Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. There's nothing better than a good nap now. Trump's head slowly dropped, his eyes closed. It jerked back upward. He adjusts himself, then his head droops again. He straightens up, leaning back, his head drops for a third time. He shakes his shoulders, eyes closed, still, his head drops. Finally, he pops his eyes open. Frank Runyon, Pool Reporter and New York Courts Reporter, Law three sixty ten thirty am, April sixteenth, twenty twenty four. My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk or emptied some dull opiate to the drain. John Keats owed to a nightingale, May eighteen nineteen. Trump is leaning back and his eyes appear to be closed. His head is occasionally tilting. Isaac Arnsdorf, Washington Post Reporter, three thirty five PM, April sixteenth, twenty twenty four. Fly ball to Wright. Winfield goes back to the wall. He hits his head on the wall and it rolls off. It's rolling all the way back to second base. This is a terrible thing. Jerry Coleman San Diego Padres baseball broadcast circa nineteen seventy seven. They finished for the day and will resume tomorrow. Justice Merschawan first admonishing Trump for gesturing and talking in the direction of a jury candidate. Your client was audibly uttering, he told defendant Jay's attorneys. It was audible, he was gesturing, and he was speaking in the direction of the juror. I will not have any jury intimidated in the court room. I was surprised Trump didn't just reply, sorry, talking in my sleep. Trump then left to exploit a crime that happened at a Harlem bodega, possibly his first time in Harlem in his goddamned life. And it looks like, despite all the doomsayers me included, they will start the Trump election interference trial next Monday, nine thirty am opening statements. That is what Justice Merschaan told the court just before shutting down yesterday after he had seated seven of the eighteen jurors required, again validating the veteran legal reporters who say it is surprisingly easy, especially in New York, to find enough people who don't know anything about anything to fill up a jury. I had forgotten my two days in the New York jury pool room here eleven years ago, when I deliberately sat near the guy in charge so I could hear the kinds of questions he had to deal with. For about an hour, I was terrified for the future of humanity, I mean the future of humanity for the remainder of that week, also for the future of this poor man's psyche, and I asked if I could go get him coffee or heroine or something. There is already a four person dur B four hundred lives in West Harlem, but originally was from Ireland. Was a waiter, now in sales, some college. His spouses in school. They have no children. He's outdoorsy. In his spare time, he reads the New York Times and the Daily Mail. Gets the rest of his news from MSNBC and Fox. Repeating what I said before, It is surprisingly easy to find enough people in New York who don't know anything about anything to fill up a jury or to be the defendant. That is Trump's latest claim. He knows nothing, billionaire businessman, greatest mind of this or any other generation. But when it comes to paying off Stormy Dan to bury her story to illegally keep bad facts about himself away from the eyes of the electorate weeks before the election, and then turning the thing into a clear crime by trying to write it off as a business expense. He knows nothing. He doesn't know the accountant, he doesn't know the lawyer, he doesn't know the law. He didn't know anything about the document, he didn't know anything about the deduction. He just signed whatever they put in front of him, because the billionaire businessman knows nothing about his own business.

Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. There's nothing better than a good nap now. Trump's head slowly dropped, his eyes closed. It jerked back upward. He adjusts himself, then his head droops again. He straightens up, leaning back, his head drops for a third time. He shakes his shoulders, eyes closed, still, his head drops. Finally, he pops his eyes open. Frank Runyon, Pool Reporter and New York Courts Reporter, Law three sixty ten thirty am, April sixteenth, twenty twenty four. My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk or emptied some dull opiate to the drain. John Keats owed to a nightingale, May eighteen nineteen. Trump is leaning back and his eyes appear to be closed. His head is occasionally tilting. Isaac Arnsdorf, Washington Post Reporter, three thirty five PM, April sixteenth, twenty twenty four. Fly ball to Wright. Winfield goes back to the wall. He hits his head on the wall and it rolls off. It's rolling all the way back to second base. This is a terrible thing. Jerry Coleman San Diego Padres baseball broadcast circa nineteen seventy seven. They finished for the day and will resume tomorrow. Justice Merschawan first admonishing Trump for gesturing and talking in the direction of a jury candidate. Your client was audibly uttering, he told defendant Jay's attorneys. It was audible, he was gesturing, and he was speaking in the direction of the juror. I will not have any jury intimidated in the court room. I was surprised Trump didn't just reply, sorry, talking in my sleep. Trump then left to exploit a crime that happened at a Harlem bodega, possibly his first time in Harlem in his goddamned life. And it looks like, despite all the doomsayers me included, they will start the Trump election interference trial next Monday, nine thirty am opening statements. That is what Justice Merschaan told the court just before shutting down yesterday after he had seated seven of the eighteen jurors required, again validating the veteran legal reporters who say it is surprisingly easy, especially in New York, to find enough people who don't know anything about anything to fill up a jury. I had forgotten my two days in the New York jury pool room here eleven years ago, when I deliberately sat near the guy in charge so I could hear the kinds of questions he had to deal with. For about an hour, I was terrified for the future of humanity, I mean the future of humanity for the remainder of that week, also for the future of this poor man's psyche, and I asked if I could go get him coffee or heroine or something. There is already a four person dur B four hundred lives in West Harlem, but originally was from Ireland. Was a waiter, now in sales, some college. His spouses in school. They have no children. He's outdoorsy. In his spare time, he reads the New York Times and the Daily Mail. Gets the rest of his news from MSNBC and Fox. Repeating what I said before, It is surprisingly easy to find enough people in New York who don't know anything about anything to fill up a jury or to be the defendant. That is Trump's latest claim. He knows nothing, billionaire businessman, greatest mind of this or any other generation. But when it comes to paying off Stormy Dan to bury her story to illegally keep bad facts about himself away from the eyes of the electorate weeks before the election, and then turning the thing into a clear crime by trying to write it off as a business expense. He knows nothing. He doesn't know the accountant, he doesn't know the lawyer, he doesn't know the law. He didn't know anything about the document, he didn't know anything about the deduction. He just signed whatever they put in front of him, because the billionaire businessman knows nothing about his own business.

Was lawyer and marking down.

Was lawyer and marking down.

A legal expense on account I know, marking down a legal expense. That's exactly what it was. And you did indict over no wonder. He keeps falling asleep in the courtroom. This business stuff, it's all so boring to him. And honestly, your Trump, on Monday, they literally catch you. How do you possibly go in there on Tuesday and get caught napping? At least twice more? One video or one rapid shutter sequence of still pictures of Trump's head slowly dropped, his eyes closed, it jerked back upward, he adjusts himself, then his head droops again. One video of that or a couple of good pictures, and we don't have to watch the rest of this trial to see how it turns out. He would be done. The New Republic asked the question before yesterday's Marjorie Taylor Green debacle, and before Tom Cotton suggested Americans protesting about the war in the Middle East should be run over and killed by other Americans who are angry about traffic. But it doesn't change much, and it certainly doesn't require them to change the picture under the startling question in their headline. The picture is a rare one of Congresswoman Green with her mouth shut, and the New Republic's question is, quote, Russia is buying politicians in Europe? Is it happening here too? The message from the magazine is clear, looking at you, Marge, the possibility of that, never mind influencers and conspiracies. It boils down to the Eric Idol Ruttles satirical song All you need is cash, the possibility of that momentarily. First, what Cotton and Green have now done. Senator Tom Cotton, who last reminded America that he may be our worst senator, even worse than Marsha Blackburn or Grassley or Cinema, reminded us of that when The New York Times let him write an op ed saying Trump should use the military to disperse peaceful civilian protesters. He has now softened his stance on that. Now he wants vigilantes to use their cars to disperse peaceful civilian protesters. At nine pm Eastern Monday night, Cotton again, a sitting US senator, a double Harvard graduate. Back when one did not try to deny that part of one's educational resume. Another military veteran who may not really believe he was ever discharged and may not really accept that he's no longer paid to kill other human beings, Tom Cotton posted, I encourage people who get stuck behind the pro hamas mobs blocking traffic, take matters into your own hands. It's time to put an end to this nonsense. The implication was unmistakable. Run them over with your car, shoot them whatever. Why does he care? He's stochastically getting you to kill them for him. Six minutes later, Tom Cotton decided better that tweet, and instead of deleting it or discouraging people from you know, political assassination of their neighbors or road rage, he edited the post to read I encourage people who get stuck behind the prohamas mobs blocking traffic. Here comes the edit. Take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way. It's time to put an end to this nonsense. Unquote. It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for him. This is nothing new. Ron DeSantis passed a law calling a protest by three or more people in Florida a riot and telling Florida drivers if they threatened or felt threatened by a riot on a road, they can drive their cars into the rioters. When George Wallace ran as a third party presidential candidate nineteen sixty eight, he responded to protesters lying down in front of President Johnson's limo by saying that if they tried that in front of his presidential limousine, it'd be the last limo they ever lay down in front of. But Cotton as the have the troops shoot the civilian's op ed showed clearly fetishizes killing Americans as many possible, and the Russia hook is he's loudly pro Ukraine, yet under the surface he has repeatedly refused to condemn Trump's repeated praising of Putin he wouldn't criticize Trump, saying that he would not defend NATO from Russia and that he'd tell Putin to do whatever the hell he wanted. And Business Insider quoted FBC records showing that Cotton got more than forty thousand dollars in quote contributions from a donor profiting off Russia's war on Ukraine. But still that's just because he's an asshole, right, Maybe some PTSD and fascism mixed in and too much time at Harvard, there couldn't be cash considerations.

