that off Kevin McCarthy, it's still there and it still requires only one member to trigger all this all over again. One of the largely unaddressed aspects of the disease that is Donald Trump is the reality that there is almost no politician or public figure he has not embraced then denounced, or denounced then embraced. As I often point out as proof of my theorem, Donald Trump once wrote a fan letter to me. And apart from the fact that the Politico report about the January fifth meeting confirms that at least one Republican who voted for Mike Johnson yesterday seems to be ready to unseat him tomorrow and release that report, Johnson has another and in this time when we live through the trumping looking glass, potentially far more lethal skeleton in his closet, and it is this Mike Johnson criticized Donald Trump on January sixth, during the insurrection, we heard.

A tweet from the Commander in Chief of a moment ago support our capitol, police and law enforcement.

A tweet from the Commander in Chief of a moment ago support our capitol, police and law enforcement.

He writes, they're truly on the side of our country. Stay peaceful. Does he need to say more?

He writes, they're truly on the side of our country. Stay peaceful. Does he need to say more?

That's a good start. But you know, I do believe, I mean, you know, I'm a supporter of the president now, but this is the time for the commander in chief, that the leader of the country, he still is, that to step up and call for calm and speak in the same tones, you know, to pull.

That's a good start. But you know, I do believe, I mean, you know, I'm a supporter of the president now, but this is the time for the commander in chief, that the leader of the country, he still is, that to step up and call for calm and speak in the same tones, you know, to pull.

Us together to you and I and even most Republicans, especially while the barbarians were at the gate looking for congressmen and senators and vice presidents to hang. That that's nothing to Trump. That would be utter and unforgivable disloyalty. And it is unmistakably true that he has clearly never heard that clip of the backbencher he just helped turn into Speaker of the House, or it has never been thrown in his face with the right framing. You do know, sir, that this Johnson guy thought you didn't do enough to stop the mob on January sixth. You do know that, sir, don't you that he blamed you for doing enough? Sir, Mike Johnson could very well still be Speaker of the House three hundred and seventy seven days from now election Day twenty twenty four. He could very well be there on certification Day in twenty twenty five to try to illegally subvert that presidential election. In a million different ways. As he tried to illegally subvert the twenty twenty election, he could betray this country again, and this time he might not just merely survive a failed coup but get away with his scheme. Or somebody might play that of him and Bill Hemmer to Trump, and an hour later, an even crazier Trump whore than Mike Johnson in Congress could submit a motion to vacate the chair. And they'll be throwing Mike Johnson's career over there on the pile where the careers of Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan and Tom Error have already started to rot. Here, When the hell is a judge in this country going to put Trump in jail? Trump would later storm out of the court muttering unbelievable to himself when the judge turned down his demand that the case against him, in which he is clearly incredibly guilty, be immediately dismissed, but at lunchtime he takes the break in the civil fraud trial in New York, holds an impromptu news conference on the courthouse steps as he was told by Judge Angeron not to, and five days after anger On find him five grand for breaking the gag order by leaving up online and attack on Ngeron's court clerk. Trump again attacks the court clerk well judges.

Us together to you and I and even most Republicans, especially while the barbarians were at the gate looking for congressmen and senators and vice presidents to hang. That that's nothing to Trump. That would be utter and unforgivable disloyalty. And it is unmistakably true that he has clearly never heard that clip of the backbencher he just helped turn into Speaker of the House, or it has never been thrown in his face with the right framing. You do know, sir, that this Johnson guy thought you didn't do enough to stop the mob on January sixth. You do know that, sir, don't you that he blamed you for doing enough? Sir, Mike Johnson could very well still be Speaker of the House three hundred and seventy seven days from now election Day twenty twenty four. He could very well be there on certification Day in twenty twenty five to try to illegally subvert that presidential election. In a million different ways. As he tried to illegally subvert the twenty twenty election, he could betray this country again, and this time he might not just merely survive a failed coup but get away with his scheme. Or somebody might play that of him and Bill Hemmer to Trump, and an hour later, an even crazier Trump whore than Mike Johnson in Congress could submit a motion to vacate the chair. And they'll be throwing Mike Johnson's career over there on the pile where the careers of Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan and Tom Error have already started to rot. Here, When the hell is a judge in this country going to put Trump in jail? Trump would later storm out of the court muttering unbelievable to himself when the judge turned down his demand that the case against him, in which he is clearly incredibly guilty, be immediately dismissed, but at lunchtime he takes the break in the civil fraud trial in New York, holds an impromptu news conference on the courthouse steps as he was told by Judge Angeron not to, and five days after anger On find him five grand for breaking the gag order by leaving up online and attack on Ngeron's court clerk. Trump again attacks the court clerk well judges.

