SEASON 4 EPISODE 77: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Did Trump lose to Iran because the war was escalating too quickly for him?

Firstly, great cease fire, Trump. Oh did we mention it doesn’t include Lebanon but it DOES include Iran closing the strait of Hormuz on Day 1. CEASEFIRE? This is way more FIRE than CEASE.

How do you LOSE a cease fire, El Presidente? But the bigger question: did Trump really call off his genocide because he didn’t need the missiles flying THIS week? Because this is way too early to precipitate a crisis HERE, in AMERICA? Did he give the Iranians control of Hormuz and let them keep their uranium and get out from under the sanctions because while the FIRST reason for this pointless brinksmanship was a distraction from the Epstein Files, the SECOND reason was to have a reason in late summer and early autumn to declare a domestic emergency HERE, and mess with the elections?

To extrapolate from the cynical but entirely logical and disturbing writings of the great historian Professor Tim Snyder, is all this because Trump didn’t need retaliation from Iran and maybe the threat of Iranian terrorism (real or staged) on APRIL 9th… he needs it on OCTOBER 9th… so this was not only postponed, but it was postponed already pre-sabotaged, so he can keep it on a back burner TIL then, or bring it back later when he needs to lie and say Iran is a threat HERE?

PLUS: Thank you Pam Bondi for putting Epstein back on the map, by not just going to the House deposition and taking the hit. Now we can again point at an all-too-obvious Trump Epstein cover-up. The other day I jokingly asked 'Where the F happened to Rudy Giuliani?" and all of a sudden he's back. And my old boss Jeff Shell did indeed get fired, for the second time, as a major TV network president.

B-Block (29:15) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Dr. Naomi Wolf is an all-time great. This time, she is unaware of the sun. We have Trump-inspired Eggcorn propagators talking about "Litnis Tests" and the "Commander And Chief!" A boss at X describes writing on the site as "tweeting." And as Trump threatens to arrest reporters (again) the White House Correspondents Dinner looms and they will welcome him, but no critics, no comedians, and no protest except the lamest thing you've ever heard: The Jake Tapper Protest Pocket Square.

C-Block (55:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: He was perhaps the greatest mechanical newscaster in history. Just perfect on the air. That, he explained, was because he never thought, he just read. Unfortunately if there was a mistake in the script, he'd read that too. And one night, boy was there a mistake in Jerry Dunphy's script!