A legal expense on account I know, marking down a legal expense. That's exactly what it was. And you did indict over no wonder. He keeps falling asleep in the courtroom. This business stuff, it's all so boring to him. And honestly, your Trump, on Monday, they literally catch you. How do you possibly go in there on Tuesday and get caught napping? At least twice more? One video or one rapid shutter sequence of still pictures of Trump's head slowly dropped, his eyes closed, it jerked back upward, he adjusts himself, then his head droops again. One video of that or a couple of good pictures, and we don't have to watch the rest of this trial to see how it turns out. He would be done. The New Republic asked the question before yesterday's Marjorie Taylor Green debacle, and before Tom Cotton suggested Americans protesting about the war in the Middle East should be run over and killed by other Americans who are angry about traffic. But it doesn't change much, and it certainly doesn't require them to change the picture under the startling question in their headline. The picture is a rare one of Congresswoman Green with her mouth shut, and the New Republic's question is, quote, Russia is buying politicians in Europe? Is it happening here too? The message from the magazine is clear, looking at you, Marge, the possibility of that, never mind influencers and conspiracies. It boils down to the Eric Idol Ruttles satirical song All you need is cash, the possibility of that momentarily. First, what Cotton and Green have now done. Senator Tom Cotton, who last reminded America that he may be our worst senator, even worse than Marsha Blackburn or Grassley or Cinema, reminded us of that when The New York Times let him write an op ed saying Trump should use the military to disperse peaceful civilian protesters. He has now softened his stance on that. Now he wants vigilantes to use their cars to disperse peaceful civilian protesters. At nine pm Eastern Monday night, Cotton again, a sitting US senator, a double Harvard graduate. Back when one did not try to deny that part of one's educational resume. Another military veteran who may not really believe he was ever discharged and may not really accept that he's no longer paid to kill other human beings, Tom Cotton posted, I encourage people who get stuck behind the pro hamas mobs blocking traffic, take matters into your own hands. It's time to put an end to this nonsense. The implication was unmistakable. Run them over with your car, shoot them whatever. Why does he care? He's stochastically getting you to kill them for him. Six minutes later, Tom Cotton decided better that tweet, and instead of deleting it or discouraging people from you know, political assassination of their neighbors or road rage, he edited the post to read I encourage people who get stuck behind the prohamas mobs blocking traffic. Here comes the edit. Take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way. It's time to put an end to this nonsense. Unquote. It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for him. This is nothing new. Ron DeSantis passed a law calling a protest by three or more people in Florida a riot and telling Florida drivers if they threatened or felt threatened by a riot on a road, they can drive their cars into the rioters. When George Wallace ran as a third party presidential candidate nineteen sixty eight, he responded to protesters lying down in front of President Johnson's limo by saying that if they tried that in front of his presidential limousine, it'd be the last limo they ever lay down in front of. But Cotton as the have the troops shoot the civilian's op ed showed clearly fetishizes killing Americans as many possible, and the Russia hook is he's loudly pro Ukraine, yet under the surface he has repeatedly refused to condemn Trump's repeated praising of Putin he wouldn't criticize Trump, saying that he would not defend NATO from Russia and that he'd tell Putin to do whatever the hell he wanted. And Business Insider quoted FBC records showing that Cotton got more than forty thousand dollars in quote contributions from a donor profiting off Russia's war on Ukraine. But still that's just because he's an asshole, right, Maybe some PTSD and fascism mixed in and too much time at Harvard, there couldn't be cash considerations.

Ah.

Ah.

But then there's Marjorie bitter Green. Hell of a week, she's having tweets quote it's anti semitic to make Israeli aid contingent on funding Ukrainian Nazis. Then moves to fire another Speaker of the House because he's on the verge of maybe getting Ukrainian aid passed, and because the condition of the House of Representatives had just been upgraded from chaotic to spasmodic and Russia needs it to be chaotic again. That was preface to her face plant during yet another hearing featuring her arch nemesis. No no, no, no, not reality. Her other arch nemesis Homeland Security Secretary Majorcis.

But then there's Marjorie bitter Green. Hell of a week, she's having tweets quote it's anti semitic to make Israeli aid contingent on funding Ukrainian Nazis. Then moves to fire another Speaker of the House because he's on the verge of maybe getting Ukrainian aid passed, and because the condition of the House of Representatives had just been upgraded from chaotic to spasmodic and Russia needs it to be chaotic again. That was preface to her face plant during yet another hearing featuring her arch nemesis. No no, no, no, not reality. Her other arch nemesis Homeland Security Secretary Majorcis.

Blake and Riley.

Blake and Riley.

