Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio, looks like you can build a couple of new towers and an extra mote. At Camelot Morning Consult poll, which Trump still led a week ago today forty seven to forty five, now shows Vice President Harris ahead forty seven to forty six. And yes, it is all within the margin of error. And nevertheless, it is a three point swing in one week. And just as importantly over the weekend, her net favorability score jumped into positive territory in the IPSOS poll, a plus one. In the new Morning Consult poll today, fifty percent of voters view her favorably, forty six percent unfavorably. That is a of plus four. And in our fractured time and landscape, that is landslide territory and nothing that Biden or Trump ever came close to. And as Morning Consult notes, her popularity score swung by twelve points since last week, driven mostly by Independence. A week ago, thirty one percent of Independence viewed Kamala Harris favorably. It is now forty eight percent. Again, Harris is viewed positively by half of all voters, and her net score is four from the IPSOS poll, Trump is viewed favorably by just thirty six percent, and his netscore is minus sixteen. Vance is at twenty four percent approval. He's underwater by fifteen. Gurgle, gurgle, fascists back to that horse race number forty seven forty six Harris. The forty seven percent for Kamala Harris is also two points higher than Joe Biden's high water mark in the Morning Consult tracking poll dating back to twenty twenty two, and the third parties are vanishing only four percent total. Looking at Kennedy west Stein or any of the other Trump stalking horses, Kamala Harris is also killing it in the stodgier polls. Fox surveyed four swing states. Harris is up by six in Minnesota. They are tied in Michigan and Pennsylvania. She trails by one point in Wisconsin. They also got favorability numbers in those states, and Harris's averaging forty nine percent favorable there. On July third, the Wall Street Journal poll right after the debate had it Trump forty eight, Biden forty two. The New Wall Street Journal poll Trump forty nine, Harris forty seven. Trump marches in Atlas Intel, in Harris X in Monkey, those margins now down to one or two points. This is during Trump's double honeymoon, after the assassination attempt and his convention. The Angus Read Poll that is a nonprofit polling outfit from Canada hilariously mislabeled in one accounting as the Angus Raid Poll. Angus Reid has it Harris forty four to forty two. The Race to the White House polling average Trump ahead by one and two tenths of a point, averaging all poles and just one more number before your ears start to bleed. In February. February, IPSOS managed to measure party enthusiasm for voting. The Republicans were eighteen points ahead of the Democrats in enthusiasm. The Democrats are now six points ahead of the Republicans in enthusiasm. Lorrain may never fall till after sundown. By eighth, the morning fog must disappear. In short, they're simply not a more congenial spot for happily. Ever aftering on, here in come a lot Ulmer Chronkite CBS News. Of course, Trump meant if Christians voted for him now, they would not have to vote again in twenty twenty eight because he meant there wouldn't be elections, or maybe even more likely, because he meant there wouldn't be elections in twenty twenty eight that he could lose because one he has said this before, and two his minions have been actively at work for a year now to make him eligible for a third term. And three they are anti democracy, and one of the principles of being anti democracy is to make sure you can't lose whose elections. And most importantly, four, we all understand that Trump is running because if he does not win the twenty twenty four election and go to the White House, he will instead go to prison and he will die there. And if that is true in twenty twenty four, guess what it would also be true in twenty twenty eight. It would be slightly more difficult to prosecute Trump in twenty twenty nine because of statutes of limitations and Supreme Court corruption. On the other hand, think of all the new crimes Trump has vowed to commit between now and then. One of the few realities that dementia J Trump still understands is it's the White House or the Big House next year or four and a half years from now. It is why he's running. The translation of what he told the Bible thumpers over the weekend is not as complicated as all the fascists and sadly as many of us are saying. It is this, Christians, vote for me now. I will spend the next four years turning the United States into a Christian theocracy, you know the way Hitler promised to turn Germany into a Christian theocracy. And I will make sure you and I can't lose the next election. Either we will fix it so that only Christians will be allowed to vote, or we just won't bother voting. We just won't bother having an election. I'll just stay in power. And to point my own successor, JD. Vance, a good Christian who fears God. Now he may fear upholstery charges for damaged couches a little more, but he also fears God. So listen to what Trump said to the Bible thumpers in the context of all that if he's not president, he's liable to die in prison. Think about that. Think about that in the context of the Christian theocratic religious states of America, and you'll get it. Clearly. Christians get out and vote. Just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what, It'll be fixed. It'll be fine. You won't have to vote anymore, My beautiful Christians. I love you Christians. I'm a Christian. I love you. Get out. You gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to. Also, he did not say he wasn't a Christian. He said, I'm a Christian. But his neurological problems are beginning to migrate more deeply into his speech center, and that's the result what he's going to tell bunch of Christians he's not a Christian. I mean, even if that's true, why wouldn't he lie to them? Of course, he told them he was a Christian. He also told them this whole scenario before. He said this exact same thing on the twenty second of June. Do you know the power you have? If you would vote, it wouldn't even be See, you got to get out of vote just this time. I don't care. In four years, you don't have to vote, Okay, in four years, don't vote. I don't care. By that time, but we'll have it all straightened out, so it'll be much different. What's changed since that recording on the twenty second of June. Why did the newer version of I'll have it all fixed, you won't have to vote in twenty twenty eight? Why did that hit when the earlier one didn't. Because the thing that some of us never saw and others of us only saw vaguely, was that modern American political journalism really is one hundred percent gotcha Moments used to be fifty to fifty. When I started, it was still twenty five seventy five non gotcha. But the machine now has only the one setting. And with President Biden out of the race and Vice President Harris not only in a honeymoon but cleverly being just one of a chorus of Democrats all sticking to one message and one vibe and sticking to about three or four catch phrases, the entirety of the media gotcha machine is now pointed at Trump. They all covered that speech about not having to vote. They all covered him claiming Harris doesn't like Jewish people when her husband and her kids are Jewish. They all covered the weirdness of JD Vance. They all covered the ubiquity of the word weird. They all covered the uncertainty about what hit Trump's ear. They are all covering the appointment of Congressman Clay ghost Bus Higgins to the House Committee to investigate Trump's ear. To some degree, we got them to cover the bullet no bullet story belatedly, but successfully. Several generations of American reporters and editors no no forms of political journalism besides horse races and gotcha moments. Kanala Harris has excited the horse race journalists the way a divan excites JD. Vance. Oh, we have a new leader, yay. And in the absence of Joe Biden doddering, Jay Trump is the exclusive national distributor of gotcha moments, like when he just proposed having football coaches and stock car race team leaders tell the military who to bomb, or he otherwise screwed up at his most recent speeches. Roger Pensky like a great guy too. Guy won. He won twenty Indianapolis, five hundreds. This guy wins all the time. I mean, we appreciate. I said, let me use these guys to guide our military a little bit. When you can win so many races. That's okay. You know you guide same thing with coaches. You take some of the greatest football coaches, you put them at a table. What do you like, coach? Because in its own way, it's not so much really different, which is incapable of solving even the solest, smallest problem, the simplest of problems, we can no longer solve. We can't do anything. We are an institute and a powerful