Very yes, with the person who is very farnes sitting along that at the.

Very yes, with the person who is very farnes sitting along that at the.

Grass even than he is. The judge was furious. Trump's ambulance chasers insisted the reference wasn't to the clerk but to the the witness, Michael Cohen, and because they and Trump have spent their lives inside the shadow of a doubt and thus getting away with it whatever it is. And Geron's fury resulted in Trump being fined ten thousand dollars. Now I no longer believe anything about dementia j Trump. I do not believe he has ten thousand dollars. But the judges, like our layman judges in the news media, are so terrified of appearing biased against him. What a terrible thing. You're a judge, You're biased against the worst criminal of the mayor and history. Shame, shame, shame on you. They're so afraid of being judged as biased against him that they are bending over backwards to treat him in a way that you or I, or a drug dealer or a murderer or somebody who merely owed thousands in unpaid parking tickets would not be treated. Trump leaves up an image of the post you ordered him to take down. His lawyers say it was inadvertent. Screw them, screw him, find him in contempt, and put him in jail for the weekend. Then he comes out and attacks your clerk to the news media. His lawyers say he never mentioned anybody by name. In fact, he was returning to somebody else. Screw them, screw him, find him in contempt, and put him in jail for the week Or if you do not have the courage to do that, if you do not have the foresight to realize that all of our other institutional protections against would be mad men dictators failed. The news media has failed, the Congress has failed, the electoral system has failed. If you cannot imprison him, if you do not have the balls to imprison him for things you would imprison me for then when you find him, make sure he feels it, make sure his supporters feel it, make sure it overwhelms every other story on the news everywhere in the world. You want to play this game, Trump, Fine, we will play it, and we will play it at your level. You say, marri Lago is worth one billion, five hundred million dollars. That's what this trial is all about. Fine, mister Trump, for violating the gag order. You are hereby find one billion, six hundred million dollars. Pay the clerk on your way out, asshole. Also of interest here speaking of horrors, Hoham and other Clarence Thomas scandal, but this one was only worth two hundred and sixty seven thousand, so it'll barely get a mention anywhere. The good news they may have found the workaround for Tommy Tubberville's hold on military promotions. The bad news the Mayor of New York has said it again. He is the mayor of New York because God made him mayor huge if true, that's next. This is countdown.

Grass even than he is. The judge was furious. Trump's ambulance chasers insisted the reference wasn't to the clerk but to the the witness, Michael Cohen, and because they and Trump have spent their lives inside the shadow of a doubt and thus getting away with it whatever it is. And Geron's fury resulted in Trump being fined ten thousand dollars. Now I no longer believe anything about dementia j Trump. I do not believe he has ten thousand dollars. But the judges, like our layman judges in the news media, are so terrified of appearing biased against him. What a terrible thing. You're a judge, You're biased against the worst criminal of the mayor and history. Shame, shame, shame on you. They're so afraid of being judged as biased against him that they are bending over backwards to treat him in a way that you or I, or a drug dealer or a murderer or somebody who merely owed thousands in unpaid parking tickets would not be treated. Trump leaves up an image of the post you ordered him to take down. His lawyers say it was inadvertent. Screw them, screw him, find him in contempt, and put him in jail for the weekend. Then he comes out and attacks your clerk to the news media. His lawyers say he never mentioned anybody by name. In fact, he was returning to somebody else. Screw them, screw him, find him in contempt, and put him in jail for the week Or if you do not have the courage to do that, if you do not have the foresight to realize that all of our other institutional protections against would be mad men dictators failed. The news media has failed, the Congress has failed, the electoral system has failed. If you cannot imprison him, if you do not have the balls to imprison him for things you would imprison me for then when you find him, make sure he feels it, make sure his supporters feel it, make sure it overwhelms every other story on the news everywhere in the world. You want to play this game, Trump, Fine, we will play it, and we will play it at your level. You say, marri Lago is worth one billion, five hundred million dollars. That's what this trial is all about. Fine, mister Trump, for violating the gag order. You are hereby find one billion, six hundred million dollars. Pay the clerk on your way out, asshole. Also of interest here speaking of horrors, Hoham and other Clarence Thomas scandal, but this one was only worth two hundred and sixty seven thousand, so it'll barely get a mention anywhere. The good news they may have found the workaround for Tommy Tubberville's hold on military promotions. The bad news the Mayor of New York has said it again. He is the mayor of New York because God made him mayor huge if true, that's next. This is countdown.