You're familiar with her, right, I'm just be art break. Are you familiar with Lake and Riley? I am familiar with the case. You should have deported her so that she could be alive today. Her parents would have appreciated that. Yeah, okay, hun Lake and Riley was the murder victim, not the perpetrator. Y'all should emulate your boy Trump and take a nap from time to time. How about twenty four hours a day? Now? You could argue that if Russia really were paying US politicians to advocate for them and try to destroy this country from within, they'd be able to get smarter ones than Marjorie fing Green. But maybe not. Last month, a couple of dozen European politicians, including some members of the European Parliament, were arrested in Poland and the Czech Republic for taking cash from Russian oligarchs to contribute anti Ukraine stories, mostly to a website called Voice of Europe. Last month, Russia was caught paying off local politicians in Cyprus and Germany and Italy to introduce legislation actually written by Russian intelligence, and also to write articles in local newspapers and use their own names when they did so. This is why Marjorie Green's stupidity is not a bug but a feature. As The New Republic notes, one of the paid off Europeans was really offended that the article the Russians wanted him to pass off as his own under his own byline was really poorly written. That he had a reputation that quote, I am not a robot. He was taking international bribes from a terrorist state, and he was worried about how the article would affect his literary standing. Unclear if he got the cash or the crypto, but he got something, and the article LOWSI or not got printed under his name. That can't happen here. It can't happen. It can't happen here. Doc is here, Doc isn't here, doc is here. It can't happen here. I'll let Alex Finley of the New Republic pick this up at this point, quoting him. It is naive to think the same pattern does not exist in the United States, given the ample evidence of coordinated pro Russian talking points from several Republican politicians just this week, Marjorie Taylor Green spoke to Steve Bannon about Ukraine's persecution of Christians, which is a Kremlin talking point aimed at boosting the pro Moscow wing of Ukraine's Orthodox Church. The US should be spending money on the border with Mexico, not on Ukraine, aid, that's a Kremlin talking point. Russia invaded Ukraine to defend itself against an expanding NATO. That's a Kremlin talking point. Call for a ceasefire and give Russia Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. That's a Kremlin talking point. As the Director of National Intelligence wrote in twenty twenty one, Russian intelligence operatives and their proxies sought to use prominent US persons and media conduits to launder their narratives to US officials and audiences. These Russian proxies met with and provided materials to Trump administration linked US persons to advocate for formal investigations, hired a US firm to petition US officials, and attempted to make contact with several senior US officials. They also made contact with established US media figures quote huh, established US media figures spewing Russian talking points, probably for money, probably a lot less money than you'd think too, so somebody in media who's notoriously personally cheap. I do not have a guess any established US media figures hard up for cash or paranoid about cash after losing, say a twenty million dollar a year TV anchoring contract. I mean, besides which, what do you think a Marjorie Taylor Green would cost? I mean, look at the workmanship. It's not as if Russia's influence here, both to undermine efforts to stop their test war in Ukraine and to simply f with US, is not being recognized. Chairman Mike Turner of the House Intel Committee went on CNN and said, quote, we see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti Ukraine and pro Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor. Days earlier, it had been Chairman Michael McCall of House Foreign Affairs. He told Puck News. I think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it's infected a good chunk of my party's base. Nothing spreads political disinformation infection faster than money, by the way, I know, you know, but let me emphasize this. The House is in Republican hands. Those two chairmen admitting we are being informationally invaded by Russia. Turner and McCall, they are Republicans. The craziest part of the New Republic's theory of corruption for cash the one that literally has Marjorie Taylor Green's face on it on the article and only incidental references to Trump media being kept financially afloat by Russian banks. The craziest part is that Green's latest attack on the American establishment seemingly on the reinvigorated anti Russian pro Ukrainian push in the House. It's against Speaker Mike Johnson. But last October, Newsweek reported that in twenty eighteen, Mike Johnson received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the Texas based American Ethane company Made Prominent and Wealthy by good Old Texas nohow led by an eighty eight percent owned by three good Old Texans named Andre Konatbiev, Konstantine Nikolayev, and Mikhail Yuev. The Speaker's office says it returned the money as soon as it found out that American Athene was not owned by three guys named Curly Texan Clayton. Makes you wonder if Green is attacking Johnson because he returned the Athane money, or perhaps because he hasn't earned it yet. CBS News poll, By the way, where do you get your information from about Russia's invasion of Ukraine? Republicans? Which sources do you trust? Republicans? Multiple sources here, so it doesn't add up to one hundred. It's more than one hundred. State Department twenty seven percent say yes. Among others, journalists in the war zone thirty three percent, Conservative media fifty six percent, the Pentagon sixty percent, topping the list. Though seventy nine percent of Republicans get their information about Ukraine from Trump, and this is not part of that CBS poll, but it underscores that the process of healing the Republicans amazing stupidity and gullibility and ability to monetize lies that kill people and kill democracy, the process of curing this country is far more than even horrifying poll numbers like that Republicans believe Trump because the world is complex and they are not leaving it to him is way easy than trying to figure it out for themselves with brains unequipped to do so, and if you ask. But whatever he's talking about, he changes his stories every day, his viewpoints, his claims of what he said previously and what he meant when he said it. He changes these things endlessly. Left is right and up is down. Well, that's even better for these Republicans, even if he's lying, especially if he's lying. Listen to William Wolf, former Trump Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and appointee at State. It's like Trump favoring an abortion band. Wolf says, of course he's lying about it, only he's lying about lying about it, and that makes it not lying at makes it cloaking.

You're familiar with her, right, I'm just be art break. Are you familiar with Lake and Riley? I am familiar with the case. You should have deported her so that she could be alive today. Her parents would have appreciated that. Yeah, okay, hun Lake and Riley was the murder victim, not the perpetrator. Y'all should emulate your boy Trump and take a nap from time to time. How about twenty four hours a day? Now? You could argue that if Russia really were paying US politicians to advocate for them and try to destroy this country from within, they'd be able to get smarter ones than Marjorie fing Green. But maybe not. Last month, a couple of dozen European politicians, including some members of the European Parliament, were arrested in Poland and the Czech Republic for taking cash from Russian oligarchs to contribute anti Ukraine stories, mostly to a website called Voice of Europe. Last month, Russia was caught paying off local politicians in Cyprus and Germany and Italy to introduce legislation actually written by Russian intelligence, and also to write articles in local newspapers and use their own names when they did so. This is why Marjorie Green's stupidity is not a bug but a feature. As The New Republic notes, one of the paid off Europeans was really offended that the article the Russians wanted him to pass off as his own under his own byline was really poorly written. That he had a reputation that quote, I am not a robot. He was taking international bribes from a terrorist state, and he was worried about how the article would affect his literary standing. Unclear if he got the cash or the crypto, but he got something, and the article LOWSI or not got printed under his name. That can't happen here. It can't happen. It can't happen here. Doc is here, Doc isn't here, doc is here. It can't happen here. I'll let Alex Finley of the New Republic pick this up at this point, quoting him. It is naive to think the same pattern does not exist in the United States, given the ample evidence of coordinated pro Russian talking points from several Republican politicians just this week, Marjorie Taylor Green spoke to Steve Bannon about Ukraine's persecution of Christians, which is a Kremlin talking point aimed at boosting the pro Moscow wing of Ukraine's Orthodox Church. The US should be spending money on the border with Mexico, not on Ukraine, aid, that's a Kremlin talking point. Russia invaded Ukraine to defend itself against an expanding NATO. That's a Kremlin talking point. Call for a ceasefire and give Russia Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. That's a Kremlin talking point. As the Director of National Intelligence wrote in twenty twenty one, Russian intelligence operatives and their proxies sought to use prominent US persons and media conduits to launder their narratives to US officials and audiences. These Russian proxies met with and provided materials to Trump administration linked US persons to advocate for formal investigations, hired a US firm to petition US officials, and attempted to make contact with several senior US officials. They also made contact with established US media figures quote huh, established US media figures spewing Russian talking points, probably for money, probably a lot less money than you'd think too, so somebody in media who's notoriously personally cheap. I do not have a guess any established US media figures hard up for cash or paranoid about cash after losing, say a twenty million dollar a year TV anchoring contract. I mean, besides which, what do you think a Marjorie Taylor Green would cost? I mean, look at the workmanship. It's not as if Russia's influence here, both to undermine efforts to stop their test war in Ukraine and to simply f with US, is not being recognized. Chairman Mike Turner of the House Intel Committee went on CNN and said, quote, we see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti Ukraine and pro Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor. Days earlier, it had been Chairman Michael McCall of House Foreign Affairs. He told Puck News. I think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it's infected a good chunk of my party's base. Nothing spreads political disinformation infection faster than money, by the way, I know, you know, but let me emphasize this. The House is in Republican hands. Those two chairmen admitting we are being informationally invaded by Russia. Turner and McCall, they are Republicans. The craziest part of the New Republic's theory of corruption for cash the one that literally has Marjorie Taylor Green's face on it on the article and only incidental references to Trump media being kept financially afloat by Russian banks. The craziest part is that Green's latest attack on the American establishment seemingly on the reinvigorated anti Russian pro Ukrainian push in the House. It's against Speaker Mike Johnson. But last October, Newsweek reported that in twenty eighteen, Mike Johnson received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the Texas based American Ethane company Made Prominent and Wealthy by good Old Texas nohow led by an eighty eight percent owned by three good Old Texans named Andre Konatbiev, Konstantine Nikolayev, and Mikhail Yuev. The Speaker's office says it returned the money as soon as it found out that American Athene was not owned by three guys named Curly Texan Clayton. Makes you wonder if Green is attacking Johnson because he returned the Athane money, or perhaps because he hasn't earned it yet. CBS News poll, By the way, where do you get your information from about Russia's invasion of Ukraine? Republicans? Which sources do you trust? Republicans? Multiple sources here, so it doesn't add up to one hundred. It's more than one hundred. State Department twenty seven percent say yes. Among others, journalists in the war zone thirty three percent, Conservative media fifty six percent, the Pentagon sixty percent, topping the list. Though seventy nine percent of Republicans get their information about Ukraine from Trump, and this is not part of that CBS poll, but it underscores that the process of healing the Republicans amazing stupidity and gullibility and ability to monetize lies that kill people and kill democracy, the process of curing this country is far more than even horrifying poll numbers like that Republicans believe Trump because the world is complex and they are not leaving it to him is way easy than trying to figure it out for themselves with brains unequipped to do so, and if you ask. But whatever he's talking about, he changes his stories every day, his viewpoints, his claims of what he said previously and what he meant when he said it. He changes these things endlessly. Left is right and up is down. Well, that's even better for these Republicans, even if he's lying, especially if he's lying. Listen to William Wolf, former Trump Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and appointee at State. It's like Trump favoring an abortion band. Wolf says, of course he's lying about it, only he's lying about lying about it, and that makes it not lying at makes it cloaking.