death penalty. We will put this on. That means to feeding Kamala Harris in a Landslade. Do you remember land Slade? Mister Slade, he was one of the characters on the Flintstones. He's nuts. So the media robbed of an easy and there is no other way to say. This slow moving target in Joe Biden, not only has repositioned itself against Trump, but it has found Biden's replacement. That's not Vice President Harris. Biden's replacement is this psycho jd Vance. My god, this guy is like six Sarah Palins standing on each other's shoulders, wearing a dan Quail disguise. He wants to control which citizens of which states are allowed to travel to other states. He has single handedly established cat ladies and cat gentleman. As an activated Democratic voting block, he allows people to think right, this guy would be one fat burger heartbeat away from the presidency. He used to be named James Donald Bowman. Then he changed his name to Jimmy Hammill. Then he changed his name to J. D. Vance. He used to think he was gay, and there's no evidence he ever had sectional with a couch But more importantly, there's also no evidence that, in two weeks since he became the nominee that he's done a damn thing to dispel that image. I want to see. I want to see what percentage of this country thanks. Jd Vance is a couch potato if you get my drift, And I want to send everybody who says yes a thank you gift. So far, so good. And more seriously, this strange, deeply uncomfortable in his own skin weirdo attacked from the far right before his selection because he had a Hindu wife from San Diego, a Hindu wife from San Diego who reportedly hated Trump. He has done nothing to defend her. In fact, jd Vance, if that is your real name, threw her under the bus, through her under the bus on the Megan, how many camera filters are you using today, Kelly podcast bus. Look, I love my wife so much. I love her because she's who she is. Obviously she's not a white person, and we've been acute attacked by some white supremacists over that. Obviously she's not a white person. If you say that without a trace of emotion or anger or support or defense, guess what, You're a racist. And oh, by the way, as David Corn of Mother Jones found out, right after Trump's inauguration in twenty seventeen, JD. Vance that is your real name, went to the University of Chicago and said, some of Trump's voters are racists. Definitely, some people who voted for Trump for racists, and they voted for him for racist reasons. I don't know how many Trump voters are going to hear that and be offended by it, and how many are going to say cool. Cool. But Vance's problem with racism is based on his remarks about his wife. He is a racist who draws some sort of excitement from someone who isn't a member of his group. In JD's case, his group would be sofas couches sets eas Chesterfield's Ottoman's day Beds, Shay's Lounges, and of course love Seeds JD. Van's Love seats. Hey remember the Tucker Carlson Kevin McCarthy insistences that there were hidden truths in the unreleased video from January sixth. First, remember Tucker Carlson and Kevin McCarthy, Well, they were right. The three decade congressional reporter Jamie Dupree with a startling discovery no less than Trump's lawyer Kenny the Cheese Ken Chesbrow literally caught on tape trying to be the courier for the fake elector's documents January fifth, twenty twenty one. I'm going to quote liberally from mister Dupree's reporting on his latest substack quote. Buried in the thousands of hours of US Capital Security tapes being released by House Republicans is video evidence of Donald Trump's campaign trying to get slates of fake GOP electors to Vice President Mike Pence on January fifth, twenty twenty one. The last ditch attempt involved Attorney chessbro one of the architects of the fake elector's scheme, and G. Michael Brown, the deputy director of election day operations for Trump's twenty twenty campaign. Mister dupree continues, with fake GOP documents from Michigan and Wisconsin missing in the mail. Brown flew to Washington, DC on January fifth with a backup copy of fake elector cigtificates for Michigan. The same day, bogus elector documents from Wisconsin were carried on a plane by a part time gopaid, who gave them to Chesbrow outside the Trump Hotel. Chesbrow and Brown then walked to Capitol Hill to deliver the envelopes. The US Capitol Police security camera system, which stretches far and wide across Capitol Hill, first picked up Chesbrow and Brown walking towards the Capitol at three forty pm on January fifth. The cameras would track the duo for the next twenty five minutes. Chesbrow was carrying one set of fake GOP elector documents in a familiar Manila oversized business envelope. The other set was in a white FedEx envelope. By three point fifty a pair of staffers came out side from the office of Representative Mike Kelly, Republican of Pennsylvania. That's when the bogus GOP elector documents from Michigan and Wisconsin were handed over After a short chat. The two aids from Rep. Kelly's office, now carrying the envelopes with the fake GOP electric documents, headed back through security at the Longworth Building. It was their job to deliver the envelopes to Senate officials for use at the Joint Session of Congress on January sixth, all part of Trump's plan to have Vice President Pence overturn the twenty twenty election results to keep Trump in office. Outside Brown took a selfie with the US Capital in the background to mark the moment Mission accomplished. He wrote in a text as an aside, whatever you do, particularly if it relates to politics, never ever say mission accomplished. To resume mister Dupree's account. Back inside, the two staffers from the office of Rep. Mike Kelly R. Pennsylvania, carrying the two envelopes handed over by Chasbrow and Brown, took the underground tunnels over to the US Capitol. Their destination was the Office of the Senate Parliamentarian, which was ransacked a day later on January sixth by supporters of Donald Trump. Security video shows the Aids dropping off the fake elector envelopes at four o four pm, but before they could get far, Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth McDonough ran around the corner to catch the two men. After a short discussion in the hallway, the Kelly Aids returned to her office and took back the fake elector documents end quote. Those men then tried and failed to deliver the fake documents to Mike Pence's office. The next day, they would try to get them to Pence via Senator Ron Johnson without success. Another side here is if you need success, do not involve Ron Johnson. I have liberally borrowed, okay stolen mister Dupree's work, so I encourage you to go to his substack Jamie Duprie dot substack j A m I E d U p r ee one word. He has illustrated all this with no less than twenty six freeze frames from the previously unreleased January sixth video that the Republicans were good enough to release. It's marvelous, shure. There's one other Trump legal note to leave them laughing with. Trump has agreed to do what the FBI calls a victim interview about the assassination attempt. This extends Trump's world record. He is now agreed to do a victim interview with somebody every day since April twenty seventh, nineteen fifty five, possibly earlier. Also of interest here, did you know there are two Joe Biden's that's right that shortly before the debate, the new one who they just built somewhere, but they got the blueprints wrong, and he's six foot four instead of six feet even deliberately tanked the debate. Deliberately tanked the debate so that the Democrats could fulfill their evil plan to swap in the obviously more popular Kamala Harris. Because this was all a democratic plot involving thousands of US. I wish this is actually posited by one of the deep thinkers on the loop to tick right. That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman stell ahead of us on this edition of Countdown. I was waiting to do my annual retweet on this one subject, where I take somebody else's celebration and add modestly you're welcome, and it suddenly dawned on me they didn't send out the tweet this year, celebrating their day the day that MSNBC launched July fifteenth, nineteen ninety six. They just missed the what twenty eighth anniversary, So I'll have to address inexactly the anniversary of the launch of a if I may say so, myself rather troubled place that somehow never quite lived up to its promise, except perhaps in the years two thousand and six through twenty eleven. Along with another upcoming anniversary over the weekend. One you may not know about the day MSNBC fired Rachel Maddow. That's coming up in things I promised not to tell first, there are still more idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the mis grants, morons and dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days worse persons in the world. Runs Robert F. Kennedy Junior. Remember Robert