This is countdown with Keith Oldwoman. This is sports Senate. Wait, check that not anymore. This is countdown with Keith.

This is countdown with Keith Oldwoman. This is sports Senate. Wait, check that not anymore. This is countdown with Keith.

Alberman in sports the quick evolution of being a sports fan and reporter. When you become a fan as a kid, there are baseball managers so old that they were born in in the previous century. At some point before you get out of high school, probably somebody you saw play baseball becomes a manager, and you suddenly feel old. By your thirties, all of the managers used to be players you saw play. By your fifties, all of the managers used to be players you interviewed, or, if you're me, people who tell you they used to watch you on Sports Center when they were in the minor leagues. And by my current age going on sixty five, the managers who did not reach the managers as players until you had already been a fan for a couple of years. Those managers are retiring already. Johnny b Dusty Baker has quit managing, bowing out after his Houston Astros lost the American League Championship Series. He reached the majors as a player in nineteen sixty eight. I first met him and interviewed him at the nineteen seventy seven World Series. He became a manager in nineteen ninety three. A year after I started to host Sports Center. He managed the Giants, the Cubs, the Reds, the Nationals, and finally the Astros with whom he finally won a World Series last year. He's seventy four years old. I don't believe he has ever forgotten the name of anybody he has ever met on a baseball field. I am not certain he is a great strategic in game manager. But please find me somebody who will say anything more critical of him than that, and I will be very surprised. I'll also be surprised if somebody does not try to talk him out of retirement in the next few years. There's another category of baseball manager, too, the guy who used to ride the subway with I knew Bob Melvin a little bit when he was a player and a manager, and then in twenty ten he became a consultant for the New York Mets, and by chance, we used to sit together during the games, and we became fast friends. And we took the subway from the ballpark, and he'd never been on it before, and he loved it and started taking it all the time. And I can now tell you that I even wrote a letter of recommendation to a baseball owner on Bob's behalf for a managerial job. He did not get their mistake, and that Bob has been to my apartment for the specific purpose of meeting my dogs. Bob is now going to tie Dusty Baker with five different teams managed. The record is only six. He will leave the San Diego Padres to run the San Francisco Giants next season. What is amazing is that Bob became a manager in two thousand and three, and the only year he has not been a major league manager was twenty ten, the year he and I became commuter friends. And to dive into the I'm So Old pool one last time on the simple premise that it's gonna happen to you too, if you're lucky. The ten nominees have been announced for the twenty twenty four to Ford Frick Award, enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame for a baseball announcer, which should be renamed the Vince Scully Award. Anyway, you're ready for this list of ten. Joe Buck I worked with him for the three seasons at Fox, including the two thousand World Series. Joe Costigliono the Red Sox. I never worked with him, but he and I were rookie Boston sportscasters together thirty nine years ago. Gary Cohen of the Mets not only a dear friend, but a decade ago Gary's mother revealed we were second generation friends, that she had been pre pubescent pals with my uncle Bill in the Bronx on weeks Avenue in nineteen fricking forty three. Jacques Ducet of the Expos I never met him, but I heard him on Expo's French broadcast during vacations to Montreal in nineteen sixty nine and nineteen seventy. Tom Hamilton of the Cleveland Guardians, I actually don't know him. The late Ernie Johnson, senior of the Braves. I worked with him when I was at CNN, and he and the other Braves announcers used to do stuff with us during the off season. As fine a guy as his son. Ken Korach of the A's amed him in spring training once delightful guy, long talk about life. Mike Cruco and Dwayne Kuiper of the San Francisco Giant it's friends of mine since the nineties. Although Kuiper is mad at me at the moment, possibly because I wrote the biography on his nineteen seventy six baseball card, the front of which shows a picture of somebody else. I texted with Mike Kruco yesterday and Dan Shulman of the Blue Jays and ESPN, and he and I first worked together in nineteen ninety three when we tried to hire him away to join us on ESPN Radio. Only ESPN was too cheap to pay him to move from Toronto. And I texted with him yesterday too. Ten nominees three I worked with four good friends, So don't ask me who to vote for. That's baseball. Thank you, Nancy Faust. And by the way, why don't they have a section four organists at the Baseball Hall of Fame? Huh? Asking for a friend? Still ahead on countdown? You know what's been lost in American life? The intricate, complicated, rehearsed, mean spirited, practical joke. It was my pleasure forty one years ago this month to party surveying the best one I have ever witnessed, in which we got a guy from the New York Times to believe that he had just missed the biggest sports story of the year. The djanofsky prank in Things I promised not to tell Next first time for the daily round up of the miscreants, morons and dunning Kruger effect specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world, runs Tommy the Tuba Tubberville, the all ears senator from Alabama who has been blocking nearly all military promotions while the Middle East is at war and Ukraine is going on and the Chinese continue to mess around in Asian waters, and they may have shut him down. Bunch Bowl News reporting that Senate Democrats are preparing a resolution to send to the Senate Rules Committee that would allow the promotions, all of them to go through except for members of the Joint Chiefs or the Unified Combat Commands. All of these promotions to be voted on in one bill, thus thwarting Senator Dumbo. The Rules Committee will rule on how many votes would be required. Punch Bowl reports Tuberville has heard about the effort, and with those ears, how could he have not had the runner up? Good old Supreme Court justice and judicial prostitute Clarence Thomas. There's a scandal about him and money. I know, I know you've heard this before. Now this is a different scandal about him and money. The New York Times says the Senate Finance Committee has unearthed evidence about and is investigating the loan that good old Claire took in nineteen ninety nine to buy that RV that he loves so very much, because it puts him out on the road so he can meet the people whose lives he ruins for cash two hundred and sixty seven thousand, two hundred and thirty dollars in a loan for a motor coach alone from healthcare industry mogul Anthony Welters, and in two thousand and eight, Welters simply wrote off this loan two hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars. It's unclear how much Thomas had paid back by then, if anything of it. Thomas has refused to comment on the Time story, but the far right apparently remains very surprised that the rest of us are allowed to discuss this, because they're the Supreme Court and they own us. Remember, but our winner, New York Mayor Eric Adams, We've heard this before. The mayor believes he was put in office by God. I thank god, I'm the mayor right now. And the more famous nonsense statement quote, there is no way God created me for this moment if he did not believe this was my moment. Whatever that means. Now, those are great in their own way, but it's something else when you actually hear him saying it while it is being simultaneously translated into Spanish. Mayor Adams has gone on a New York Spanish language religion show Radio Vision Christiana, and he let one.