I actually think there's wisdom in cloaking some of your power levels and maybe some of the things that you're trying to do. And then once you secure power and you have it, you govern in a more extreme position.

I actually think there's wisdom in cloaking some of your power levels and maybe some of the things that you're trying to do. And then once you secure power and you have it, you govern in a more extreme position.

He's not lying, he's cloaking a cloaking device like star Trek or an invisibility cloak, like good old Harry Potter. You don't call it lying. He caught cloaking. It's a new way of lying, and it's a good thing, because Trump says so. Also of interest here, I don't know when I stopped believing that the Supreme Court actually ruled on legal issues, rather than that it existed solely to make sure that some politically inconvenient laws or parts of the Constitution got crushed for the benefit of the Republicans and the rich people. But I know I was already an adult when I figured it out. Right now, I am so far from that naivete that I question whether or not I believe that the six Conservatives are even from this country, or that they have more of a legal education than I do. Which was one undergraduate college class mostly about communications law. In the January sixth related case now before them, Justice Alito asks how the insurrection and attempted overthrow of an election and the real president elect, how is that different from people heckling the Supreme Court? And the attorney has the restraint to not say, because none of you assholes or your security died at the hands of that mob, that mob of people that you think heckled you, You moron. That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown, with Keith o'd woman still ahead of us on this ediative countdown. Late last month, we passed the quarter century anniversary of one of the most joyful moments of my career, and I have been thinking of it off and on ever since March nineteen ninety nine. Tom Hanks assaults me at the Oscars. With the help of two Hollywood newcomers named Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, the bastards broke the cum abund on my tuxedo ahead in things I promised not to tell first, still more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days non commer bund breaking worst persons in the world the bronze worse Major League Baseball, and this gives me a moment to mention that apparently we're having another baseball rapture. The next to last living member of the World champion nineteen fifty five Brooklyn Dodgers, Carl Erskine, died yesterday, leaving only Sandy Kofax and Hall of Fame manager Whitey Herzog of the Royals and the Cardinals died Ken Holtzman the other day. Fritz Peterson last week I mentioned him at length. Yesterday, Jerry Grody, Bunn Harrison, Jim McAndrew of the sixty nine Mets, Pat Zachary and Don Gullet of the seventy six champion reds ed ott fourteen x major league players just since the start of spring training on a happier note, or at least a sillier one. Remember this year's big baseball controversy, I mean the one before the show. Hey, Otani's interpreter made three hundred and twenty five million dollars worth of bets and stole sixteen million bucks from Otani scandal. Remember the uniform scandal where the new better, wicking, lighter feeling, redesigned uniforms turned out to be delivered late, like months late, and they wrinkled in the rain, and they had tiny lettering on them. And they have pants and shirts in which the colors don't match, not even gray and gray. And they have the pants that are more see through than pants have been previously. That scandal, it's back the Seattle Mariners wore their City Connect uniforms. It's a merchandizing thing. Everything in baseball today is a merchandizing thing. And we are still awaiting a full explanation from the Seattle Times of its cryptic report that the pants of Seattle pitcher Bryce Miller did not fit correctly, and so he instead wore the City Connect uniform pants of a team bat boy. The only update on this so far. Miller apparently complained that the bat boy's pants kept riding up on him, which makes you wonder whether his pants were so short that they were actually designed for somebody else's son. And further details as they become available. Speaking of a little short, the runner up worser Mike Johnson, I know the Democrats may save him and anybody Marjorie Taylor Green hates is a little less schmucky than she is, and certainly, as noted earlier, he's less Russian than the others. But still, what a weasel that stunt last week in which he asked Trump for permission to go worship him at marri Lago and do a joint news conference about election integrity and then introduce a performance art bill about demanding voter ID for all voters, which they already have before he showed the bill to anybody else in the House. According to NBC News, Johnson showed it to d C. Draino. D C. Draino is one of those conservative morons with a stick on Twitter X. His reel name is broken oh Crapshack or whatever it is. Showed it to Broken oh Crapshack first to get him to use his influence ray to drum up support online, which of course would then get back to Trump. How much Johnson's idea would help Trump, But it wasn't just d C draino. And I can't tell if he's trying to be clever by spelling it dri n when the product itself is spelled dr no, or he's just too stupid to spell it correctly. In any event, Johnson also shared the bill with libs of TikTok and end Wokeness and Chrissy Clark, who apparently could not think of a clever name, but he did not share it with Cat Turd, Poor cat Turd, though Johnson did eventually share it with Isabella de Luca, who is not just an influencer, she's also a big big deal in moron world because she's a January sixth defendant. Speaking of which, our winners the conservative members of the Supreme Religious Court, and yesterday they heard oral arguments in a case that would invalidate the use of the obstruction of an official proceedings law under which hundreds of January sixth defendants have been convicted, some of whom that was the only charge against them. So the case is basically asking John Roberts and Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas and three Trump appointees whether or not they want to free several dozen Trump thugs. Ellie miss Stal from the nation, says Justice Neil Gorsich, made an analogy between the January sixth rioters attacking the US capital, between that and the day that Congressman Jamal Bowman set off a fire alarm by opening a locked door at the Capitol. Justice Alito asked how this was any different from people heckling the Supreme Court. Oh no, he was broken in half by a heckle. And Justice Thomas, who simply put, is goddamned lucky. His wife has not been in prison for the last three years over January sixth, actually maybe the last thirty years. Justice Thomas insisted that legally, January sixth is no different than any other attempt to disrupt official proceedings. Why, yes, Clarence, I agree with you. You are right. It is no different than any other attempt to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, instigated and organized and promoted by a lame duck president who wanted to stay in office even though he lost, and who probably wanted to jail or harm the actual president elect. I just hope that all of these arguments these fascists are using while finding excuses to make heroes out of traders, that they will remember them if the day comes that some large crowd, probably made up of conservatives who think that justices are not conservative enough, when a large crowd of conservatives storms the court the way Trump's insurrectionists so benignly pulled the fire alarm at the Capitol on January sixth, I just hope they remember all of their own arguments while they are fleeing gorsicch Thomas Kavanaugh, Barrett Alito, Roberts, He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind, Two Days, Wars, Parsons, Eorld, ah just twenty five years ago. Things I promised not to tell takes you back in time, like things I already experienced in my career, could somehow be ahead in time to March nineteen ninety nine, with a little detour. First, they