F. Kennedy Junior, the other crazy old guy in the presidential race who has sunk without trace. Where's he been? He's down to six percent in the polls. He's now taking nearly all of his support away from Trump. My friend Major Garrett just interviewed him for CBS, and first of all, I have to congratulate Major for finding him, for getting the proof of life video done with RFK Jr. And I also have to congratulate Major on keeping a straight face throughout this interview. As they put it. RFK Junior recently apologized to a woman who accused him of sexual assault. When asked if he would have to apologize to other women from his past, the presidential candidate told Major Garrett, quote, it's quite passible. I'm seventy years old. I had a very rambunctious life. No, no, no, no, that's not rambunctious. That's not rambunctious. Legally, that's not rambunctious. If you have to apologize to multiple women for sexual assault, that's no longer rambunctious. That's Harvey Weinstein or Epstein. That's it. God. First of all, something's going on in the Kennedy campaign. Instead of campaigning, he has canceled a series of campaign events. He met with Trump to discuss dropping out and what the price would be for endorsing Trump. He's not seeking donations, he's not having fundraising. He's just taking more money from that idiot woman he named as his vice president, Nicole Ditzehan and he's a joint fundraising committee with the Libertarian Party. I mean there has to be a point at which Trump bribes Kennedy for his endorsement and his voters. I mean, it just has to happen. It's Trump's last play at this point. Anyway. Runner up worser Amy vander Steele stupid person Trump supporter. I know that's redundant. You may remember her vaguely as a Pizzagate believer and disseminator who thus decided that because she could see a conspiracy in a basement where there was no basement, let alone a conspiracy, she was an investigative reporter, because those people think that being able to see hallucinations means you're an investigative reporter. She also said she was a member of the Trump twenty twenty re election campaign board, and Trump milked that for about forty days and then finally disavowed her after she insisted that there were replicants and body doubles and twenty five million undocumented immigrants and they said, this dame is two nuts even for us. Well, she now needs to use some of her own investigative skills on math. Amy vander Steele Kamala tanks Netflix. Netflix may a donation to her campaign and the stock tumbles two billion dollars in two hours, a forty percent drop in stock price. Perhaps this would be a good time for a billionaire conservative to come in and buy that liberal loving platform. What are you doing? Yeah, it was not. It wasn't. It wasn't forty percent. It was zero point four to three percent. Netflix, which is worth two hundred and seventy billion dollars, dropped two dollars and seventy two cents a share. Math is tough when you hallucinate about what the answers might be. Three minus two equals Jesus, Yeah, Jesus, you're right, but our winner. And speaking of that Bill Mitchell, you may remember such films as Bill Mitchell stars on social media as the pro Trump guy who suddenly went anti Trump and then went pro Trump, and then then pro Ron DeSantis and then anti Trump and then anti DeSantis and then anti Trump and then he left Twitter, and then he quit Twitter, and then he deleted his account that he put in a new account and he rejoined Twitter. Well he's now pro Trump again, but with a twist, he's pro Trump because there's been a Biden body double. See he thinks Bill, that is, he thinks people don't know about photoshop. Bill hasn't even gotten to AI yet. Bill's still working with photoshop. He has posted a picture that he has captioned twenty twenty four Biden goes for a walk with twenty twenty two Biden. There are two pictures of Joe Biden. One he's wearing a tan suit. This was shot from the middle distance. Superimposed next to him is another shot of Joe Biden in a blue suit that was shot from closer, so the one in the blue suit looks taller than the one in the brown suit. Everybody laughed at this. Bill reposted it with additional information. The new version of Biden, who is six foot four, is lankier and has bigger hands. Clearly a fake who took a dive during the debate. All right, we've now moved from you think that something done with photoshop? That I could do and make a version in which there's one Joe Biden who's seventy feet tall, and another Joe Biden who's seven feet tall, and another Joe Biden who's seven inches tall. I can do that on my iPad let alone, on my laptop. We've moved from that to you want people to believe that the Joe Biden at the debate was clever enough to be a body double, to go out there and convince everybody, including Trump, that he was deliberately well, convincing that he was not deliberately struggling, convincing he was struggling for ninety minutes. It's on the biggest stage in the world. And then after everything that followed, wait three weeks before you dropped out of the presidential race and do this deliberately for some unknown reason that's clear only to Bill Mitchell, you're able to do that. And instead of getting up in front of a national audience on TV and saying I am Joe Biden and I am capable of being my own body double, and to deliberately make it look like I don't know what I'm talking about for ninety minutes so that I can drop out three weeks later to bring in Kamala Harris, I am super Joe Biden, instead of doing that and being something approaching I don't know, ten Einstein's in one head, I don't know, and earning election unanimously because people would then say I'm better vote for this guy. I don't know what he's capable of. He's capable of being his own body double. Instead of doing that, he dropped out three weeks later, Bill, Bill, you realize that if there were body doubles, they'd have swapped in a new Trump already who was not fat, insane and self destructing, right, Mitchell? Two days? Worst person? Or is he in the world a body double? Finally, our number one story on the Countdown things I promised not to tell and back to my favorite topic me well, actually not just me this time. This is an important anniversary for an important TV news show, and I don't mean one of mine. August third, two thousand and seven was near as I can calculate. The day I first met Rachel matdow So. August fourth, two thousand and seven, fifteen years ago, was when I started to push MSNBC to make her a host, specifically the guest host for my show, with an eye towards eventually getting her to host her own show which would follow mine, which happened almost immediately just thirteen months later. On the other hand, two years earlier than that first meeting, August eight, two thousand and five, was the day MSNBC had cleverly fired Rachel Matdow early in two thousand and seven, before MSNBC moved to thirty Rockefeller Center in New York from the charms of the row of factory outlet discount stores in which it had been nestled in in Secaucus, New Jersey since its inception. My executive producer Izy Povich had walked into my office and asked me if I remembered Rachel Mattow. Of course, isn't she on Carlson's I stopped myself. She had been a regular panelist on Tucker Carlson's last non Nazi TV program, which incongruously aired right after mine at nine o'clock on MSNBC. Rick Caplan, then the ex president of CNN and shortly to be ex president of MSNBC, had first foisted this repulsive scumbag on us and then asked me to play his liberal foil in all the Carlson pilot shows, which Kaplan then demanded. One night, it dawned on Kaplan that if he made me Carlson's co host, he could use our initials and title the show TKO. And as he pitched me the idea, he could not have been happier nor more surprised if he had invented the alphabet himself. When I pointed out to Rick Caplan that I already had a show, and it already took me all goddamn day to do it, and I had no desire to add three hours to my schedule, nor to ever work with Tucker Carl, he had the new show's producer Bill Wolfe search around for other potential liberal foils. Wolf found two, our old sports colleague Max Kellerman and this Air America radio host Rachel Matdow only as is. He asked me that day if I remembered her. Did I realize that I had not seen Rachel Mattow in our studios recently in New Jersey. Oh, it's well over a year, she explained. When Tucker's show started to die and they trimmed salary, they had to cut back to just one liberal. They kept Max Kellerman. I found that astonishing, even though I had only met Rachel maybe three times in passing, once at Air America's launch party, and we'd interacted superficially for maybe I don't know a minute in total. They kept Kellerman over her. Who kept Kellerman I like Max, but who would keep Kellerman I Isipovich was not sure. We both guessed it was Phil Griffin, who