Alberman in sports the quick evolution of being a sports fan and reporter. When you become a fan as a kid, there are baseball managers so old that they were born in in the previous century. At some point before you get out of high school, probably somebody you saw play baseball becomes a manager, and you suddenly feel old. By your thirties, all of the managers used to be players you saw play. By your fifties, all of the managers used to be players you interviewed, or, if you're me, people who tell you they used to watch you on Sports Center when they were in the minor leagues. And by my current age going on sixty five, the managers who did not reach the managers as players until you had already been a fan for a couple of years. Those managers are retiring already. Johnny b Dusty Baker has quit managing, bowing out after his Houston Astros lost the American League Championship Series. He reached the majors as a player in nineteen sixty eight. I first met him and interviewed him at the nineteen seventy seven World Series. He became a manager in nineteen ninety three. A year after I started to host Sports Center. He managed the Giants, the Cubs, the Reds, the Nationals, and finally the Astros with whom he finally won a World Series last year. He's seventy four years old. I don't believe he has ever forgotten the name of anybody he has ever met on a baseball field. I am not certain he is a great strategic in game manager. But please find me somebody who will say anything more critical of him than that, and I will be very surprised. I'll also be surprised if somebody does not try to talk him out of retirement in the next few years. There's another category of baseball manager, too, the guy who used to ride the subway with I knew Bob Melvin a little bit when he was a player and a manager, and then in twenty ten he became a consultant for the New York Mets, and by chance, we used to sit together during the games, and we became fast friends. And we took the subway from the ballpark, and he'd never been on it before, and he loved it and started taking it all the time. And I can now tell you that I even wrote a letter of recommendation to a baseball owner on Bob's behalf for a managerial job. He did not get their mistake, and that Bob has been to my apartment for the specific purpose of meeting my dogs. Bob is now going to tie Dusty Baker with five different teams managed. The record is only six. He will leave the San Diego Padres to run the San Francisco Giants next season. What is amazing is that Bob became a manager in two thousand and three, and the only year he has not been a major league manager was twenty ten, the year he and I became commuter friends. And to dive into the I'm So Old pool one last time on the simple premise that it's gonna happen to you too, if you're lucky. The ten nominees have been announced for the twenty twenty four to Ford Frick Award, enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame for a baseball announcer, which should be renamed the Vince Scully Award. Anyway, you're ready for this list of ten. Joe Buck I worked with him for the three seasons at Fox, including the two thousand World Series. Joe Costigliono the Red Sox. I never worked with him, but he and I were rookie Boston sportscasters together thirty nine years ago. Gary Cohen of the Mets not only a dear friend, but a decade ago Gary's mother revealed we were second generation friends, that she had been pre pubescent pals with my uncle Bill in the Bronx on weeks Avenue in nineteen fricking forty three. Jacques Ducet of the Expos I never met him, but I heard him on Expo's French broadcast during vacations to Montreal in nineteen sixty nine and nineteen seventy. Tom Hamilton of the Cleveland Guardians, I actually don't know him. The late Ernie Johnson, senior of the Braves. I worked with him when I was at CNN, and he and the other Braves announcers used to do stuff with us during the off season. As fine a guy as his son. Ken Korach of the A's amed him in spring training once delightful guy, long talk about life. Mike Cruco and Dwayne Kuiper of the San Francisco Giant it's friends of mine since the nineties. Although Kuiper is mad at me at the moment, possibly because I wrote the biography on his nineteen seventy six baseball card, the front of which shows a picture of somebody else. I texted with Mike Kruco yesterday and Dan Shulman of the Blue Jays and ESPN, and he and I first worked together in nineteen ninety three when we tried to hire him away to join us on ESPN Radio. Only ESPN was too cheap to pay him to move from Toronto. And I texted with him yesterday too. Ten nominees three I worked with four good friends, So don't ask me who to vote for. That's baseball. Thank you, Nancy Faust. And by the way, why don't they have a section four organists at the Baseball Hall of Fame? Huh? Asking for a friend? Still ahead on countdown? You know what's been lost in American life? The intricate, complicated, rehearsed, mean spirited, practical joke. It was my pleasure forty one years ago this month to party surveying the best one I have ever witnessed, in which we got a guy from the New York Times to believe that he had just missed the biggest sports story of the year. The djanofsky prank in Things I promised not to tell Next first time for the daily round up of the miscreants, morons and dunning Kruger effect specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world, runs Tommy the Tuba Tubberville, the all ears senator from Alabama who has been blocking nearly all military promotions while the Middle East is at war and Ukraine is going on and the Chinese continue to mess around in Asian waters, and they may have shut him down. Bunch Bowl News reporting that Senate Democrats are preparing a resolution to send to the Senate Rules Committee that would allow the promotions, all of them to go through except for members of the Joint Chiefs or the Unified Combat Commands. All of these promotions to be voted on in one bill, thus thwarting Senator Dumbo. The Rules Committee will rule on how many votes would be required. Punch Bowl reports Tuberville has heard about the effort, and with those ears, how could he have not had the runner up? Good old Supreme Court justice and judicial prostitute Clarence Thomas. There's a scandal about him and money. I know, I know you've heard this before. Now this is a different scandal about him and money. The New York Times says the Senate Finance Committee has unearthed evidence about and is investigating the loan that good old Claire took in nineteen ninety nine to buy that RV that he loves so very much, because it puts him out on the road so he can meet the people whose lives he ruins for cash two hundred and sixty seven thousand, two hundred and thirty dollars in a loan for a motor coach alone from healthcare industry mogul Anthony Welters, and in two thousand and eight, Welters simply wrote off this loan two hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars. It's unclear how much Thomas had paid back by then, if anything of it. Thomas has refused to comment on the Time story, but the far right apparently remains very surprised that the rest of us are allowed to discuss this, because they're the Supreme Court and they own us. Remember, but our winner, New York Mayor Eric Adams, We've heard this before. The mayor believes he was put in office by God. I thank god, I'm the mayor right now. And the more famous nonsense statement quote, there is no way God created me for this moment if he did not believe this was my moment. Whatever that means. Now, those are great in their own way, but it's something else when you actually hear him saying it while it is being simultaneously translated into Spanish. Mayor Adams has gone on a New York Spanish language religion show Radio Vision Christiana, and he let one.

