Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Trump has proved yet again that he is a dangerous and potentially murderous anti Semite. But it really tells you something when that is not the lead story about him. I will get to it presently, But first two more of his gang members have flipped on Donald Trump flipped on him evidently without even getting anything in return, not even immunity, in one case serving as a de facto government agent gathering and bringing in evidence against Trump, physical evidence against Trump, and in the other case flipping on him without apparently telling the truth, just making stuff up about him to save themselves by sinking him. In an almost comedic turn, Trump assistant Gal Friday facto toe Molly Michael is telling federal investigators that he used to write to do lists for her on the backs of the classified documents he had improperly stolen to do lists on summaries of classified intelligence with visible classification markings on them, handed to Trump in the Oval office, which he used as scrap paper, and handed to the lowest level White House staffer he could see. They would not have accepted this as a plot device on VEEP. The to do Dodo. Also, according to ABC News, Trump found out last year that the FBI wanted to talk to Molly Michael, so he told her. She says, quote, you don't know anything about the boxes unquote. The thing is he never went into specifics. She still doesn't know exactly what he meant by that. What boxes. There's always money in the banana stand. There's a third part to this. Those to do lists, and one can imagine them. One get bleached, to drink, two get Komi arrested, three insight insurrection. Those to do lists were at marri Lago when the FBI executed the search warrant there on August the eight, twenty twenty two, but ms Michael said the investigators missed them. When she was allowed back into her office the next day, August ninth, she found them, and there were many of them, kind of messed up, but still there underneath a drawer organizer. ABC reports she quote helped transfer them to the FBI that same day, which sounds almost meaningless, but actually mean that. No later than thirteen months ago, Molly Michael began cooperating with the investigation of the top secret materials that Trump stole and stashed at his version of the Bushwood golf course. Hell in this investigation, she is senior to Jack Smith helped transfer them to the FBI is a very dressed up, pleasant euphemism for serving as a junior g man and getting the evidence for the Feds. To emphasize just how much Molly Michael flipped on Trump, turned on Trump has been helping increase the odds of sending Trump to the Big House. ABC's sources familiar with what Michael told investigators added this quote. Michael also told federal investigators that last year she grew increasingly concerned with how Trump handled recurring requests from the National Archives for the return of all government documents being kept in boxes at marri Lago, and she felt that Trump's claims about it at the time would be easy to disprove, According to the sources, in other words, she knew he was lying and figured he was going to get caught right. Oh, and there's even more. After Trump returned fifteen boxes that ultimately proved to contain nearly two hundred classified documents, quote, Trump began to seem more reluctant to cooperate with the agency, and he asked Michael to help spread a message that no more boxes existed unquote. So Molly Michael gave up Trump on illegal retention of the secret documents. She gave him up on mishandling classified information. She gave him up on illegally showing them, giving them to somebody who could not legally read them. She gave him up on trying to obstruct justice by hiding them from authorities. She gave him up on the false certification that he made that everything had been turned over. He gave him up on a conspiracy to get others to lie to the authorities for him with this message that no more boxes existed, and the other cryptic message, you don't know anything about the boxes. Her testimony establishes not just the baseline of the crimes that governments accused Trump of, but also the Espionage Act components and his intent to deceive rather than just you know, keeping souvenirs and being stupid about it, and Molly Michael's just half of it. Jeff Clark, the man who would be Attorney General, has become the fifth out of the Trump nineteen to try to get his Atlantic charges moved to federal court, and his lawyer has told the judge that he should grant their motion because of one letter. It is the letter that Jeffrey Clark wrote but was prevented from sending after the twenty twenty election, sending from the Justice Department email to top officials in Georgia saying that the DOJ had reason to doubt that George's election results were legitimate and the DOJ was investigating. Clark claims he was told to do this by Trump, that he could not have done so unless Trump told him to, that that would have been impossible for him to do it by himself. His lawyer told Judge Steve Jones, quote, they say he was acting outside of his lane. The President put it in his lane unquote. The problem with this one is, and this may or may not be true, because Clark and the attorney apparently forgot one key detail. When Judge Jones asked what evidence they had that the Devil made him do it, Clark's lawyer didn't have any evidence to offer. Judge Jones then asked when the letter was written, Was it, in fact after the infamous meeting involving Clark and Trump and the senior Justice Department officials who were so furious that they seemed ready to encourage Clark to lean out the nearest window, and the attorney didn't know when the letter was written. Moreover, just last Thursday, Jeff Clark submitted what he called a declaration with the court explaining his actions. It does not appear to corroborate what his lawyer claimed yesterday that Trump directed him to write the letter to the Georgia officials. So Molly Michael hurt Trump legally in at least seven different ways. But Jeff Clark he did one of two things. He either just revealed that Trump had ordered him personally to write a lengthy lie claiming that the DOJ was investigating the presidential election results in Georgia, what prosecutors are calling an attempt to create a false statement, which really would go to proving that Trump was at the center of the web to steal the twenty twenty election. That was not the Eastman plan, that was not the Clark plan, that was the Trump plan. Or what Clark did was he was with to make up something or exaggerated or hyperboleze something blame Trump in one of those few occasions in world history where Trump might not actually deserve the specific blame. To throw Trump under the bus, just to get his trial moved to federal court. Jeff Clark, everybody, and Molly Michael. We haven't even gotten to the plea deals yet, and Trump's staffers are flipping like fry cooks at fat Burger, speaking of burgers. At the other end of the same grill, there is Ken Cheesebro and his Georgia court filing seems as nonsensical as Clark's, but nonsensical in a way that protects Trump. Cheesebro says no law was broken in rounding up and swearing in the fake Georgia electors because quote, the Republican presidential electors were qualified and elected by the Republican