were everywhere photos and video of what certainly looked from a distance like actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson yelling at, maybe even berating, an unidentified random staffer on the red carpet at the twenty twenty three Con Film Festival in France while promoting his new movie Asteroid City. At various intervals, Hanks seems to have a fist clenched, then seems to be jabbing his forefinger at the man. Throughout he appeared to wear a look of disbelief verging on anger. European newspapers were filled for two days with stories about Tom Hanks yells at Con and Tom Hanks yells at staffer and Tom Hanks skulls con staffer, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then his wife Rita spoke up, Then the staffer, Vincent Chapalaine, spoke up. Then the sound on the video spoke up louder than either of them. Tom Hanks wasn't scolding anybody, but he was yelling because he could not hear himself or this Vincent Chapalaine or anything else, because the crowd around the red carpet was too loud. The clenched hand, Tom Hanks clenched it while he was yelling, I can't hear you. Everybody's screaming the jabbing forefinger. It went with where are we supposed to go? Are we supposed to go back to the start of the red carpet? Just point at where you want us to go? And the scolding of the random staffer. Vince as Chapelaine is the manager of the Red Carpet at Khan has been for ten years. The only thing he was taking offense at was people presuming he was just security rather than management. These are the French Khan. You hear me? Now, this is an unusual story to include here, and I've gone into unusual detail about it because the moment I saw this story from KHN, I didn't have mere deja vu. I had a full flashback, a full out of body experience, time travel. I was propelled back to March twenty first, nineteen ninety nine, where a similar overhead view of Tom Hanks on a red carpet, without any audio, without any context, would have presented you a picture of first Tom Hanks and then Tom Hanks, with the assistance of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, assaulting a guy literally pulling him over the hedges that served as the security boundary, damaging the guy's clothing, and then basically throwing him back over the hedges, and all this took place on a red carpet at the Oscars. The guy was me. In nineteen ninety nine. I had just started what began as a pretty good gig. Fox Sports had launched its own version of ESPN and its own version of SportsCenter, and it had thrown way too much money at me, and it bought me out of my contract at MSNBC, where I was desperately unhappy doing the Clinton Lewinsky story every hour on the hour, and they got me to move back to Los Angeles and anchor their version of Sports Center and all the Fox Baseball coverage two including the World Series in the All Star Game, and it launched a five year plan to give itself enough credibility to compete with the ESPN. And I was just there to enjoy the sun, collect the huge paycheck, and publicize the thing as often as possible while they slowly built it up for the year two thousand and four. As the executive who signed me said, after we held an introductory press conference and press phone call, with about two hundred reporters, you earned about a year of your salary just doing that call. So when one of the editors of the Los Angeles Times called somebody she knew in the PR department at Fox and said, I have a crazy idea, what is Keith Olberman doing on Oscars night? The Fox people listened. The next thing I knew I had that night off. I was in a tux. I was standing the mid a sea off photographers at the first turn of the red carpet at the Oscars, gathering quotes from startled celebrities who expected to see only photogs right there and not somebody asking questions, certainly not me asking questions. I was a little startled too. The editor, in a pre Oscars phone call, explained that this was the seventy first edition of the Oscars, and the Times had covered the first seventy and then they had pretty much gotten it down to science around the year nineteen thirty two, and they really hadn't changed much since then, except the photos are in color now, she mentioned. She asked if I wanted to hear what would be in the Times the day after the Oscars, She said, I can recite the main story Right now, I just have to fill in the names of the winners. And then there's the fashion review and how many daring and outlandish and classic outfits there were. Now I'll have the TV critic complaining about how bad the host was. No, I'll had the TV business guy explaining why the ratings were so low. Then we'll have the big pull quotes from the actors that will re exactly like the big poll quotes from nineteen eighty nine or nineteen seventy nine. And we'll have the predictive piece on which award wins will actually help movies at the box office. And then we'll have the predictive piece on which awards snubs will actually hurt movies at the box office. What we need is anything else? Can you think of anything else? Can you think of anything you haven't read in our paper about the Oscars? I thought for a second, I said, what about this idea that they're now going to televise the Red Carpet live for half an hour before the Oscars. You're gonna have like an Oscars pregame show. I heard somebody say, you know, maybe they could do that all day. I mean, what if I asked everybody like, like, whoever will stop to talk to me, I mean, what if I ask them they think would be a good idea to make the Oscars an all day kind of thing, like like Super Bowl Sunday Oscar Sunday Oscar Bowl Live starting at dawn on ABC. I mean I could basically write you the lead paragraph. Now, thanks for attending Oscar Bowl. I please ask your limo driver to tune into the postgame show with Vince Gully, Uma Thurman, and Angeline not Angeline Edie Williams arrive home safely. The editor laughed, had me repeat it, and wrote it down. It was the lead of my story. So on the night of March twenty first, nineteen ninety nine Oscars Night, there I was officially a sports reporter and ex news reporter and ex local LA sportscaster on top of everything else. There I was at the first corner of the red carpet in front of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, standing where one of the eighty or so LA Times photographers should have been. And I never found out what he thought of this idea. And I was introducing myself to actors and actresses who and producers and other people who had no idea who I was. Helen Hunt was particularly confused and explaining why I was there to actors and actresses who knew exactly who I was. Kevin Costner was particularly confused. Some of them gave thoughtful answers to my question about an all day oscars. Helen Hunt actually thought about it and said something interesting. Costner said he would never watch anything like that instead of say college basketball. He recommended against doing it, and he said, we already know too much about the things we already know about. And I knew exactly what he meant. What a great quote. We shook hands, and cost took a deep breath, and he moved towards the gauntlet of the next five hundred reporters down the red carpet and said, wish me luck Keith. Within two minutes, I then saw Costner walking back towards me. Can you give me a favor? I mean, I'm sorry, but can you not run that quote. I've never retracted a quote in my life, but that'll make me sound like Yogi Bera. I said, it didn't make him sound like Yogi berra. It was perfect and everybody would know exactly what he meant. But of course, if that's what he was wanted, I'd forget it. I wouldn't use the quote until now. Anyway, I had enough color and quotes, and technically my article was going to be labeled arrivals. So it was done already as night began to fall, and I had one particular piece of gold handed to me. When the fabled actress who had done the cameo in Titanic the year before, arrived on the Red carpet, the photographer standing on one side of me said, look, it's Martha Stuart. Not Martha Stuart, I mean Glorias Swanson. No, you know who I mean, Glorias Stuart. It was good that I had enough material, and I thought