Rip I am mayor be because God gave me the authority to be mayor soyl Cande barge Cane, and He placed in the hearts of the voters to give me that authority, he pus. Sometimes we miss how God operates.

Rip I am mayor be because God gave me the authority to be mayor soyl Cande barge Cane, and He placed in the hearts of the voters to give me that authority, he pus. Sometimes we miss how God operates.

See, I don't mind you thinking God put you somewhere. I don't mind if you believe. You don't believe you think the universe is run by an omniscient walrus named Chumley. Have fun. But see when you go public like this, Mayor Adams, you make a dick out of yourself, out of all of us here in big town. Because if Chumley or God or whatever really did put you in as Mayor of New York, that necessarily means that God put all the other mayors of New York. In as mayors of New York, God decided Rudy Giuliani was a good call. He chose Fernando Wood, the pro secessionists, who let two rival gangs of cops fight it out on the steps of city Hall. God selected Jimmy Walker, who was so corrupt that the bank stopped loaning the city any money because he was stealing most of it, and whose cops used to arrest innocent women and accuse them of prostitution unless they paid them bribes, and who, when they finally caught him, made a plea deal in which, on top of everything else, he had to immediately get on a cruise ship and leave the country for Europe for years. See, mister mayor, if you want to think that God puts you in office, go nuts. But if he put you in office, that means he put all them schmucks in office too. And maybe you have to wonder, mister Adams, did he put you in office as some sort of tribute to your greatness or as some kind of punishment? Mayor, Eric, don't blame me. I voted for the garbage commissioner. Lady Adams two days worse person in the world. In March of nineteen eighty two, I went from scheduled freelancer to full time as CNN's national sports correspondent based in New York. I have mentioned previously that they rewarded me by offering me one thousand dollars less a year than they were giving me freelance, which tells you everything you need to know about working in television. CNN also rewarded me by sending me to the first meeting of the NFL Players Association and the NFL Management Council to negotiate a new contract and avert a strike. That year. Kind of missed that target, but while I did lots of other stories in my first full year at CNN, I was the football strike guy until that strike was settled and a new deal was approved at a mass meeting in Washington. And the mass meeting in Washington currd just before Thanksgiving like forty years ago today, and the damn story had started forty years ago last March. There are probably fifty seven hundred stories worth telling you of covering this thing nearly every day one way or the other for eight months, but this one might be my favorite. There were I think three other reporters at that first bargaining session in New York in March of nineteen eighty two. And if these are not the three guys I'm thinking of, they became the three guys in the subsequent meetings later in March, and then in April when we had some in Washington, and throughout the early summer. They were Bart Barnes of the Washington Post, Ira Rosenfeld of the Associated Press, and Michael Janofski of the New York Times. By October, the four of us had been joined by maybe one hundred other reporters two hundred. The problem with covering any strike, inside sports or outside of it is you don't have a lot of news to cover, and the only news story your editors or producers or readers or viewers want anyway is this one is the damn thing over yet, so there was a lot of competition among all of us for those few news nuggets and sources available to an ever increasing supply of reporters. Though I have to say the others, at least the originals were all great to me and I to them, to the point that when they moved the talks to the Hunt Valley Resort Complex in Maryland. United Press International and the networks like US called our location Hunt Valley, Maryland. But there was such a dearth of news that the Associated Press insisted there was no such place as Hunt Valley, Maryland, and we were all really in Cockeysville, Maryland. The same story would come across the UPI wire dateline Hunt Valley, Maryland, and the same story on the AP wire Cockysville, Maryland. Then the Associated Press did a story on the dispute over