Party. Unquote. Think about that for a second. The Republican presidential electors were qualified and elected by the Republican Party. Well, that's all right. Then there is legal parsing and asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Like the Federalist Society co founder Stephen Calibracey, who believed Trump was ineligible to be on the ballot because of the Fourteenth Amendment, but just switched back to the no. I guess he is eligible because he says the fourteenth Amendment applies to quote officers of the United States. And since the presidential oath does not specifically identify presidents as officers of the United States, but the oaths for congressmen, state legislators, state executives, and state judicial officers do refer to them as officers of the United States, that means the president is not an officer of the United States. He's also, by definition legally not a penguin, because his oath does not say I am a penguin. Now there's that level of legal hair splitting, ludicrous, but based at least on things that are in fact in this universe, on this plane of existence. Then there is this cheeseboro level of hair splitting, saying the fake electors were not fake electors because they were elected because some Republicans met in a room somewhere and elected them, which seems to fall inside that legal area defined by the well known legal phrase who died and elected you? God? Shocked? Meanwhile, are you by Trump's anti Semitic threat against the Jewish people of America? Why are you shocked? If you missed this? Trump found and posted in the middle of Russiashana a graphic meme that he probably noticed because it had a drawing of how he looked about forty years ago, and the drawing was superimposed on an American flag. He added no direct comment of his own to it, presumably for deniability. Later it reads quote just a quick reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America and Israel because you believe false narratives. Exclamation point. Let's hope you learned from your mistake and make better choices moving forward. Happy New Year. The phrase hope you learned from your mistake should send a shudder through not just any one community in it, but through this entire country, because that is the language of the Holocaust. Then beneath that is a picture of Trump circa nineteen eighty three over the flag, and then quote, wake up, sheep, What Nazi anti Semite ever did this for the Jewish people or Israel? And yes, Nazi is misspelled. Who the hell has ever misspelled Nazi? There's no t in Nazi. That's the leading piece of evidence that this is actually Trump's work. He misspelled that. This goes on to talk about moving the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and then moves on to mock the reality that Trump is an anti Semite and always has been. It ends hashtag Trump twenty twenty and quote jects it j e xit unquote. This kind of stuff is, of course an annual event for Trump. Last October, he also threatened America's Jews, and not via a meme. He personally said they quote have to get their act together before it is too late. Forgot that, didn't you and had better support him because he supported Israel, and once again he implied that they were Jewish first and American second. And no, the fact that he used to keep a book of Hitler's speeches in a cabinet next to his bed has nothing to worry about. He's an anti Semite. He's always been an anti Semite, and anything that he has done that has not been overtly anti Semitic has been transactional. There was always something in it for him. Those of the Jewish faith were just incidental to the process. I'll read the whole Trump statement from October of last year again and then translate its meanings, and those meanings are genuinely ominous, and they resonate now after this latest disaster. Quote no president has done more for Israel than I have. Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the US. Those living in Israel, though, are a different story. Highest approval rating in the world could easily be pm US. Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel before it is too late. Exclamation point and again, the first thing to note was Trump's unshakable conviction that Americans of Jewish heritage are actually loyal first, or should be loyal first, to not the United States, but Israel. People of the Jewish faith, especially those living in Israel. This is one of the oldest tropes about that religion, that there is an implied dual citizenship, a certain uncertainty as to where their loyalty really lies. All anti Semites believe this. It is the starting point. All rulers who ever purged Jews believed it. Hitler began with it in twenty eighteen at a Hanukka event Hanka event in the White House. He was addressing Americans who happened to be Jewish and referred to Israel as quote, your country a year later, he said anybody who voted for a Democrat might be disloyal. Last year, he asked a reporter from an Orthodox Jewish magazine, I did the Heights, I did Jerusalem, I did Iran. The Iran deal was a disaster, right, and I also did many other things. Jewish people who live in the United States don't love Israel enough. Does that make sense to you. I'm not talking about Orthodox Jews. I believe we got twenty five percent of the Jewish vote, and it doesn't make sense. It just seems strange to me. Translation of that quote of the social media posts. As president, he gave Israel gifts, he was nice to them, when you know he could have been openly anti Israel, anti Semitic, and that they still haven't fonnd over him for not openly hating them, as if that's the way it ordinarily should be. Let me go out of sequence. Let me cut to the money quote. US Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel before it is too late. Is that subtle? That's a threat or a threat couched as a warning like the one Sunday, hope you learn from your mistake. Either way, it's a repeat of the way Trump's diseased mind works. People hate you, but I helped you. You haven't been grateful enough to me. Your Jewish Israel is your country. I helped Israel. If I'm not there to help Israel, you'll be sorry. So you better start supporting me more or else. But maybe the most important part of that twenty twenty two post is the seeming throwaway reference to the evangelicals. And if you don't know this, it actually explains the whole thing. He says, our wonderful Evangelicals. The wonderful Evangelicals are in fact religious nut jobs who will support him no matter what because they believe. Because they actually believe, he has become part of the most screwball Bible prophecy of all the screwball Bible prophecies. Evangelicals are far more appreciative, he says, of his support for Israel than our American Jews. The trumpion tell is Then he adds the phrase somewhat surprisingly. This is his standard misdirection. He makes it seem as if he doesn't understand something. Quote somewhat surprisingly always means he fully understands it. He realizes the dark implications, and he wants to leave that plausible deniability for himself. And the obsession with Israel on the part of those wonderful evangelicals that is about as dark as it gets on this planet right now. And if you don't know what this is, you better sit down before I tell you. Five and a half years ago, Newsweek printed this remarkable headline quote, Trump will start