was basically running the place anyway. Some but he suggested she would make a good guest in almost anything political, and I interrupted, Izzie God, yes tonight. Izzy laughed and said I'll go book her any segment in particular, and I said we should adhere to our usual high and discerning standards. One of the segments we haven't booked a guest for yet will do. Rachel, of course, was Aeradite's succinct, knowledgeable, compelling, self deprecating, and she wasn't another guy. We began to book her to talk about pretty much almost anything every week. Soon it became twice a week. She also had fun on TV without overdoing it. The in house phrase was she plays and she played. Despite the fact that we were always in different studios, we would either throw her into a one camera room called the Nook, literally converted from a third floor broom closet at thirty Rock, or we would rent some time at an All Networks live shot assembly line studio called Media three, which was a few blocks further downtown. I would remain on the ever increasingly antiquated Lazy Susan set at MSNBC in Jersey, and as these appearances started, this was when the love letters to her and to us began to show up on the website The Daily Coasts. As the ratings rose that spring and MSNBC's moved to New York in October, loomed. Phil Griffin had offered me a perk as long as the viewership totals held. He said, I could skip the weary commute to Secaucus on Fridays. I could write the show in my apartment on Central Park South. I could have an early dinner with my cohabitant, Katie Turr, actually in our home. I could walk over to thirty Rock at seven pm and do countdown from that aforementioned nook. This was balm for my soul until a word came down from the office of the Director of News for NBC that for some arcane reason, the nook had to be rebuilt and it would be out of commission for like two months. It was credit Phil Griffin now ponied up his offer of Jersey Free Friday continued, and he was willing to rent me one of those studios at Media three and I could anchor the show from there. Thus did it happen that as I breezed in for the second week in a row to Media three at seven point thirty on Friday, August third, two thousand and seven, and made my way to the makeup room, our now go to countdown guest Rachel Meadow was already sitting in the chair. As mentioned previously, we had met before in passing. We had not met since she had become a regular. She rose instantly and unnecessarily. And as she did and we exchanged pleasantries, I noticed she had one sheet of paper in her hand. It had clearly been computer printed. There was a line or two of texts at the top of the page, then about half a sheet's worth of words written by hand, and then there was a second line of computer printed text and another half sheet of longhand, and the back of the paper had the same format. I can read upside down. I mean I can read a paper or a book when the paper or book is upside down. It's one of my few parlor tricks. It took only a few seconds for me to realize that the computer printed lines of text were the questions I had composed for Rachel's segment that night. Then, in her excellent penmanship, what are the answers to those questions? It looked for all the world like a high school or college short essay exam page four short questions and four half page answers. My astonishment was completely organic. What's that? Rachel was embarrassed? I just sorry, I just she hid the sheet behind her back. I just do some prep for the show. It's my prep sheet. I don't read from it on the air or anything, but I like to write everything down, Longhand, because it helps me organ my thoughts, and I like to have it in front of me in the studio in case I interrupted her. Now and said, in case you freeze or you get interrupted or distracted by the idiot host, I pulled from my pocket four folded up pages of my own on which I had printed handwritten notes for each of the scheduled interviews. I said, I find it's writing it by hand that really helps here. It's I think it's some sort of memory trick. Her gasp of astonishment turned into a warm laugh. She and I use the same TV shortcut without knowing it. Now, something else popped into my head. I said, you do realize you are more prepared for your four minute segment than I am for the entire damn show. Right? She laughed again, and I waved my folded crib notes. You do realize that nobody does this except you and me. It's lack of confidence meets paranoia meets fear that you'll forget your good lines. I squinted at her as the thought came to me, you ever thought of hosting one of these shows? Rachel suddenly drew her head back, as if evading a right cross. What No, I couldn't, I said, we haven't had a good guest host in a long time. The makeup artist moved to attempt to straighten up my hair. You want to give it a try, she seemed to go a little pale. No, I don't think so, really, but I don't. How difficult could it be if I stepped in here with no experience and suddenly I had the most popular liberal news show pick Up two? How good you know? I'm tom three two to one? How difficult could it be if I stepped in here with no experience and suddenly I had the most popular liberal news show, And then I did it again eight years later? She looked unconvinced. I mean, you already do the prep. What worries you? She looked away from me and mumbled prompter. I laughed, did you say prompter? The prompter? The teleprompter? She looked away again. I don't think I could use it. I'm sorry, I said, with mock anger. Have you padded your resume? Didn't you get one of them Rhodes scholarshipy things? And you go over to England to study stuff and you think you can't learn how to use a teleprompter. For God's sake, I learned to use a teleprompter in ten minutes from Stuart fing Varney at CNN. There's nothing to it but practice. Rachel was not convinced. I said, get made up, Come into the studio, sit with me off camera. I'm just sitting in there reading the show off the teleprompter. Watch you'll see. Let me ask you this, if you knew how to use the teleprompter, if you already knew, would you want to try hosting? Her eyes got a little smaller, and she seemed nervous, and very quietly, Rachel Maddow said, yes, we would travel a million in bureaucratic miles and a year together before we actually sat down for prompter school. After one of her guest hits on a Monday edition of Countdown, she and I and tow their credit countdowns. Technical director Brian Nailsnik and much of the crew stayed for an extra half an hour. We put two cameras and two monitors almost next to each other so she could read the prompter along with me, or watch the other monitor to see where my eyes were as I read from the prompter. And then after a while we fixed it so I could read along with her, or watch the other monitor to see where her eyes were as she read. We read my scripts, we read scripts that she had written. I gave her the Tom Snyder prompter trick. Okay, here's the Tom Snyder prompter trick. Try to see and read entire sentences, not individual words. Focus your eyes not on the pain of plastic where the words are projected, but focus several inches beyond it, where the lens actually is in the camera. I told her tonight, this is your freshman year. Tomorrow will be sophomore Wednesday's, Junior Thursday, Senior Friday's graduation, and also the homecoming football game in grad school and the Alumni Association will be hitting you up for your money. On Saturday, Rachel Matdow came in every night that week to practice overcoming her biggest fear, the teleprompter. I stayed late again on Friday. What do you think, Rachel asked me, who cares? I answered, what do you think? She straightened her practice script by tapping it against the anchored desk like an anchor does, and said, I think this is the greatest invention in the history of mankind. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips Chanel arranged, produced, and performed nearly all of our music. Mister Ray on guitars, bass and drums, and mister Chanelle on the orchestration and the keyboards produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. My announcer today was also Nancy Faust. Everything else was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this the ninety ninth day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the one thousand, three hundredth day since convicted felon Donald J. Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the Tember eighteenth sentencing hearing. Use the mental health system. You've got it. President Biden used presidential immunity to stop him from doing it again, while waste till can also Republicans, please stop shooting at Trump. The next schedule countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins is the news requires till the next one. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck? Or am I a Keith Olderman replicant. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio, looks like you can build a couple of new towers and an extra mote. At Camelot Morning Consult poll, which Trump still led a week ago today forty seven to forty five, now shows Vice President Harris ahead forty seven to forty six. And yes, it is all within the margin of error. And nevertheless, it is a three point swing in one week. And just as importantly over the weekend, her net favorability score jumped into positive territory in the IPSOS poll, a plus one. In the new Morning Consult poll today, fifty percent of voters view her favorably, forty six percent unfavorably. That is a of plus four. And in our fractured time and landscape, that is landslide territory and nothing that Biden or Trump ever came close to. And as Morning Consult notes, her popularity score swung by twelve points since last week, driven mostly by Independence. A week ago, thirty one percent of Independence viewed Kamala Harris favorably. It is now forty eight percent. Again, Harris is viewed positively by half of all voters, and her net score is four from the IPSOS poll, Trump is viewed favorably by just thirty six percent, and his netscore is minus sixteen. Vance is at twenty four percent approval. He's underwater by fifteen. Gurgle, gurgle, fascists back to that horse race number forty seven forty six Harris. The forty seven percent for Kamala Harris is also two points higher than Joe Biden's high water mark in the Morning Consult tracking poll dating back to twenty twenty two, and the third parties are vanishing only four percent total. Looking at Kennedy west Stein or any of the other Trump stalking horses, Kamala Harris is also killing it in the stodgier polls. Fox surveyed four swing states. Harris is up by six in Minnesota. They are tied in Michigan and Pennsylvania. She trails by one point in Wisconsin. They also got favorability numbers in those states, and Harris's averaging forty nine percent favorable there. On July third, the Wall Street Journal poll right after the debate had it Trump forty eight, Biden forty two. The New Wall Street Journal poll Trump forty nine, Harris forty seven. Trump marches in Atlas Intel, in Harris X in Monkey, those margins now down to one or two points. This is during Trump's double honeymoon, after the assassination attempt and his convention. The Angus Read Poll that is a nonprofit polling outfit from Canada hilariously mislabeled in one accounting as the Angus Raid Poll. Angus Reid has it Harris forty four to forty two. The Race to the White House polling average Trump ahead by one and two tenths of a point, averaging all poles and just one more number before your ears start to bleed. In February. February, IPSOS managed to measure party enthusiasm for voting. The Republicans were eighteen points ahead of the Democrats in enthusiasm. The Democrats are now six points ahead of the Republicans in enthusiasm. Lorrain may never fall till after sundown. By eighth, the morning fog must disappear. In short, they're simply not a more congenial spot for happily. Ever aftering on, here in come a lot Ulmer Chronkite CBS News. Of course, Trump meant if Christians voted for him now, they would not have to vote again in twenty twenty eight because he meant there wouldn't be elections, or maybe even more likely, because he meant there wouldn't be elections in twenty twenty eight that he could lose because one he has said this before, and two his minions have been actively at work for a year now to make him eligible for a third term. And three they are anti democracy, and one of the principles of being anti democracy is to make sure you can't lose whose elections. And most importantly, four, we all understand that Trump is running because if he does not win the twenty twenty four election and go to the White House, he will instead go to prison and he will die there. And if that is true in twenty twenty four, guess what it would also be true in twenty twenty eight. It would be slightly more difficult to prosecute Trump in twenty twenty nine because of statutes of limitations and Supreme Court corruption. On the other hand, think of all the new crimes Trump has vowed to commit between now and then. One of the few realities that dementia J Trump still understands is it's the White House or the Big House next year or four and a half years from now. It is why he's running. The translation of what he told the Bible thumpers over the weekend is not as complicated as all the fascists and sadly as many of us are saying. It is this, Christians, vote for me now. I will spend the next four years turning the United States into a Christian theocracy, you know the way Hitler promised to turn Germany into a Christian theocracy. And I will make sure you and I can't lose the next election. Either we will fix it so that only Christians will be allowed to vote, or we just won't bother voting. We just won't bother having an election. I'll just stay in power. And to point my own successor, JD. Vance, a good Christian who fears God. Now he may fear upholstery charges for damaged couches a little more, but he also fears God. So listen to what Trump said to the Bible thumpers in the context of all that if he's not president, he's liable to die in prison. Think about that. Think about that in the context of the Christian theocratic religious states of America, and you'll get it. Clearly. Christians get out and vote. Just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what, It'll be fixed. It'll be fine. You won't have to vote anymore, My beautiful Christians. I love you Christians. I'm a Christian. I love you. Get out. You gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to. Also, he did not say he wasn't a Christian. He said, I'm a Christian. But his neurological problems are beginning to migrate more deeply into his speech center, and that's the result what he's going to tell bunch of Christians he's not a Christian. I mean, even if that's true, why wouldn't he lie to them? Of course, he told them he was a Christian. He also told them this whole scenario before. He said this exact same thing on the twenty second of June. Do you know the power you have? If you would vote, it wouldn't even be See, you got to get out of vote just this time. I don't care. In four years, you don't have to vote, Okay, in four years, don't vote. I don't care. By that time, but we'll have it all straightened out, so it'll be much different. What's changed since that recording on the twenty second of June. Why did the newer version of I'll have it all fixed, you won't have to vote in twenty twenty eight? Why did that hit when the earlier one didn't. Because the thing that some of us never saw and others of us only saw vaguely, was that modern American political journalism really is one hundred percent gotcha Moments used to be fifty to fifty. When I started, it was still twenty five seventy five non gotcha. But the machine now has only the one setting. And with President Biden out of the race and Vice President Harris not only in a honeymoon but cleverly being just one of a chorus of Democrats all sticking to one message and one vibe and sticking to about three or four catch phrases, the entirety of the media gotcha machine is now pointed at Trump. They all covered that speech about not having to vote. They all covered him claiming Harris doesn't like Jewish people when her husband and her kids are Jewish. They all covered the weirdness of JD Vance. They all covered the ubiquity of the word weird. They all covered the uncertainty about what hit Trump's ear. They are all covering the appointment of Congressman Clay ghost Bus Higgins to the House Committee to investigate Trump's ear. To some degree, we got them to cover the bullet no bullet story belatedly, but successfully. Several generations of American reporters and editors no no forms of political journalism besides horse races and gotcha moments. Kanala Harris has excited the horse race journalists the way a divan excites JD. Vance. Oh, we have a new leader, yay. And in the absence of Joe Biden doddering, Jay Trump is the exclusive national distributor of gotcha moments, like when he just proposed having football coaches and stock car race team leaders tell the military who to bomb, or he otherwise screwed up at his most recent speeches. Roger Pensky like a great guy too. Guy won. He won twenty Indianapolis, five hundreds. This guy wins all the time. I mean, we appreciate. I said, let me use these guys to guide our military a little bit. When you can win so many races. That's okay. You know you guide same thing with coaches. You take some of the greatest football coaches, you put them at a table. What do you like, coach? Because in its own way, it's not so much really different, which is incapable of solving even the solest, smallest problem, the simplest of problems, we can no longer solve. We can't do anything. We are an institute and a powerful death penalty. We will put