the location name. I remember asking Ira Rosenfeld of the AP if they had used the dateline Kakysville, just so there'd be a dispute, just so he had something to write about. He started laughing and walked away anyway. Janofsky, the guy from the Times, was the most anxious of the bunch. Michael Janofsky was a little abrasive, like literally elbowing you out of the way in the scrums with media spokesman, or trying to walk those spokesmen out of those gaggles and scrums in order to get a one on one. I'm from the New York Times, and the only thing the owners and the players and the rest of US reporters all agreed on was, oh God, here comes Danovsky again. So one long night in the resort they were using in Kokysville and or Hunt Valley, Maryland, one of the Union guys was having a drink with a bunch of US media types and we started complaining about Jenofsky. And I don't think the prank that was hatched was my idea, but I know I was the choreographer. The area I had to work with in the hotel in which we were permitted to roam ran from a swimming pool around a corner, down a one hundred foot hallway into the lobby, which was the press room and press conference venue. So we waited until we saw Janoski go down that hall away from the main lobby and around the corner towards the hotel rooms themselves, and then at least a dozen of us waited like Evil's school kids in the main part of that hallway between the swimming pool and the lobby. We sent a spotter to stand near the pool to alert us. So as Michael Janoski of The New York Times turned the corner one hundred feet away, he saw the NFLPA press aid literally pushing some of us and everybody yelling, and him saying, fine, it's true, it's true. It's over. Now I can't say another goddamn thing. I quit. He's trying to get away from us. There are arms flailing through the air, voice is raised, a lot of oaths and swear words. In short, we have convinced mister Janofsky of the Times that he has just missed the end of the football strike. Janofsky sprints the one hundred feet, grabs the union guy and says, tell me, tell me, it's settled, it's over. Tell me. And this man, Dave had also been a press staffer in the Kennedy administration, and this was not his first prank against a reporter. He says, I'm sorry, Mike, I don't work for the NFLPA anymore. I just quit. If you want this story, you better get it from the executive director Ed Garvey or the president Gene Upshaw. So now Janofski grabs Bart Barnes of the WAPPO, who had to have been I don't know, ten years older than Janofsky was, and he says, you have to tell me, Bart, I'll pay you, at which point all of us lose it. I mean me and the AP guy Ira, we broke character. We doubled over with laughter. Now Djanofsky froze. Dave from the Union laughed so hard he turned red, and Jenofsky marched off, announcing he would get us and get us soon. I don't think he ever did. Though. If I had to do a phoner for CNN when Jenofsky was around that lobby or any other other places we did this story, I always made sure I guarded the phone disconnect button with my free hand, just in case. But what he did do was leaves sports all together for safer and more fun topics like covering the Environmental Protection Agency and getting writing stories about pesticides and recycling mercury. I've done all the damage I can do. He thank you for listening. Countdown has come to you from the Vin Scully Studios at the Olderman Broadcasting Empire in New York. If you know anyone who does not listen to this podcast and might enjoy it, first off, why secondly tell the others. Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips Shanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Shanelle handled the orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitarist, bass and drums produced by Tko Brothers. Other music including Beethoven stuff arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music courtesy of ESPN, Inc. And it was written by Mitch Warren Davis. We called the Olderman theme from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are from Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul at Airplane. Everything else is pretty much my fault. That's countdown for this the oney twenty fourth day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Convict him now while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletin says the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Olreman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