the end of the world, claim evangelicals who support him. It's not a bug, it's a feature. The evangelical Christians believe in end times what they call prophecy, while others call stuff somebody made up to fleece the gullible. Jerusalem, where Trump moved the American Embassy, is the centerpiece of this fire and brimstone wacky ending to the Bible. Let me quote some of the Newsweek piece on this quote. What kick starts the end Times into motion is Israel's political boundaries being re established to what God promised the Israelites according to the Bible. Nate Pyle, a pastor and author of a book about Jesus, told news Week most evangelicals subscribe to a belief in pre millennialism, the belief that the second Coming of Christ will begin a one thousand year period where Christ will rule over a peaceful and prosperous earth. Neil J. Young, a religion historian, told Newsweek, Young, who holds a PhD in history from Columbia University, writes frequently on evangelical culture and politics, quoting him again, Israel is a key part of this story too, as Christians believe that events there are fundamental to bringing about the end Times. Young continued. Meanwhile, the evangelical belief in the end Times also includes the eventual conversion to Christianity of the Jewish people. The scenario begins when Christ comes to Earth to take the living Christians who believe in him to Heaven and resurrect the dead who were true Christians, an event called the Rapture. Afterward, it is believed that the anti Christ will reign on Earth during these seven year period of tribulation. You didn't mishear anything in that the evangelical fascination with Jerusalem is about Christ returning and converting the Jews or killing them. There is a history written by professor at the University of North Texas named Elizabeth Oldmixon. She studies nothing but this bizarre connection between the evangelicals and Israel, and now the evangelicals and Israel and Trump and Vox interviewed her and got to the whole convert or die thing. Quote. They believe that before Christ will return, there will be a tribulation where Christ defeats evil. There will be a natural disasters and wars, and perhaps an anti Christ, as the Book of Revelations notes. Then at the end of that period, the people of the Mosaic Covenant, including the Jews, will convert. Then after their version, the great millennium start the box. Reporter quite naturally asks and what about the people who don't convert? What becomes of them? Old Mixon answered, quote, Well, according to the evangelicals who believe this, they'll end up with the rest of the unsaved, which means they'll be wiped out and sent to Hell unquote. Trump's support for Israel is based on his need for evangelicals to support him, and the evangelical support for Israel is based because later on episode nine, three hundred and twenty two one hundred and sixteen, all the Jews are converted or killed. So, if you want to take the darkest view of that last sentence from Trump, US Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel before it is too late, and now learn from your mistakes. He is literally warning the American Jewish population about annihilation, and a month after going back to that evangelical forced conversion threats to the Jews whose annihilation thingy last year, last November we're speaking of now. Trump had the loud and boastful anti semit Nick Fuentes over to dinner at Crapshack a Lago with Kanye West. Then Trump denied he knew who Fuentes was. Trump, of course, has been exposing more and more of his anti Semitism percent by percent for at least eight years. Kanye West's version of that dinner with Trump and Fuentes is that when West said he West would run for president in twenty twenty four and would like Trump to be his running mate, the first actual, sort of almost sensible, not crazy sounding thing West has said a joke that he said, first time in a decade he hasn't seemed utterly crazy. When he made that joke, Trump erupted in rage. When Nick Fuentes said he was part of the Trump base, Trump erupted in quote, I really like this guy. He gets me. Kanye West said Trump was really impressed with Nick Fuentes. See, if you rebel against Trump, you get the West treatment. I'm not saying Wes doesn't deserve anything he gets, but if you might fulfill Trump's needs, if you are servile, you get the Nick Fuentes treatment. Say for a moment he did not know who Nick Fuentes was. He did after that dinner? Did he denounce Nick Fuentes? Not at all? Because Donald John Trump is an anti Semite. He is an anti Semite who views Jews as people from a different country who had quote better learn from their mistakes and get their act together before it's too late. Unquote what the hell does before it's too late? Mean to you pick which kind, But he means something bad is going to be done to Jewish people in this country unless they support him. Below the surface, he is saying he's going to be the one who does it. Now. If that seems extreme to you, consider ancient Trumpian history. It was last year when his former chief of staff, General John Kelly, revealed that Trump had once confronted him, demanding to know why quote you effing generals, why can't you be like the German generals in World War Two. And when challenged with the fact that you know it was German generals who tried to kill Hitler several times, Trump insisted, no, no, no, they were totally loyal to him. It is now five years since Trump, at a commemoration of the dead of World War One, said to Kelly, quote, well, Hitler did a lot of good things and talked about Hitler and his economy. And now it is thirty three years, thirty three years next month since Marie wrote in the magazine Vanity Fair quote Ivanna Trump told her lawyer that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. So the reporter Marie Brenner asks Trump if his cousin John gave him that book, and Trump says, actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount, who gave me a copy of Mind comp. And then it was Marty Davis who said he didn't give Trump that Hitler book. He didn't give him mine comp. He gave him Hitler's my new order. See that's Hitler's book of his favorite speeches. So Trump then comes back and tells the reporter Marie Brenner, if I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them. There was another quote in that article from thirty three years ago next month, attributed to one of his attorneys. Donald the unnamed lawyer says is a believer in the big lie theory. If you say something again and again, people will believe you. That was nineteen ninety. Also of interest, here a little more on the Christen Welker Trump disaster story I mentioned yesterday. Investigation underway and whether or not there was a deal with Trump to keep fact checking of the interview off TV, whether or not that was the case. Guests who did not condemn the platforming of an anti democracy insurrectionist and NBC's failure to offer any serious kind of fact checking on TV, I told you so. But good news everyone. Bill Maher's condition has been upgraded from scumbag scab to just plain old scumbag. That's next, this discountdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead on countdown. How's your right side feeling just above the belt line? Does it feel a little achy, a little hot? You know what? You need to do press into that area