that was probably going to be my second paragraph, because the editor had given me a deadline, like, I don't know, six thirty seven pm, where I had to be back in the Times offices, which were a quick walk a block or two away, and I had to start writing because they wanted to put my piece on the page with all the early photos from the Red Carpet and the start of the awards, and they needed my piece finished asa up. But I lingered a few minutes longer than I was supposed to because there was only one actor. I had really hoped I was going to get to meet Tom Hanks. Finally, Keith comes back to Tom Hanks. Didn't see him. Everybody's already inside. I must have missed him, or maybe he's not coming, even though he has a nominated film. And I'm about to leave. Literally, I'm double checking my notes in my quotes. When I heard some of the fotog shout Tom, Tom, and there finally he was in a tux and a beard, and he gave him that half mile actor stare and pleasant smile, and without being asked, he did a slow pan from side to side so each cameraman could get him in profile and in full face. And then he stopped and his eyes widened comically, and he said, Keith Olberman, what are you doing here? Did you get fired? Again? That even got a laugh from the photographers. He then devolved into stick, come in with me. You can have Rita's ticket better than that. Why don't you go in with Rita? I'll go watch UCLA play. Rita. Wilson smiled, waved, and while looking at her husband, she pointed to her own head and made that crazy gesture and on and on and on it went. I asked Tom Hanks my questions. He gave me some good answers. He gave me a very nice double handed handshake, and he moved on. And he was one or two people down the gauntlet of the red carpet when I thought, dummy, Tom Hanks is right there. He's a fan. You're a fan. You have a camera with you, You have a mother, Get a picture with him for mom. So I beckoned, So you'll go in with me, hot dog. I explained what I actually wanted, and I handed my little disposable cardboard camera. Remember those to the nearest reporter I knew, Lara Spencer from Channel seven in New York more recently of Good Morning America. And I leaned back over the hedges, which, in the those innocent pre nine eleven days, were the only things actually keeping the famous safe from us. We merely cover the famous. Lara took a couple of shots in them. It would prove my head is about four times as big as Tom's and we both look like mutants, scraining mutants. Wait, this won't work, Tom Hanks finally said, and with that he grabbed me and started to pull me over the shrubbery. I was unprepared for this. I started to teeter. At this exact moment, I heard coming from the carpet behind me two guys chanting. Hanks turned around and said, Hello, boys, Look it's Keith Olberman. Can you believe this? Finally a reason actually show up to this dumb thing? Can we take me in with this havebut you guys got an extra ticket here, help me pull him over the hedge. The two guys were Ben Athleck and Matt Damon somewhere in this process, and Afleck and Damon were really young, then they really could pull one of these three men broke my commer bund i square. Suddenly I was on the red carpet with them, and with a loose commer bund Affleck struck a wrestling pose and made a grimace, a fake grimace. Lara Spencer shouted, that's a perfect shot, at which point I heard a sound effect, but in real life, nearly identical to the one that signaled the arrival of the reporters. Throughout the movie, the right stuff like a thousand mosquitoes moving in unison. Wait wait, wait, wait, man, every photographer there panned over to us because even those who did not know who I was or what Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, and Ben Affleck were doing to me? Did notice security rushing to this scene. It's all right, fellas, Hank shouted, he fell. They helped me back over the hedge. Affleck asked me about the Red Sox chances in the season ahead. Hanks slapped me on the back. I barely managed to shout enjoy the show boys, and Damon turned and said, well, we just did, and they were gone. Any image of this scene taken without sound and without context would have been greeted, perhaps as the stuff from con was about Tom Hanks. It would have shown three of Hollywood's top actors appearing to attack, or maybe trying to subdue some guy who looked vaguely like some sports or news guy or something. And the tucks didn't fit well, it must have been a rental. It might have been a perimeter breach. I mean, look at the damage to the hedge, to say nothing of the guy's cover bund. So when the story of Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson yelling at the guy on the red carpet at Con broke, all I could think of was here we go again. As a PostScript, I should note that I have seen Tom Hanks several times since then, and Hanks always mentions the comer bund Affleck once portrayed me on Saturday Night Live, and I went up to his studio, which was also the Football Night in America studio, to say hello at his rehearsal and offer him any tips he needed. And the next thing I knew that was in the New York Post Olberman Crash's studio and the photo of the four of us, well, I clearly had enough stuff for my Arrivals piece in the LA time. So I jogged back to their office is a little late now and found the editor and she asked me if the story would work, and I said, yes, I have enough. And then I sheepishly said, listen, there was a thing with me and Hanks and Affleck and Damon, and can I mention it in the piece? Maybe at the end. And again her eyes widened as I explained what happened, and in great excitement she asked, did anybody get a picture of this? And I said, well, yeah, I thought about one hundred real photographers got a picture of it. But I was certain that my friend Lara from New York had gotten it on my disposable, which which is when the editor grabbed the camera from my hand and left without a word, running down the hallway. And the next thing I saw of my camera or what was in it was the next morning when the front page of the La Times Oscar section had four beautiful color pictures on it, one of Gwyneth Paltrow, Judy Dench, James Coburn and Roberto Benini. One of Ilia Kazan. It was the Elia Kazan's speech year. One of Kate Blanchette's dress as seen from behind, so it was a picture of Kate Blanchette's But the largest of all the pictures me and the boys, with the caption the arrivals. Fox Sports News anchor Keith Alreman is mugged by Tom Hanks, left Ben Affleck and Matt Damon on the red carpet, and lives to write about it, page f two. I still have it framed on my wall, but just to be clear, Tom Hanks didn't actually mug me. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips Chanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass, and drums, and mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by Tko Brothers. I saw Tom Hanks about two years after the incident at the Oscars, having lunch in he walked and on the way out he came by a side door and leaned in the window and talked to me and my friend Hank appropriately enough, lovely guy, Tom Hanks. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by the group No Horn's Allowed. The sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis and appears courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our pithy and satirical musical comments are by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend, the actor Jonathan Banks. Everything else is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this The two hundred and third day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the one and ninety eighth day since defendant Jay Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States, Use the Fourteenth Amendment and the not regularly given elector objection provided by the Supreme Court, Use the Insurrection Act, use the justice system, use the mental health system to stop him from doing it again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow bulletins as the news warrants till then, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and I ask one no, that's right. Good Luck. 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.