See, I don't mind you thinking God put you somewhere. I don't mind if you believe. You don't believe you think the universe is run by an omniscient walrus named Chumley. Have fun. But see when you go public like this, Mayor Adams, you make a dick out of yourself, out of all of us here in big town. Because if Chumley or God or whatever really did put you in as Mayor of New York, that necessarily means that God put all the other mayors of New York. In as mayors of New York, God decided Rudy Giuliani was a good call. He chose Fernando Wood, the pro secessionists, who let two rival gangs of cops fight it out on the steps of city Hall. God selected Jimmy Walker, who was so corrupt that the bank stopped loaning the city any money because he was stealing most of it, and whose cops used to arrest innocent women and accuse them of prostitution unless they paid them bribes, and who, when they finally caught him, made a plea deal in which, on top of everything else, he had to immediately get on a cruise ship and leave the country for Europe for years. See, mister mayor, if you want to think that God puts you in office, go nuts. But if he put you in office, that means he put all them schmucks in office too. And maybe you have to wonder, mister Adams, did he put you in office as some sort of tribute to your greatness or as some kind of punishment? Mayor, Eric, don't blame me. I voted for the garbage commissioner. Lady Adams two days worse person in the world. In March of nineteen eighty two, I went from scheduled freelancer to full time as CNN's national sports correspondent based in New York. I have mentioned previously that they rewarded me by offering me one thousand dollars less a year than they were giving me freelance, which tells you everything you need to know about working in television. CNN also rewarded me by sending me to the first meeting of the NFL Players Association and the NFL Management Council to negotiate a new contract and avert a strike. That year. Kind of missed that target, but while I did lots of other stories in my first full year at CNN, I was the football strike guy until that strike was settled and a new deal was approved at a mass meeting in Washington. And the mass meeting in Washington currd just before Thanksgiving like forty years ago today, and the damn story had started forty years ago last March. There are probably fifty seven hundred stories worth telling you of covering this thing nearly every day one way or the other for eight months, but this one might be my favorite. There were I think three other reporters at that first bargaining session in New York in March of nineteen eighty two. And if these are not the three guys I'm thinking of, they became the three guys in the subsequent meetings later in March, and then in April when we had some in Washington, and throughout the early summer. They were Bart Barnes of the Washington Post, Ira Rosenfeld of the Associated Press, and Michael Janofski of the New York Times. By October, the four of us had been joined by maybe one hundred other reporters two hundred. The problem with covering any strike, inside sports or outside of it is you don't have a lot of news to cover, and the only news story your editors or producers or readers or viewers want anyway is this one is the damn thing over yet, so there was a lot of competition among all of us for those few news nuggets and sources available to an ever increasing supply of reporters. Though I have to say the others, at least the originals were all great to me and I to them, to the point that when they moved the talks to the Hunt Valley Resort Complex in Maryland. United Press International and the networks like US called our location Hunt Valley, Maryland. But there was such a dearth of news that the Associated Press insisted there was no such place as Hunt Valley, Maryland, and we were all really in Cockeysville, Maryland. The same story would come across the UPI wire dateline Hunt Valley, Maryland, and the same story on the AP wire Cockysville, Maryland. Then the Associated Press did a story on the dispute over the location name. I remember asking Ira Rosenfeld of the AP if they had used the dateline Kakysville, just so there'd be a dispute, just so he had something to write about. He started laughing and