with a couple of your fingers. Then stop the pressure and pull your fingers back out. Now, if you just went, ah, go see a doctor, that's your appendix. You know how I know that because my appendix blew up sixteen years ago this week and I didn't know it for two days because I'm a moron. Don't be like Keith. Check your appendix often first time. For the daily roundup of the miscrants, morons, and donning effect specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world. And no, I will not put Lauren Bobert in here just because she and her date enjoyed the live musical version of Beetlejuice without ever watching the show. She now tells TMZ that it was her mistake because she was dating a Democrat and he hosted a drag queen party at the bar he owns. But he's a great guy, but he's private and now they've broken up. Just so long as it had a happy ending. The worst the Bronze Yeah's Rachel Meadow. Guess what I was not wrong? She did not say boo about the deplorable NBC and MSNBC Meet the Press quote interview unquote of Trump. NBC is itself investigating whether somebody on the staff of Meet the Press assured the Trump campaign there would not be any serious fact checking as he lied and lied and lied, and Kristen Welker asked him touchy feely dateline questions about how it feels when he sees his mugshot. It does not seem that the investigation is formal, at least not yet, or whether the NBC News employee handbook I mentioned yesterday is being poured over by those involved. But the questions are being asked at thirty Rock. They're just not being asked on the networks of NBC by compliant employees. There was a sad irony last night. Rach began her show with a monologue about how little things like being asked by a friend to be a dog sitter was a good sign that you were a good person and could be dependent upon. Last night, on the subject of making at least some noise of protest about her employers rolling over for Trump, prostituting her network, and standing up against truth, she had the chance to be that person, and she failed. While I was fighting NBC management to get her the chance to do that show. He told me success might destroy her as a person. I did not listen. She was not mistaken. The runner up Elon Musk still claiming two hundred and sixty five million people quote saw unquote Trump's Twitter video with Tucker Carlson, Remember Tucker Carlson. Even though that would count everybody who watched and everybody who didn't watch. That's a genius rating system. By that measure, the TV version of Countdown had a rating of six billion viewers a night. Anyway, this comes the same day that Musk does a video conversation with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin net Nahu for some reason, and during it he reveals he is quote moving to a small monthly payment for use of the X system. Translation from muskox he is going to start charging you to use Twitter. Everybody to pay for that, in which case his next post about Carlson's video view count will be nearly three hundred people saw it. But our winner Bill Maher like Drew Barrymore a day earlier, my old college contemporary saw the end of his career as a tangible thing in front of him, and so he changed his mind at the last minute. Now says he will not cross the Writer's Guild picket line, even though he's a Writer's Guild member. He will not bring his HBO show back right now. But unlike Barrymore, who apologized and cried and made you think, all right, fine, maybe we'll forget that you volunteered to be a strike breaker and you didn't do it only to save your own worthless ass. Fine, just stop crying at me, please, Bill Maher made up a bad excuse, a stupid excuse. My decision to return to work was made when it seemed nothing was happening and there was no end in sight to this strike. Now that both sides have agreed to go back to the negotiating table, I'm going to delay the return of real time for now and hope they can finally get this done. Unquote, Well, that's the kind of script you get when your writers are on strike. Bill, And in addition to whatever long term ramifications there are for Mar, like maybe nobody will go on a show again. Who's a celebrity or member sag After or the WGA, He's already gotten this. CBS Radio News did a pre recorded report on Mars about face yesterday. It ran several times on all the CBS stations, Reporter Wendy Gillette gravely announced that Bill Mayer. Bill Mayer had reconsidered and would not ignore the strike after all, and would not be bringing back his show Real Time with Bill Mayer, Bill Maher, Where is it Mayor? Happily, there's no way to mispronounce scumbag, So Bill may have been upgraded from scumbag scab to just scumbag, but it'll always be scumbag Bill Mayor two days Mayor worse person and allah to the number one story on the Countdown and my favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell, So it's another anniversary. One. Sometime on Wednesday, September twelfth, two thousand and seven, I began to feel bad, all strained on my right side. But my girlfriend at the time, Katie Turr, and I had just moved only a few weeks before into our new apartment and I was still pushing boxes around and I thought I'd just strained something. The next morning, the thirteenth, I was still feeling like crap, but now my stomach also hurt, and I thought I was bloated or constipated or something, and maybe some sit ups would help, and actually they felt like they had relieved some of the pressure. And Katie's father, who was among many many things in EMT, happened to be in town. He gave me a vic it in or something, and I took a nap and went into work a little later than usual at MSNBC, which I could get away with that day because President Bush was speaking that night, and almost all of my work that night would be ad libbed before his speech, and then after his speech. I wrote what I needed to write quickly, and at about seven fifteen I went out to the show line producer Greg Kordick, who sat in exactly the right place that he could make certain that I had left for makeup and was going to the studio on time. I had to walk right past him, and I said, I'm exhausted. I'm just going to close my eyes at my desk for a couple of minutes. If you don't see me go pass by like seven point forty, come in and wake me up. And I sat down and put my legs up on my desk. I folded my hands behind my head, and I just closed my eyes, more to rest my eyes than in any real hope of sleeping. I am a fickle sleeper. There's not a chance I could snooze like that. Next day, I know, it's seven point forty and I'm feeling somebody shaking me and seriously a hand on each shoulder. Apparently it took mister Cordick a little while to wake me up, and I thank Greg and staggered to the makeup room. And I realized now I had a little fever, but it was too late to do anything about it. So I got my makeup, went to the set, did the lead into Bush's speech, took some notes during it, did the post speech wrap up with the analysts, and after two hours in the air, I got in the car that they sent for me to go home to New York from New Jersey, and I fell asleep again in the car. I still thought, this is some weird stomach flu and I'm bloated beyond belief, and I really don't feel good. But I bet that's just from listening to George W. Bush one time too many. I'll just go to bed. I found it was too difficult to lie