this on. That means to feeding Kamala Harris in a Landslade. Do you remember land Slade? Mister Slade, he was one of the characters on the Flintstones. He's nuts. So the media robbed of an easy and there is no other way to say. This slow moving target in Joe Biden, not only has repositioned itself against Trump, but it has found Biden's replacement. That's not Vice President Harris. Biden's replacement is this psycho jd Vance. My god, this guy is like six Sarah Palins standing on each other's shoulders, wearing a dan Quail disguise. He wants to control which citizens of which states are allowed to travel to other states. He has single handedly established cat ladies and cat gentleman. As an activated Democratic voting block, he allows people to think right, this guy would be one fat burger heartbeat away from the presidency. He used to be named James Donald Bowman. Then he changed his name to Jimmy Hammill. Then he changed his name to J. D. Vance. He used to think he was gay, and there's no evidence he ever had sectional with a couch But more importantly, there's also no evidence that, in two weeks since he became the nominee that he's done a damn thing to dispel that image. I want to see. I want to see what percentage of this country thanks. Jd Vance is a couch potato if you get my drift, And I want to send everybody who says yes a thank you gift. So far, so good. And more seriously, this strange, deeply uncomfortable in his own skin weirdo attacked from the far right before his selection because he had a Hindu wife from San Diego, a Hindu wife from San Diego who reportedly hated Trump. He has done nothing to defend her. In fact, jd Vance, if that is your real name, threw her under the bus, through her under the bus on the Megan, how many camera filters are you using today, Kelly podcast bus. Look, I love my wife so much. I love her because she's who she is. Obviously she's not a white person, and we've been acute attacked by some white supremacists over that. Obviously she's not a white person. If you say that without a trace of emotion or anger or support or defense, guess what, You're a racist. And oh, by the way, as David Corn of Mother Jones found out, right after Trump's inauguration in twenty seventeen, JD. Vance that is your real name, went to the University of Chicago and said, some of Trump's voters are racists. Definitely, some people who voted for Trump for racists, and they voted for him for racist reasons. I don't know how many Trump voters are going to hear that and be offended by it, and how many are going to say cool. Cool. But Vance's problem with racism is based on his remarks about his wife. He is a racist who draws some sort of excitement from someone who isn't a member of his group. In JD's case, his group would be sofas couches sets eas Chesterfield's Ottoman's day Beds, Shay's Lounges, and of course love Seeds JD. Van's Love seats. Hey remember the Tucker Carlson Kevin McCarthy insistences that there were hidden truths in the unreleased video from January sixth. First, remember Tucker Carlson and Kevin McCarthy, Well, they were right. The three decade congressional reporter Jamie Dupree with a startling discovery no less than Trump's lawyer Kenny the Cheese Ken Chesbrow literally caught on tape trying to be the courier for the fake elector's documents January fifth, twenty twenty one. I'm going to quote liberally from mister Dupree's reporting on his latest substack quote. Buried in the thousands of hours of US Capital Security tapes being released by House Republicans is video evidence of Donald Trump's campaign trying to get slates of fake GOP electors to Vice President Mike Pence on January fifth, twenty twenty one. The last ditch attempt involved Attorney chessbro one of the architects of the fake elector's scheme, and G. Michael Brown, the deputy director of election day operations for Trump's twenty twenty campaign. Mister dupree continues, with fake GOP documents from Michigan and Wisconsin missing in the mail. Brown flew to Washington, DC on January fifth with a backup copy of fake elector cigtificates for Michigan. The same day, bogus elector documents from Wisconsin were carried on a plane by a part time gopaid, who gave them to Chesbrow outside the Trump Hotel. Chesbrow and Brown then walked to Capitol Hill to deliver the envelopes. The US Capitol Police security camera system, which stretches far and wide across Capitol Hill, first picked up Chesbrow and Brown walking towards the Capitol at three forty pm on January fifth. The cameras would track the duo for the next twenty five minutes. Chesbrow was carrying one set of fake GOP elector documents in a familiar Manila oversized business envelope. The other set was in a white FedEx envelope. By three point fifty a pair of staffers came out side from the office of Representative Mike Kelly, Republican of Pennsylvania. That's when the bogus GOP elector documents from Michigan and Wisconsin were handed over After a short chat. The two aids from Rep. Kelly's office, now carrying the envelopes with the fake GOP electric documents, headed back through security at the Longworth Building. It was their job to deliver the envelopes to Senate officials for use at the Joint Session of Congress on January sixth, all part of Trump's plan to have Vice President Pence overturn the twenty twenty election results to keep Trump in office. Outside Brown took a selfie with the US Capital in the background to mark the moment Mission accomplished. He wrote in a text as an aside, whatever you do, particularly if it relates to politics, never ever say mission accomplished. To resume mister Dupree's account. Back inside, the two staffers from the office of Rep. Mike Kelly R. Pennsylvania, carrying the two envelopes handed over by Chasbrow and Brown, took the underground tunnels over to the US Capitol. Their destination was the Office of the Senate Parliamentarian, which was ransacked a day later on January sixth by supporters of Donald Trump. Security video shows the Aids dropping off the fake elector envelopes at four o four pm, but before they could get far, Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth McDonough ran around the corner to catch the two men. After a short discussion in the hallway, the Kelly Aids returned to her office and took back the fake elector documents end quote. Those men then tried and failed to deliver the fake documents to Mike Pence's office. The next day, they would try to get them to Pence via Senator Ron Johnson without success. Another side here is if you need success, do not involve Ron Johnson. I have liberally borrowed, okay stolen mister Dupree's work, so I encourage you to go to his substack Jamie Duprie dot substack j A m I E d U p r ee one word. He has illustrated all this with no less than twenty six freeze frames from the previously unreleased January sixth video that the Republicans were good enough to release. It's marvelous, shure. There's one other Trump legal note to leave them laughing with. Trump has agreed to do what the FBI calls a victim interview about the assassination attempt. This extends Trump's world record. He is now agreed to do a victim interview with somebody every day since April twenty seventh, nineteen fifty five, possibly earlier. Also of interest here, did you know there are two Joe Biden's that's right that shortly before the debate, the new one who they just built somewhere, but they got the blueprints wrong, and he's six foot four instead of six feet even deliberately tanked the debate. Deliberately tanked the debate so that the Democrats could fulfill their evil plan to swap in the obviously more popular Kamala Harris. Because this was all a democratic plot involving thousands of US. I wish this is actually posited by one of the deep thinkers on the loop to tick right. That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman stell ahead of us on this edition of Countdown. I was waiting to do my annual retweet on this one subject, where I take somebody else's celebration and add modestly you're welcome, and it suddenly dawned on me they didn't send out the tweet this year, celebrating their day the day that MSNBC launched July fifteenth, nineteen ninety six. They just missed the what twenty eighth anniversary, So I'll have to address inexactly the anniversary of the launch of a if I may say so, myself rather troubled place that somehow never quite lived up to its promise, except perhaps in the years two thousand and six through twenty eleven. Along with another upcoming anniversary over the weekend. One you may not know about the day MSNBC fired Rachel Maddow. That's coming up in things I promised not to tell first, there are still more idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the mis grants, morons and dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days worse persons in the world. Runs Robert F. Kennedy Junior. Remember Robert F. Kennedy Junior, the other