He's not lying, he's cloaking a cloaking device like star Trek or an invisibility cloak, like good old Harry Potter. You don't call it lying. He caught cloaking. It's a new way of lying, and it's a good thing, because Trump says so. Also of interest here, I don't know when I stopped believing that the Supreme Court actually ruled on legal issues, rather than that it existed solely to make sure that some politically inconvenient laws or parts of the Constitution got crushed for the benefit of the Republicans and the rich people. But I know I was already an adult when I figured it out. Right now, I am so far from that naivete that I question whether or not I believe that the six Conservatives are even from this country, or that they have more of a legal education than I do. Which was one undergraduate college class mostly about communications law. In the January sixth related case now before them, Justice Alito asks how the insurrection and attempted overthrow of an election and the real president elect, how is that different from people heckling the Supreme Court? And the attorney has the restraint to not say, because none of you assholes or your security died at the hands of that mob, that mob of people that you think heckled you, You moron. That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown, with Keith o'd woman still ahead of us on this ediative countdown. Late last month, we passed the quarter century anniversary of one of the most joyful moments of my career, and I have been thinking of it off and on ever since March nineteen ninety nine. Tom Hanks assaults me at the Oscars. With the help of two Hollywood newcomers named Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, the bastards broke the cum abund on my tuxedo ahead in things I promised not to tell first, still more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days non commer bund breaking worst persons in the world the bronze worse Major League Baseball, and this gives me a moment to mention that apparently we're having another baseball rapture. The next to last living member of the World champion nineteen fifty five Brooklyn Dodgers, Carl Erskine, died yesterday, leaving only Sandy Kofax and Hall of Fame manager Whitey Herzog of the Royals and the Cardinals died Ken Holtzman the other day. Fritz Peterson last week I mentioned him at length. Yesterday, Jerry Grody, Bunn Harrison, Jim McAndrew of the sixty nine Mets, Pat Zachary and Don Gullet of the seventy six champion reds ed ott fourteen x major league players just since the start of spring training on a happier note, or at least a sillier one. Remember this year's big baseball controversy, I mean the one before the show. Hey, Otani's interpreter made three hundred and twenty five million dollars worth of bets and stole sixteen million bucks from Otani scandal. Remember the uniform scandal where the new better, wicking, lighter feeling, redesigned uniforms turned out to be delivered late, like months late, and they wrinkled in the rain, and they had tiny lettering on them. And they have pants and shirts in which the colors don't match, not even gray and gray. And they have the pants that are more see through than pants have been previously. That scandal, it's back the Seattle Mariners wore their City Connect uniforms. It's a merchandizing thing. Everything in baseball today is a merchandizing thing. And we are still awaiting a full explanation from the Seattle Times of its cryptic report that the pants of Seattle pitcher Bryce Miller did not fit correctly, and so he instead wore the City Connect uniform pants of a team bat boy. The only update on this so far. Miller apparently complained that the bat boy's pants kept riding up on him, which makes you wonder whether his pants were so short that they were actually designed for somebody else's son. And further details as they become available. Speaking of a little short, the runner up worser Mike Johnson, I know the Democrats may save him and anybody Marjorie Taylor Green hates is a little less schmucky than she is, and certainly, as noted earlier, he's less Russian than the others. But still, what a weasel that stunt last week in which he asked Trump for permission to go worship him at marri Lago and do a joint news conference about election integrity and then introduce a performance art bill about demanding voter ID for all voters, which they already have before he showed the bill to anybody else in the House. According to NBC News, Johnson showed it to d C. Draino. D C. Draino is one of those conservative morons with a stick on Twitter X. His reel name is broken oh Crapshack or whatever it is. Showed it to Broken oh Crapshack first to get him to use his influence ray to drum up support online, which of course would then get back to Trump. How much Johnson's idea would help Trump, But it wasn't just d C draino. And I can't tell if he's trying to be clever by spelling it dri n when the product itself is spelled dr no, or he's just too stupid to spell it correctly. In any event, Johnson also shared the bill with libs of TikTok and end Wokeness and Chrissy Clark, who apparently could not think of a clever name, but he did not share it with Cat Turd, Poor cat Turd, though Johnson did eventually share it with Isabella de Luca, who is not just an influencer, she's also a big big deal in moron world because she's a January sixth defendant. Speaking of which, our winners the conservative members of the Supreme Religious Court, and yesterday they heard oral arguments in a case that would invalidate the use of the obstruction of an official proceedings law under which hundreds of January sixth defendants have been convicted, some of whom that was the only charge against them. So the case is basically asking John Roberts and Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas and three Trump appointees whether or not they want to free several dozen Trump thugs. Ellie miss Stal from the nation, says Justice Neil Gorsich, made an analogy between the January sixth rioters attacking the US capital, between that and the day that Congressman Jamal Bowman set off a fire alarm by opening a locked door at the Capitol. Justice Alito asked how this was any different from people heckling the Supreme Court. Oh no, he was broken in half by a heckle. And Justice Thomas, who simply put, is goddamned lucky. His wife has not been in prison for the last three years over January sixth, actually maybe the last thirty years. Justice Thomas insisted that legally, January sixth is no different than any other attempt to disrupt official proceedings. Why, yes, Clarence, I agree with you. You are right. It is no different than any other attempt to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, instigated and organized and promoted by a lame duck president who wanted to stay in office even though he lost, and who probably wanted to jail or harm the actual president elect. I just hope that all of these arguments these fascists are using while finding excuses to make heroes out of traders, that they will remember them if the day comes that some large crowd, probably made up of conservatives who think that justices are not conservative enough, when a large crowd of conservatives storms the court the way Trump's insurrectionists so benignly pulled the fire alarm at the Capitol on January sixth, I just hope they remember all of their own arguments while they are fleeing gorsicch Thomas Kavanaugh, Barrett Alito, Roberts, He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind, Two Days, Wars, Parsons, Eorld, ah just twenty five years ago. Things I promised not to tell takes you back in time, like things I already experienced in my career, could somehow be ahead in time to March nineteen ninety nine, with a little detour. First, they were everywhere photos and video of what certainly looked from a distance like actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson yelling at, maybe even berating, an unidentified random staffer on the red carpet at the twenty twenty three Con Film Festival in France while promoting his new movie Asteroid City. At various intervals, Hanks seems to have a fist clenched, then seems to be jabbing his forefinger at the man. Throughout he appeared to wear a look of disbelief verging on anger. European newspapers were filled for two days with stories about Tom Hanks yells at Con and Tom Hanks yells at staffer and Tom Hanks skulls con staffer, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then his wife Rita spoke up, Then the staffer, Vincent Chapalaine, spoke up. Then the sound on the video spoke up louder than either of them. Tom Hanks wasn't scolding anybody, but he was yelling because he could not hear himself or this Vincent Chapalaine or anything else, because the crowd around the red carpet was too loud. The clenched hand, Tom Hanks clenched it while he was yelling, I can't hear you. Everybody's screaming the jabbing forefinger. It went with where are we supposed to go? Are we supposed to go back to the start of the red carpet? Just point at where you want us to go? And the scolding of the random staffer. Vince as Chapelaine is the manager of the Red Carpet at Khan has been for ten years. The only thing he was taking offense at was people presuming he was just security rather than management. These are the French Khan. You hear me? Now, this is an unusual story to include here, and I've gone into unusual detail about it because the moment I saw this story from KHN, I didn't have mere deja vu. I had a full flashback, a full out of body experience, time travel. I was propelled back to March twenty first, nineteen ninety nine, where a similar overhead view of Tom Hanks on a red carpet, without any audio, without any context, would have presented you a picture of first Tom Hanks and then Tom Hanks, with the assistance of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, assaulting a guy literally pulling him over the hedges that served as the security boundary, damaging the guy's clothing, and then basically throwing him back over the hedges, and all this took place on a red carpet at the Oscars. The guy was me. In nineteen ninety nine. I had just started what began as a pretty good gig. Fox Sports had launched its own version of ESPN and its own version of SportsCenter, and it had thrown way too much money at me, and it bought me out of my contract at MSNBC, where I was desperately unhappy doing the Clinton Lewinsky story every hour on the hour, and they got me to move back to Los Angeles and anchor their version of Sports Center and all the Fox Baseball coverage two including the World Series in the All Star Game, and it launched a five year plan to give itself enough credibility to compete with the ESPN. And I was just there to enjoy the sun, collect the huge paycheck, and publicize the thing as often as possible while they slowly built it up for the year two thousand and four. As the executive who signed me said, after we held an introductory press conference and press phone call, with about two hundred reporters, you earned about a year of your salary just doing that call. So when one of the editors of the Los Angeles Times called somebody she knew in the PR department at Fox and said, I have a crazy idea, what is Keith Olberman doing on Oscars night? The Fox people listened. The next thing I knew I had that night off. I was in a tux. I was standing the mid a sea off photographers at the first turn of the red carpet at the Oscars, gathering quotes from startled celebrities who expected to see only photogs right there and not somebody asking questions, certainly not me asking questions. I was a little startled too. The editor, in a pre Oscars phone call, explained that this was the seventy first edition of the Oscars, and the Times had covered the first seventy and then they had pretty much gotten it down to science around the year nineteen thirty two, and they really hadn't changed much since then, except the photos are in color now, she mentioned. She asked if I wanted to hear what would be in the Times the day after the Oscars, She