on my stomach or my side, which presented a problem because rarely can I fall asleep on my back, but I had to try, and the next thing I knew it was morning. I slept like a stone, but I still felt really bad, in fact, a little bit worse. On top of all which Katie was yelling at me about something. And I had a check up for something unrelated at my doctor's office, and I left early so I could go buy something for the constipation. And then when my doctor called me and he said, you look terrible. Are you okay? And I said, no, I got this really sore stomach and the last time I had this fever for a while, he kind of gasped, and now he looked terrible, and he said, when was the last time you ate? I said, you know, funny, I haven't thought about food for a couple of days. And then he asked me when was the last time that happened? And I said when I was in the womb, and he had me stand up and he pushed his finger into my stomach about five inches to the right of my navel, and holding the finger there, he said, does this hurt? And I said not at all? And then he said does it hurt now? As I take my finger away, And I don't remember if I said anything or not, because I saw the proverbial stars in front of my eyes and I let out a scream. So he said, get back in your car, and you go to our other office at fifty ninth and tenth and go see our gastro specialist. And I said, sure, just don't poke me again. And when I got there, they showed me right in and she taps me and she says, why are you hunched over like that? And I said, I'm hunched over and she says, if you haven't eaten in two days, how come your stomach is heard is a rock? And I said, is this a medical quiz? Because you're the doctor, And she says, I want you to go across the street to the hospital emergency room. I'll call them while you're walking. Just go right in and tell them you're the one doctor Lou called about, because boy, you're appendix burst. And although I think you'll be fine, technically, you've got about oh eight, ten twelve hours to live. Well, that got my attention, and as I'm grabbing my jacket my bag, I say, wait, if this isn't just constipation, how come it felt better when I did the sit ups? And she says, because when you did the sit ups. You only had an affected appendix that was going to burst when you did the sit ups, dummy, That's when the appendix burst. You burst it. So I said, wait, I went on TV for two hours after my appendix burst. Shut up, She explained, she was right there. People saw me immediately. They ran a bunch of tests and reminded me that if I hadn't already, I should probably call in sick for a couple of days. And I said, wait, what day is today? And they helped out and they said Friday. So I called MSNBC, and I called the producer of Football Night in America, which I was doing for NBC on Sundays, and I said, hey, sorry, looks like I'm technically dying from a burst appendix. And they're going to operate on me as soon as they can get a surgeon in here. And they say it's real unlikely I'll be out of the hospital by Sunday or Monday. Have a nice day. I called Katie, who had already gotten to her job in local cable news in Brooklyn, and she turned around to come help me out at the hospital. And then I just waited and got goofyer and Goofyer and goofyer in goof here. I think they operated around seven or eight pm. The surgeon introduced himself. He was a big sports fan, Fred Kimmelsteele, the surgeon named by prophetic parents. And I went to the anesthesiologist and I warned him. I said I'd once woken up from anesthesia during an endoscopy, and could he make sure that that didn't happen again. In fact, I said that the other day when I had my knee operated on, and this guy did the same thing. They both of these anesthesiologists just laughed when I challenged them to knock me out a little bit harder. So doctor kimmel Steele asked me about the latest met choke job. This is the one in two thousand and seven, not the one in twenty twenty two, and I started to talk about David Wright, and the next thing I knew, I was freezing cold and trying to open my eyes. And it was three hours later and the surgery was over. What a mess, said Doctor kimmel Steele. Never had one that bad before. Thank God, it absesss. You'll be here all weekend, And I was the next day. They made me get out of bed, and I think it took me half an hour to walk about twenty feet down the hallway and back. And there was a morphine drip and a new bag of intravenous antibiotics every two hours, and at one point the phone rang, and I really did have to go back the following weekend ask the producer if this actually happened or I merely hallucinated it. But the phone rang, and it was the football night in America people, and they said they were going to shoot video of the hospital I was in. And I said, I don't think you can see me from the street, and they said, right, we know that. We're just pretty much doing this for a laugh at your expense while you're in the hospital and we're on TV. And then finally my appetite came back on Monday and I was able to eat some pancakes and they sent me home in the afternoon. And for two days after that, I was still sweating out the poisons and the antibiotics and the painkillers, and I mean I was so warm I could not bear to have a shirt on. But by Thursday, I was able to go back to work, and just to show off, I wrote a special comment about Bush from my first show back. I was extremely pleased with myself. Now there are three postscripts to this. Now, obviously I learned, and I've just taught you the test for appendicitis or a burst appendix. If you poke it and it doesn't hurt until you stop poking it, it's your appendix. Fat lot of good that'll do me. Now I don't have an appendix. Second weeks later, I was at dinner with my friend John Clees from Monty Python's Flying Circus, and he said he'd heard the story about my appendix and he was very upset with me. I did the exact same thing. John said, it blew up, and for two days I had no idea how serious it was. Thought it was a cold. But don't kill people that don't undersell it and call it a burst appendix. You and I we were both dying of septacemia. Never let anybody forget that, and I haven't. And the last and best PostScript was, while I'm lying there recovering after the surgery, the phone rings and it's my executive producer and she says, good news. When you anchored before and after Bush's speech, you got sick. After you got sick. You beat CNN in the ratings by like twenty five percent, and as stone on them painkillers. As I might have been, I was still able to say to her, I beat CNN. I beat CNN with one appendix tied behind my back. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown has come to you from the studios of the Olderman Broadcasting Empire in New York. The music you've heard was for the most part arranged, produced, and performed by Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanel. Brian Ray handled the guitarist, bass and drums. John Phillip Shanelle did the orchestration in keyboards produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some other Beethoven tunes, were arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is courtesy of ESPN, Inc. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis, and we call it the Olderman theme from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend Stevie van Zant. Everything else was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this to nine hundred and eighty seventh day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Convict him now, well, we still can. The next schedule countdown is tomorrow, presuming my throat continues to permit till then, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Trump has proved yet again that he is a dangerous and potentially murderous anti Semite. But it really tells you something when that is not the lead story about him. I will get to it presently, But first two more of his gang members have flipped on Donald Trump flipped on him evidently without even getting anything in return, not even immunity, in one case serving as a de facto government agent gathering and bringing in evidence against Trump, physical evidence against Trump, and in the other case flipping on him without apparently telling the truth, just making stuff up about him to save themselves by sinking him. In an almost comedic turn, Trump assistant Gal Friday facto toe Molly Michael is telling federal investigators that he used to write to do lists for her on the backs of the classified documents he had improperly stolen to do lists on summaries of classified intelligence with visible classification markings on them, handed to Trump in the Oval office, which he used as scrap paper, and handed to the lowest level White House staffer he could see. They would not have accepted this as a plot device on VEEP. The to do Dodo. Also, according to ABC News, Trump found out last year that the FBI wanted to talk to Molly Michael, so he told her. She says, quote, you don't know anything about the boxes unquote. The thing is he never went into specifics. She still doesn't know exactly what he meant by that. What boxes. There's always money in the banana stand. There's a third part to this. Those to do lists, and one can imagine them. One get bleached, to drink, two get Komi arrested, three insight insurrection. Those to do lists were at marri Lago when the FBI executed the search warrant there on August the eight, twenty twenty two, but ms Michael said the investigators missed them. When she was allowed back into her office the next day, August ninth, she found them, and there were many of them, kind of messed up, but still there underneath a drawer organizer. ABC reports she quote helped transfer them to the FBI that same day, which sounds almost meaningless, but actually mean that. No later than thirteen months ago, Molly Michael began cooperating with the investigation of the top secret materials that Trump stole and stashed at his version of the Bushwood golf course. Hell in this investigation, she is senior to Jack Smith helped transfer them to the FBI is a very dressed up, pleasant euphemism for serving as a junior g man and getting the evidence for the Feds. To emphasize just how much Molly Michael flipped on Trump, turned on Trump has been helping increase the odds of sending Trump to the Big House. ABC's sources familiar with what Michael told investigators added this quote. Michael also told federal investigators that last year she grew increasingly concerned with how Trump handled recurring requests from the National Archives for the return of all government documents being kept in boxes at marri Lago, and she felt that Trump's claims about it at the time would be easy to disprove, According to the sources, in other words, she knew he was lying and figured he was going to get caught right. Oh, and there's even more. After Trump returned fifteen boxes that ultimately proved to contain nearly two hundred classified documents, quote, Trump began to seem more reluctant to cooperate with the agency, and he asked Michael to help spread a message that no more boxes existed unquote. So Molly Michael gave up Trump on illegal retention of the secret documents. She gave him up on mishandling classified information. She gave him up on illegally showing them, giving them to somebody who could not legally read them. She gave him up on trying to obstruct justice by hiding them from authorities. She gave him up on the false certification that he made that everything had been turned over. He gave him up on a conspiracy to get others to lie to the authorities for him with this message that no more boxes existed, and the other cryptic message, you don't know anything about the boxes. Her testimony establishes not just the baseline of the crimes that governments accused Trump of, but also the Espionage Act components and his intent to deceive rather than just you know, keeping souvenirs and being stupid about it, and Molly Michael's just half of it. Jeff Clark, the man who would be Attorney General, has become the fifth out of the Trump nineteen to try to get his Atlantic charges moved to federal court, and his lawyer has told the judge that he should grant their motion because of one letter. It is the letter that Jeffrey Clark wrote but was prevented from sending after the twenty twenty election, sending from the Justice Department email to top officials in Georgia saying that the DOJ had reason to doubt that George's election results were legitimate and the DOJ was investigating. Clark claims he was told to do this by Trump, that he could not have done so unless Trump told him to, that that would have been impossible for him to do it by himself. His lawyer told Judge Steve Jones, quote, they say he was acting outside of his lane. The President put it in his lane unquote. The problem with this one is, and this may or may not be true, because Clark and the attorney apparently forgot one key detail. When Judge Jones asked what evidence they had that the Devil made him do it, Clark's lawyer didn't have any evidence to offer. Judge Jones then asked when the letter was written, Was it, in fact after the infamous meeting involving Clark and Trump and the senior Justice Department officials who were so furious that they seemed ready to encourage Clark to lean out the nearest window, and the attorney didn't know when the letter was written. Moreover, just last Thursday, Jeff Clark submitted what he called a declaration with the court explaining his actions. It does not appear to corroborate what his lawyer claimed yesterday that Trump directed him to write the letter to the Georgia officials. So Molly Michael hurt Trump legally in at least seven different ways. But Jeff Clark he did one of two things. He either just revealed that Trump had ordered him personally to write a lengthy lie claiming that the DOJ was investigating the presidential election results in Georgia, what prosecutors are calling an attempt to create a false statement, which really would go to proving that Trump was at the center of the web to steal the twenty twenty election. That was not the Eastman plan, that was not the Clark plan, that was the Trump plan. Or what Clark did was he was with to make up something or exaggerated or hyperboleze something blame Trump in one of those few occasions in world history where Trump might not actually deserve the specific blame. To throw Trump under the bus, just to get his trial moved to federal court. Jeff Clark, everybody, and Molly Michael. We haven't even gotten to the plea deals yet, and Trump's staffers are flipping like fry cooks at fat Burger, speaking of burgers. At the other end of the same grill, there is Ken Cheesebro and