walked away anyway. Janofsky, the guy from the Times, was the most anxious of the bunch. Michael Janofsky was a little abrasive, like literally elbowing you out of the way in the scrums with media spokesman, or trying to walk those spokesmen out of those gaggles and scrums in order to get a one on one. I'm from the New York Times, and the only thing the owners and the players and the rest of US reporters all agreed on was, oh God, here comes Danovsky again. So one long night in the resort they were using in Kokysville and or Hunt Valley, Maryland, one of the Union guys was having a drink with a bunch of US media types and we started complaining about Jenofsky. And I don't think the prank that was hatched was my idea, but I know I was the choreographer. The area I had to work with in the hotel in which we were permitted to roam ran from a swimming pool around a corner, down a one hundred foot hallway into the lobby, which was the press room and press conference venue. So we waited until we saw Janoski go down that hall away from the main lobby and around the corner towards the hotel rooms themselves, and then at least a dozen of us waited like Evil's school kids in the main part of that hallway between the swimming pool and the lobby. We sent a spotter to stand near the pool to alert us. So as Michael Janoski of The New York Times turned the corner one hundred feet away, he saw the NFLPA press aid literally pushing some of us and everybody yelling, and him saying, fine, it's true, it's true. It's over. Now I can't say another goddamn thing. I quit. He's trying to get away from us. There are arms flailing through the air, voice is raised, a lot of oaths and swear words. In short, we have convinced mister Janofsky of the Times that he has just missed the end of the football strike. Janofsky sprints the one hundred feet, grabs the union guy and says, tell me, tell me, it's settled, it's over. Tell me. And this man, Dave had also been a press staffer in the Kennedy administration, and this was not his first prank against a reporter. He says, I'm sorry, Mike, I don't work for the NFLPA anymore. I just quit. If you want this story, you better get it from the executive director Ed Garvey or the president Gene Upshaw. So now Janofski grabs Bart Barnes of the WAPPO, who had to have been I don't know, ten years older than Janofsky was, and he says, you have to tell me, Bart, I'll pay you, at which point all of us lose it. I mean me and the AP guy Ira, we broke character. We doubled over with laughter. Now Djanofsky froze. Dave from the Union laughed so hard he turned red, and Jenofsky marched off, announcing he would get us and get us soon. I don't think he ever did. Though. If I had to do a phoner for CNN when Jenofsky was around that lobby or any other other places we did this story, I always made sure I guarded the phone disconnect button with my free hand, just in case. But what he did do was leaves sports all together for safer and more fun topics like covering the Environmental Protection Agency and getting writing stories about pesticides and recycling mercury. I've done all the damage I can do. He thank you for listening. Countdown has come to you from the Vin Scully Studios at the Olderman Broadcasting Empire in New York. If you know anyone who does not listen to this podcast and might enjoy it, first off, why secondly tell the others. Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips Shanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Shanelle handled the orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitarist, bass and drums produced by Tko Brothers. Other music including Beethoven stuff arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music courtesy of ESPN, Inc. And it was written by Mitch Warren Davis. We called the Olderman theme from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are from Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul at Airplane. Everything else is pretty much my fault. That's countdown for this the oney twenty fourth day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Convict him now while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletin says the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Olreman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.