said, I can recite the main story Right now, I just have to fill in the names of the winners. And then there's the fashion review and how many daring and outlandish and classic outfits there were. Now I'll have the TV critic complaining about how bad the host was. No, I'll had the TV business guy explaining why the ratings were so low. Then we'll have the big pull quotes from the actors that will re exactly like the big poll quotes from nineteen eighty nine or nineteen seventy nine. And we'll have the predictive piece on which award wins will actually help movies at the box office. And then we'll have the predictive piece on which awards snubs will actually hurt movies at the box office. What we need is anything else? Can you think of anything else? Can you think of anything you haven't read in our paper about the Oscars? I thought for a second, I said, what about this idea that they're now going to televise the Red Carpet live for half an hour before the Oscars. You're gonna have like an Oscars pregame show. I heard somebody say, you know, maybe they could do that all day. I mean, what if I asked everybody like, like, whoever will stop to talk to me, I mean, what if I ask them they think would be a good idea to make the Oscars an all day kind of thing, like like Super Bowl Sunday Oscar Sunday Oscar Bowl Live starting at dawn on ABC. I mean I could basically write you the lead paragraph. Now, thanks for attending Oscar Bowl. I please ask your limo driver to tune into the postgame show with Vince Gully, Uma Thurman, and Angeline not Angeline Edie Williams arrive home safely. The editor laughed, had me repeat it, and wrote it down. It was the lead of my story. So on the night of March twenty first, nineteen ninety nine Oscars Night, there I was officially a sports reporter and ex news reporter and ex local LA sportscaster on top of everything else. There I was at the first corner of the red carpet in front of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, standing where one of the eighty or so LA Times photographers should have been. And I never found out what he thought of this idea. And I was introducing myself to actors and actresses who and producers and other people who had no idea who I was. Helen Hunt was particularly confused and explaining why I was there to actors and actresses who knew exactly who I was. Kevin Costner was particularly confused. Some of them gave thoughtful answers to my question about an all day oscars. Helen Hunt actually thought about it and said something interesting. Costner said he would never watch anything like that instead of say college basketball. He recommended against doing it, and he said, we already know too much about the things we already know about. And I knew exactly what he meant. What a great quote. We shook hands, and cost took a deep breath, and he moved towards the gauntlet of the next five hundred reporters down the red carpet and said, wish me luck Keith. Within two minutes, I then saw Costner walking back towards me. Can you give me a favor? I mean, I'm sorry, but can you not run that quote. I've never retracted a quote in my life, but that'll make me sound like Yogi Bera. I said, it didn't make him sound like Yogi berra. It was perfect and everybody would know exactly what he meant. But of course, if that's what he was wanted, I'd forget it. I wouldn't use the quote until now. Anyway, I had enough color and quotes, and technically my article was going to be labeled arrivals. So it was done already as night began to fall, and I had one particular piece of gold handed to me. When the fabled actress who had done the cameo in Titanic the year before, arrived on the Red carpet, the photographer standing on one side of me said, look, it's Martha Stuart. Not Martha Stuart, I mean Glorias Swanson. No, you know who I mean, Glorias Stuart. It was good that I had enough material, and I thought that was probably going to be my second paragraph, because the editor had given me a deadline, like, I don't know, six thirty seven pm, where I had to be back in the Times offices, which were a quick walk a block or two away, and I had to start writing because they wanted to put my piece on the page with all the early photos from the Red Carpet and the start of the awards, and they needed my piece finished asa up. But I lingered a few minutes longer than I was supposed to because there was only one actor. I had really hoped I was going to get to meet Tom Hanks. Finally, Keith comes back to Tom Hanks. Didn't see him. Everybody's already inside. I must have missed him, or maybe he's not coming, even though he has a nominated film. And I'm about to leave. Literally, I'm double checking my notes in my quotes. When I heard some of the fotog shout Tom, Tom, and there finally he was in a tux and a beard, and he gave him that half mile actor stare and pleasant smile, and without being asked, he did a slow pan from side to side so each cameraman could get him in profile and in full face. And then he stopped and his eyes widened comically, and he said, Keith Olberman, what are you doing here? Did you get fired? Again? That even got a laugh from the photographers. He then devolved into stick, come in with me. You can have Rita's ticket better than that. Why don't you go in with Rita? I'll go watch UCLA play. Rita. Wilson smiled, waved, and while looking at her husband, she pointed to her own head and made that crazy gesture and on and on and on it went. I asked Tom Hanks my questions. He gave me some good answers. He gave me a very nice double handed handshake, and he moved on. And he was one or two people down the gauntlet of the red carpet when I thought, dummy, Tom Hanks is right there. He's a fan. You're a fan. You have a camera with you, You have a mother, Get a picture with him for mom. So I beckoned, So you'll go in with me, hot dog. I explained what I actually wanted, and I handed my little disposable cardboard camera. Remember those to the nearest reporter I knew, Lara Spencer from Channel seven in New York more recently of Good Morning America. And I leaned back over the hedges, which, in the those innocent pre nine eleven days, were the only things actually keeping the famous safe from us. We merely cover the famous. Lara took a couple of shots in them. It would prove my head is about four times as big as Tom's and we both look like mutants, scraining mutants. Wait, this won't work, Tom Hanks finally said, and with that he grabbed me and started to pull me over the shrubbery. I was unprepared for this. I started to teeter. At this exact moment, I heard coming from the carpet behind me two guys chanting. Hanks turned around and said, Hello, boys, Look it's Keith Olberman. Can you believe this? Finally a reason actually show up to this dumb thing? Can we take me in with this havebut you guys got an extra ticket here, help me pull him over the hedge. The two guys were Ben Athleck and Matt Damon somewhere in this process, and Afleck and Damon were really young, then they really could pull one of these three men broke my commer bund i square. Suddenly I was on the red carpet with them, and with a loose commer bund Affleck struck a wrestling pose and made a grimace, a fake grimace. Lara Spencer shouted, that's a perfect shot, at which point I heard a sound effect, but in real life, nearly identical to the one that signaled the arrival of the reporters. Throughout the movie, the right stuff like a thousand mosquitoes moving in unison. Wait wait, wait, wait, man, every photographer there panned over to us because even those who did not know who I was or what Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, and Ben Affleck were doing to me? Did notice security rushing to this scene. It's all right, fellas, Hank shouted, he fell. They helped me back over the hedge. Affleck asked me about the Red Sox chances in the season ahead. Hanks slapped me on the back. I barely managed to shout enjoy the show boys, and Damon turned and said, well, we just did, and they were gone. Any image of this scene taken without sound and without context would have been greeted, perhaps as the stuff from con was about Tom Hanks. It would have shown three of Hollywood's top actors appearing to attack, or maybe trying to subdue some guy who looked vaguely like some sports or news guy or something. And the tucks didn't fit well, it must have been a rental. It might have been a perimeter breach. I mean, look at the damage to the hedge, to say nothing of the guy's cover bund. So when the story of Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson yelling at the guy on the red carpet at Con broke, all I could think of was here we go again. As a PostScript, I should note that I have seen Tom Hanks several times since then, and Hanks always mentions the comer bund Affleck once portrayed me on Saturday Night Live, and I went up to his studio, which was also the Football Night in America studio, to say hello at his rehearsal and offer him any tips he needed. And the next thing I knew that was in the New York Post Olberman Crash's studio and the photo of the four of us, well, I clearly had enough stuff for my Arrivals piece in the LA time. So I jogged back to their office is a little late now and found the editor and she asked me if the story would work, and I said, yes, I have enough. And then I sheepishly said, listen, there was a thing with me and Hanks and Affleck and Damon, and can I mention it in the piece? Maybe at the end. And again her eyes widened as I explained what happened, and in great excitement she asked, did anybody get a picture of this? And I said, well, yeah, I thought about one hundred real photographers got a picture of it. But I was certain that my friend Lara from New York had gotten it on my disposable, which which is when the editor grabbed the camera from my hand and left without a word, running down the hallway. And the next thing I saw of my camera or what was in it was the next morning when the front page of the La Times Oscar section had four beautiful color pictures on it, one of Gwyneth Paltrow, Judy Dench, James Coburn and Roberto Benini. One of Ilia Kazan. It was the Elia Kazan's speech year. One of Kate Blanchette's dress as seen from behind, so it was a picture of Kate Blanchette's But the largest of all the pictures me and the boys, with the caption the arrivals. Fox Sports News anchor Keith Alreman is mugged by Tom Hanks, left Ben Affleck and Matt Damon on the red carpet, and lives to write about it, page f two. I still have it framed on my wall, but just to be clear, Tom Hanks didn't actually mug me. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips Chanelle arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass, and drums, and mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by Tko Brothers. I saw Tom Hanks about two years after the incident at the Oscars, having lunch in he walked and on the way out he came by a side door and leaned in the window and talked to me and my friend Hank appropriately enough, lovely guy, Tom Hanks. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by the group No Horn's Allowed. The sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis and appears courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our pithy and satirical musical comments are by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend, the actor Jonathan Banks. Everything else is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this The two hundred and third day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the one and ninety eighth day since defendant Jay Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States, Use the Fourteenth Amendment and the not regularly given elector objection provided by the Supreme Court, Use the Insurrection Act, use the justice system, use the mental health system to stop him from doing it again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow bulletins as the news warrants till then, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and I ask one no, that's right. Good Luck. 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.