his Georgia court filing seems as nonsensical as Clark's, but nonsensical in a way that protects Trump. Cheesebro says no law was broken in rounding up and swearing in the fake Georgia electors because quote, the Republican presidential electors were qualified and elected by the Republican Party. Unquote. Think about that for a second. The Republican presidential electors were qualified and elected by the Republican Party. Well, that's all right. Then there is legal parsing and asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Like the Federalist Society co founder Stephen Calibracey, who believed Trump was ineligible to be on the ballot because of the Fourteenth Amendment, but just switched back to the no. I guess he is eligible because he says the fourteenth Amendment applies to quote officers of the United States. And since the presidential oath does not specifically identify presidents as officers of the United States, but the oaths for congressmen, state legislators, state executives, and state judicial officers do refer to them as officers of the United States, that means the president is not an officer of the United States. He's also, by definition legally not a penguin, because his oath does not say I am a penguin. Now there's that level of legal hair splitting, ludicrous, but based at least on things that are in fact in this universe, on this plane of existence. Then there is this cheeseboro level of hair splitting, saying the fake electors were not fake electors because they were elected because some Republicans met in a room somewhere and elected them, which seems to fall inside that legal area defined by the well known legal phrase who died and elected you? God? Shocked? Meanwhile, are you by Trump's anti Semitic threat against the Jewish people of America? Why are you shocked? If you missed this? Trump found and posted in the middle of Russiashana a graphic meme that he probably noticed because it had a drawing of how he looked about forty years ago, and the drawing was superimposed on an American flag. He added no direct comment of his own to it, presumably for deniability. Later it reads quote just a quick reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America and Israel because you believe false narratives. Exclamation point. Let's hope you learned from your mistake and make better choices moving forward. Happy New Year. The phrase hope you learned from your mistake should send a shudder through not just any one community in it, but through this entire country, because that is the language of the Holocaust. Then beneath that is a picture of Trump circa nineteen eighty three over the flag, and then quote, wake up, sheep, What Nazi anti Semite ever did this for the Jewish people or Israel? And yes, Nazi is misspelled. Who the hell has ever misspelled Nazi? There's no t in Nazi. That's the leading piece of evidence that this is actually Trump's work. He misspelled that. This goes on to talk about moving the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and then moves on to mock the reality that Trump is an anti Semite and always has been. It ends hashtag Trump twenty twenty and quote jects it j e xit unquote. This kind of stuff is, of course an annual event for Trump. Last October, he also threatened America's Jews, and not via a meme. He personally said they quote have to get their act together before it is too late. Forgot that, didn't you and had better support him because he supported Israel, and once again he implied that they were Jewish first and American second. And no, the fact that he used to keep a book of Hitler's speeches in a cabinet next to his bed has nothing to worry about. He's an anti Semite. He's always been an anti Semite, and anything that he has done that has not been overtly anti Semitic has been transactional. There was always something in it for him. Those of the Jewish faith were just incidental to the process. I'll read the whole Trump statement from October of last year again and then translate its meanings, and those meanings are genuinely ominous, and they resonate now after this latest disaster. Quote no president has done more for Israel than I have. Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the US. Those living in Israel, though, are a different story. Highest approval rating in the world could easily be pm US. Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel before it is too late. Exclamation point and again, the first thing to note was Trump's unshakable conviction that Americans of Jewish heritage are actually loyal first, or should be loyal first, to not the United States, but Israel. People of the Jewish faith, especially those living in Israel. This is one of the oldest tropes about that religion, that there is an implied dual citizenship, a certain uncertainty as to where their loyalty really lies. All anti Semites believe this. It is the starting point. All rulers who ever purged Jews believed it. Hitler began with it in twenty eighteen at a Hanukka event Hanka event in the White House. He was addressing Americans who happened to be Jewish and referred to Israel as quote, your country a year later, he said anybody who voted for a Democrat might be disloyal. Last year, he asked a reporter from an Orthodox Jewish magazine, I did the Heights, I did Jerusalem, I did Iran. The Iran deal was a disaster, right, and I also did many other things. Jewish people who live in the United States don't love Israel enough. Does that make sense to you. I'm not talking about Orthodox Jews. I believe we got twenty five percent of the Jewish vote, and it doesn't make sense. It just seems strange to me. Translation of that quote of the social media posts. As president, he gave Israel gifts, he was nice to them, when you know he could have been openly anti Israel, anti Semitic, and that they still haven't fonnd over him for not openly hating them, as if that's the way it ordinarily should be. Let me go out of sequence. Let me cut to the money quote. US Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel before it is too late. Is that subtle? That's a threat or a threat couched as a warning like the one Sunday, hope you learn from your mistake. Either way, it's a repeat of the way Trump's diseased mind works. People hate you, but I helped you. You haven't been grateful enough to me. Your Jewish Israel is your country. I helped Israel. If I'm not there to help Israel, you'll be sorry. So you better start supporting me more or else. But maybe the most important part of that twenty twenty two post is the seeming throwaway reference to the evangelicals. And if you don't know this, it actually explains the whole thing. He says, our wonderful Evangelicals. The wonderful Evangelicals are in fact religious nut jobs who will support him no matter what because they believe. Because they actually believe, he has become part of the most screwball Bible prophecy of all the screwball Bible prophecies. Evangelicals are far more appreciative, he says, of his support for Israel than our American Jews. The trumpion tell is Then he adds the phrase somewhat surprisingly. This is his standard misdirection. He makes it seem as if he doesn't understand something. Quote somewhat surprisingly always means he fully understands it. He realizes the dark implications, and he wants to leave that plausible deniability for himself. And