crazy old guy in the presidential race who has sunk without trace. Where's he been? He's down to six percent in the polls. He's now taking nearly all of his support away from Trump. My friend Major Garrett just interviewed him for CBS, and first of all, I have to congratulate Major for finding him, for getting the proof of life video done with RFK Jr. And I also have to congratulate Major on keeping a straight face throughout this interview. As they put it. RFK Junior recently apologized to a woman who accused him of sexual assault. When asked if he would have to apologize to other women from his past, the presidential candidate told Major Garrett, quote, it's quite passible. I'm seventy years old. I had a very rambunctious life. No, no, no, no, that's not rambunctious. That's not rambunctious. Legally, that's not rambunctious. If you have to apologize to multiple women for sexual assault, that's no longer rambunctious. That's Harvey Weinstein or Epstein. That's it. God. First of all, something's going on in the Kennedy campaign. Instead of campaigning, he has canceled a series of campaign events. He met with Trump to discuss dropping out and what the price would be for endorsing Trump. He's not seeking donations, he's not having fundraising. He's just taking more money from that idiot woman he named as his vice president, Nicole Ditzehan and he's a joint fundraising committee with the Libertarian Party. I mean there has to be a point at which Trump bribes Kennedy for his endorsement and his voters. I mean, it just has to happen. It's Trump's last play at this point. Anyway. Runner up worser Amy vander Steele stupid person Trump supporter. I know that's redundant. You may remember her vaguely as a Pizzagate believer and disseminator who thus decided that because she could see a conspiracy in a basement where there was no basement, let alone a conspiracy, she was an investigative reporter, because those people think that being able to see hallucinations means you're an investigative reporter. She also said she was a member of the Trump twenty twenty re election campaign board, and Trump milked that for about forty days and then finally disavowed her after she insisted that there were replicants and body doubles and twenty five million undocumented immigrants and they said, this dame is two nuts even for us. Well, she now needs to use some of her own investigative skills on math. Amy vander Steele Kamala tanks Netflix. Netflix may a donation to her campaign and the stock tumbles two billion dollars in two hours, a forty percent drop in stock price. Perhaps this would be a good time for a billionaire conservative to come in and buy that liberal loving platform. What are you doing? Yeah, it was not. It wasn't. It wasn't forty percent. It was zero point four to three percent. Netflix, which is worth two hundred and seventy billion dollars, dropped two dollars and seventy two cents a share. Math is tough when you hallucinate about what the answers might be. Three minus two equals Jesus, Yeah, Jesus, you're right, but our winner. And speaking of that Bill Mitchell, you may remember such films as Bill Mitchell stars on social media as the pro Trump guy who suddenly went anti Trump and then went pro Trump, and then then pro Ron DeSantis and then anti Trump and then anti DeSantis and then anti Trump and then he left Twitter, and then he quit Twitter, and then he deleted his account that he put in a new account and he rejoined Twitter. Well he's now pro Trump again, but with a twist, he's pro Trump because there's been a Biden body double. See he thinks Bill, that is, he thinks people don't know about photoshop. Bill hasn't even gotten to AI yet. Bill's still working with photoshop. He has posted a picture that he has captioned twenty twenty four Biden goes for a walk with twenty twenty two Biden. There are two pictures of Joe Biden. One he's wearing a tan suit. This was shot from the middle distance. Superimposed next to him is another shot of Joe Biden in a blue suit that was shot from closer, so the one in the blue suit looks taller than the one in the brown suit. Everybody laughed at this. Bill reposted it with additional information. The new version of Biden, who is six foot four, is lankier and has bigger hands. Clearly a fake who took a dive during the debate. All right, we've now moved from you think that something done with photoshop? That I could do and make a version in which there's one Joe Biden who's seventy feet tall, and another Joe Biden who's seven feet tall, and another Joe Biden who's seven inches tall. I can do that on my iPad let alone, on my laptop. We've moved from that to you want people to believe that the Joe Biden at the debate was clever enough to be a body double, to go out there and convince everybody, including Trump, that he was deliberately well, convincing that he was not deliberately struggling, convincing he was struggling for ninety minutes. It's on the biggest stage in the world. And then after everything that followed, wait three weeks before you dropped out of the presidential race and do this deliberately for some unknown reason that's clear only to Bill Mitchell, you're able to do that. And instead of getting up in front of a national audience on TV and saying I am Joe Biden and I am capable of being my own body double, and to deliberately make it look like I don't know what I'm talking about for ninety minutes so that I can drop out three weeks later to bring in Kamala Harris, I am super Joe Biden, instead of doing that and being something approaching I don't know, ten Einstein's in one head, I don't know, and earning election unanimously because people would then say I'm better vote for this guy. I don't know what he's capable of. He's capable of being his own body double. Instead of doing that, he dropped out three weeks later, Bill, Bill, you realize that if there were body doubles, they'd have swapped in a new Trump already who was not fat, insane and self destructing, right, Mitchell? Two days? Worst person? Or is he in the world a body double? Finally, our number one story on the Countdown things I promised not to tell and back to my favorite topic me well, actually not just me this time. This is an important anniversary for an important TV news show, and I don't mean one of mine. August third, two thousand and seven was near as I can calculate. The day I first met Rachel matdow So. August fourth, two thousand and seven, fifteen years ago, was when I started to push MSNBC to make her a host, specifically the guest host for my show, with an eye towards eventually getting her to host her own show which would follow mine, which happened almost immediately just thirteen months later. On the other hand, two years earlier than that first meeting, August eight, two thousand and five, was the day MSNBC had cleverly fired Rachel Matdow early in two thousand and seven, before MSNBC moved to thirty Rockefeller Center in New York from the charms of the row of factory outlet discount stores in which it had been nestled in in Secaucus, New Jersey since its inception. My executive producer Izy Povich had walked into my office and asked me if I remembered Rachel Mattow. Of course, isn't she on Carlson's I stopped myself. She had been a regular panelist on Tucker Carlson's last non Nazi TV program, which incongruously aired right after mine at nine o'clock on MSNBC. Rick Caplan, then the ex president of CNN and shortly to be ex president of MSNBC, had first foisted this repulsive scumbag on us and then asked me to play his liberal foil in all the Carlson pilot shows, which Kaplan then demanded. One night, it dawned on Kaplan that if he made me Carlson's co host, he could use our initials and title the show TKO. And as he pitched me the idea, he could not have been happier nor more surprised if he had invented the alphabet himself. When I pointed out to Rick Caplan that I already had a show, and it already took me all goddamn day to do it, and I had no desire to add three hours to my schedule, nor to ever work with Tucker Carl, he had the new show's producer Bill Wolfe search around for other potential liberal foils. Wolf found two, our old sports colleague Max Kellerman and this Air America radio host Rachel Matdow only as is. He asked me that day if I remembered her. Did I realize that I had not seen Rachel Mattow in our studios recently in New Jersey. Oh, it's well over a year, she explained. When Tucker's show started to die and they trimmed salary, they had to cut back to just one liberal. They kept Max Kellerman. I found that astonishing, even though I had only met Rachel maybe three times in passing, once at Air America's launch party, and we'd interacted superficially for maybe I don't know a minute in total. They kept Kellerman over her. Who kept Kellerman I like Max, but who would keep Kellerman I Isipovich was not sure. We both guessed it was Phil Griffin, who was basically running