SERIES 2 EPISODE 199: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump and his henchmen opened not one but two emergency exits for him to bail out of Thursday's debate against The President and blame it on Biden. And in doing so, his dumbest press secretary yet went on CNN and called Adolf Hitler "HILTER." H-I-L-T-E-R, Hilter.

I don't know if she should be fired for invoking HItler, or if she WILL be fired for getting the name of Trump's role model wrong.

It's Karoline Leavitt, the former centerfielder of the St. Anselm College softball team and the idiot who previously insisted the word 'damning' is correctly pronounced 'dammaning,' tried to filibuster CNN's Katie Hunt about how biased debate hosts Jake Tapper and Dana Bash really are. As Hunt cut first the answer and then the interview off, Leavitt insisted anybody could spend five minutes googling how many times Tapper had compared Trump to "Adolf Hilter." Bypassing the whole Hitler/Hilter stuff, "Damaning Hilter" Leavitt adopted the traditional pose of the Martyred Trump Huckster and did the rounds of the fascist media outlets. When she went on Steve Bannon’s outlet he said either CNN apologizes to her, or Trump should cancel the debate.

Hours later, Trump opened a second emergency chute, again demanding drug tests before the debate, as his personal quack Congressman Physician Prescribe Thyself Ronny Jackson wrote a long letter to the White House requesting such tests (and saying nothing about any stashes he may have left there).

Who knows if Trump really will bail. But he's got FOLAD (Fear Of Losing A Debate) all covered.

MEANWHILE: it's a long shot but I'm beginning to wonder if somebody on Jack Smith's side is laying the groundwork for indicting Trump anew - in New Jersey. There has been a second news leak in just three business days, about Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Espionage Scandal. Yesterday’s leak via ABC News did not resonate among American news media which can generally only BARELY handle one thing at a time – like the debate. The story itself – about Trump making an almost-secret special trip to Florida in July 2022 to make sure nobody had touched the documents he stole from the White House and hid from his own attorney - may not be much more than another one of those threads that you pull on and maybe it just comes off in your hand – or maybe it unravels the entirety of Trump’s size 62 suit. I don’t even think prosecutors know what they have here.

But he went down there two weeks after he had bankers' boxes shipped from Mar-a-Lago to the Bedminster Golf Course. They didn't contain Ivana.

B-Block (20:35) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: I have somehow forgotten, for years, maybe 35 years, the first and arguably the best joke I ever made about Trump. I'll correct that here. Not only are the British Conservatives on track for a historic loss in the July 4 election but two candidates, a party official, and a security guard have been caught allegedly wagering on which day their prime minister would select for Election Day! And the rare two-wins-in-a-row for Puck media guy Dylan Byers, carrying still more management water as he turns gutsy Washington Post reporting on the paper's ongoing management scandal into “a plan to dig for unflattering information.”

C-Block (27:20) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: How did I forget to tell you this one through the first 500 episodes of this podcast? How could I have missed the 24th anniversary last week? I'll just mention the principals: my mother, me, a former New York Yankees infielder named Chuck Knoblauch - and Babe Ruth.

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