the place anyway. Some but he suggested she would make a good guest in almost anything political, and I interrupted, Izzie God, yes tonight. Izzy laughed and said I'll go book her any segment in particular, and I said we should adhere to our usual high and discerning standards. One of the segments we haven't booked a guest for yet will do. Rachel, of course, was Aeradite's succinct, knowledgeable, compelling, self deprecating, and she wasn't another guy. We began to book her to talk about pretty much almost anything every week. Soon it became twice a week. She also had fun on TV without overdoing it. The in house phrase was she plays and she played. Despite the fact that we were always in different studios, we would either throw her into a one camera room called the Nook, literally converted from a third floor broom closet at thirty Rock, or we would rent some time at an All Networks live shot assembly line studio called Media three, which was a few blocks further downtown. I would remain on the ever increasingly antiquated Lazy Susan set at MSNBC in Jersey, and as these appearances started, this was when the love letters to her and to us began to show up on the website The Daily Coasts. As the ratings rose that spring and MSNBC's moved to New York in October, loomed. Phil Griffin had offered me a perk as long as the viewership totals held. He said, I could skip the weary commute to Secaucus on Fridays. I could write the show in my apartment on Central Park South. I could have an early dinner with my cohabitant, Katie Turr, actually in our home. I could walk over to thirty Rock at seven pm and do countdown from that aforementioned nook. This was balm for my soul until a word came down from the office of the Director of News for NBC that for some arcane reason, the nook had to be rebuilt and it would be out of commission for like two months. It was credit Phil Griffin now ponied up his offer of Jersey Free Friday continued, and he was willing to rent me one of those studios at Media three and I could anchor the show from there. Thus did it happen that as I breezed in for the second week in a row to Media three at seven point thirty on Friday, August third, two thousand and seven, and made my way to the makeup room, our now go to countdown guest Rachel Meadow was already sitting in the chair. As mentioned previously, we had met before in passing. We had not met since she had become a regular. She rose instantly and unnecessarily. And as she did and we exchanged pleasantries, I noticed she had one sheet of paper in her hand. It had clearly been computer printed. There was a line or two of texts at the top of the page, then about half a sheet's worth of words written by hand, and then there was a second line of computer printed text and another half sheet of longhand, and the back of the paper had the same format. I can read upside down. I mean I can read a paper or a book when the paper or book is upside down. It's one of my few parlor tricks. It took only a few seconds for me to realize that the computer printed lines of text were the questions I had composed for Rachel's segment that night. Then, in her excellent penmanship, what are the answers to those questions? It looked for all the world like a high school or college short essay exam page four short questions and four half page answers. My astonishment was completely organic. What's that? Rachel was embarrassed? I just sorry, I just she hid the sheet behind her back. I just do some prep for the show. It's my prep sheet. I don't read from it on the air or anything, but I like to write everything down, Longhand, because it helps me organ my thoughts, and I like to have it in front of me in the studio in case I interrupted her. Now and said, in case you freeze or you get interrupted or distracted by the idiot host, I pulled from my pocket four folded up pages of my own on which I had printed handwritten notes for each of the scheduled interviews. I said, I find it's writing it by hand that really helps here. It's I think it's some sort of memory trick. Her gasp of astonishment turned into a warm laugh. She and I use the same TV shortcut without knowing it. Now, something else popped into my head. I said, you do realize you are more prepared for your four minute segment than I am for the entire damn show. Right? She laughed again, and I waved my folded crib notes. You do realize that nobody does this except you and me. It's lack of confidence meets paranoia meets fear that you'll forget your good lines. I squinted at her as the thought came to me, you ever thought of hosting one of these shows? Rachel suddenly drew her head back, as if evading a right cross. What No, I couldn't, I said, we haven't had a good guest host in a long time. The makeup artist moved to attempt to straighten up my hair. You want to give it a try, she seemed to go a little pale. No, I don't think so, really, but I don't. How difficult could it be if I stepped in here with no experience and suddenly I had the most popular liberal news show pick Up two? How good you know? I'm tom three two to one? How difficult could it be if I stepped in here with no experience and suddenly I had the most popular liberal news show, And then I did it again eight years later? She looked unconvinced. I mean, you already do the prep. What worries you? She looked away from me and mumbled prompter. I laughed, did you say prompter? The prompter? The teleprompter? She looked away again. I don't think I could use it. I'm sorry, I said, with mock anger. Have you padded your resume? Didn't you get one of them Rhodes scholarshipy things? And you go over to England to study stuff and you think you can't learn how to use a teleprompter. For God's sake, I learned to use a teleprompter in ten minutes from Stuart fing Varney at CNN. There's nothing to it but practice. Rachel was not convinced. I said, get made up, Come into the studio, sit with me off camera. I'm just sitting in there reading the show off the teleprompter. Watch you'll see. Let me ask you this, if you knew how to use the teleprompter, if you already knew, would you want to try hosting? Her eyes got a little smaller, and she seemed nervous, and very quietly, Rachel Maddow said, yes, we would travel a million in bureaucratic miles and a year together before we actually sat down for prompter school. After one of her guest hits on a Monday edition of Countdown, she and I and tow their credit countdowns. Technical director Brian Nailsnik and much of the crew stayed for an extra half an hour. We put two cameras and two monitors almost next to each other so she could read the prompter along with me, or watch the other monitor to see where my eyes were as I read from the prompter. And then after a while we fixed it so I could read along with her, or watch the other monitor to see where her eyes were as she read. We read my scripts, we read scripts that she had written. I gave her the Tom Snyder prompter trick. Okay, here's the Tom Snyder prompter trick. Try to see and read entire sentences, not individual words. Focus your eyes not on the pain of plastic where the words are projected, but focus several inches beyond it, where the lens actually is in the camera. I told her tonight, this is your freshman year. Tomorrow will be sophomore Wednesday's, Junior Thursday, Senior Friday's graduation, and also the homecoming football game in grad school and the Alumni Association will be hitting you up for your money. On Saturday, Rachel Matdow came in every night that week to practice overcoming her biggest fear, the teleprompter. I stayed late again on Friday. What do you think, Rachel asked me, who cares? I answered, what do you think? She straightened her practice script by tapping it against the anchored desk like an anchor does, and said, I think this is the greatest invention in the history of mankind. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips Chanel arranged, produced, and performed nearly all of our music. Mister Ray on guitars, bass and drums, and mister Chanelle on the orchestration and the keyboards produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. My announcer today was also Nancy Faust. Everything else was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this the ninety ninth day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the one thousand, three hundredth day since convicted felon Donald J. Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the Tember eighteenth sentencing hearing. Use the mental health system. You've got it. President Biden used presidential immunity to stop him from doing it again, while waste till can also Republicans, please stop shooting at Trump. The next schedule countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins is the news requires till the next one. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck? Or am I a Keith Olderman replicant. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.