the obsession with Israel on the part of those wonderful evangelicals that is about as dark as it gets on this planet right now. And if you don't know what this is, you better sit down before I tell you. Five and a half years ago, Newsweek printed this remarkable headline quote, Trump will start the end of the world, claim evangelicals who support him. It's not a bug, it's a feature. The evangelical Christians believe in end times what they call prophecy, while others call stuff somebody made up to fleece the gullible. Jerusalem, where Trump moved the American Embassy, is the centerpiece of this fire and brimstone wacky ending to the Bible. Let me quote some of the Newsweek piece on this quote. What kick starts the end Times into motion is Israel's political boundaries being re established to what God promised the Israelites according to the Bible. Nate Pyle, a pastor and author of a book about Jesus, told news Week most evangelicals subscribe to a belief in pre millennialism, the belief that the second Coming of Christ will begin a one thousand year period where Christ will rule over a peaceful and prosperous earth. Neil J. Young, a religion historian, told Newsweek, Young, who holds a PhD in history from Columbia University, writes frequently on evangelical culture and politics, quoting him again, Israel is a key part of this story too, as Christians believe that events there are fundamental to bringing about the end Times. Young continued. Meanwhile, the evangelical belief in the end Times also includes the eventual conversion to Christianity of the Jewish people. The scenario begins when Christ comes to Earth to take the living Christians who believe in him to Heaven and resurrect the dead who were true Christians, an event called the Rapture. Afterward, it is believed that the anti Christ will reign on Earth during these seven year period of tribulation. You didn't mishear anything in that the evangelical fascination with Jerusalem is about Christ returning and converting the Jews or killing them. There is a history written by professor at the University of North Texas named Elizabeth Oldmixon. She studies nothing but this bizarre connection between the evangelicals and Israel, and now the evangelicals and Israel and Trump and Vox interviewed her and got to the whole convert or die thing. Quote. They believe that before Christ will return, there will be a tribulation where Christ defeats evil. There will be a natural disasters and wars, and perhaps an anti Christ, as the Book of Revelations notes. Then at the end of that period, the people of the Mosaic Covenant, including the Jews, will convert. Then after their version, the great millennium start the box. Reporter quite naturally asks and what about the people who don't convert? What becomes of them? Old Mixon answered, quote, Well, according to the evangelicals who believe this, they'll end up with the rest of the unsaved, which means they'll be wiped out and sent to Hell unquote. Trump's support for Israel is based on his need for evangelicals to support him, and the evangelical support for Israel is based because later on episode nine, three hundred and twenty two one hundred and sixteen, all the Jews are converted or killed. So, if you want to take the darkest view of that last sentence from Trump, US Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel before it is too late, and now learn from your mistakes. He is literally warning the American Jewish population about annihilation, and a month after going back to that evangelical forced conversion threats to the Jews whose annihilation thingy last year, last November we're speaking of now. Trump had the loud and boastful anti semit Nick Fuentes over to dinner at Crapshack a Lago with Kanye West. Then Trump denied he knew who Fuentes was. Trump, of course, has been exposing more and more of his anti Semitism percent by percent for at least eight years. Kanye West's version of that dinner with Trump and Fuentes is that when West said he West would run for president in twenty twenty four and would like Trump to be his running mate, the first actual, sort of almost sensible, not crazy sounding thing West has said a joke that he said, first time in a decade he hasn't seemed utterly crazy. When he made that joke, Trump erupted in rage. When Nick Fuentes said he was part of the Trump base, Trump erupted in quote, I really like this guy. He gets me. Kanye West said Trump was really impressed with Nick Fuentes. See, if you rebel against Trump, you get the West treatment. I'm not saying Wes doesn't deserve anything he gets, but if you might fulfill Trump's needs, if you are servile, you get the Nick Fuentes treatment. Say for a moment he did not know who Nick Fuentes was. He did after that dinner? Did he denounce Nick Fuentes? Not at all? Because Donald John Trump is an anti Semite. He is an anti Semite who views Jews as people from a different country who had quote better learn from their mistakes and get their act together before it's too late. Unquote what the hell does before it's too late? Mean to you pick which kind, But he means something bad is going to be done to Jewish people in this country unless they support him. Below the surface, he is saying he's going to be the one who does it. Now. If that seems extreme to you, consider ancient Trumpian history. It was last year when his former chief of staff, General John Kelly, revealed that Trump had once confronted him, demanding to know why quote you effing generals, why can't you be like the German generals in World War Two. And when challenged with the fact that you know it was German generals who tried to kill Hitler several times, Trump insisted, no, no, no, they were totally loyal to him. It is now five years since Trump, at a commemoration of the dead of World War One, said to Kelly, quote, well, Hitler did a lot of good things and talked about Hitler and his economy. And now it is thirty three years, thirty three years next month since Marie wrote in the magazine Vanity Fair quote Ivanna Trump told her lawyer that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. So the reporter Marie Brenner asks Trump if his cousin John gave him that book, and Trump says, actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount, who gave me a copy of Mind comp. And then it was Marty Davis who said he didn't give Trump that Hitler book. He didn't give him mine comp. He gave him Hitler's my new order. See that's Hitler's book of his favorite speeches. So Trump then comes back and tells the reporter Marie Brenner, if I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them. There was another quote in that article from thirty three years ago next month, attributed to one of his attorneys. Donald the unnamed lawyer says is a believer in the big lie theory. If you say something again and again, people will believe you. That was nineteen ninety. Also of interest, here a little more on the Christen Welker Trump disaster story I mentioned yesterday. Investigation underway and whether or not there was a deal with Trump to keep fact checking of the interview off TV, whether or not that was the case. Guests who did not condemn the platforming of an anti democracy insurrectionist and NBC's failure to offer any serious kind of fact checking on TV, I told you so. But good news everyone. Bill Maher's condition has been upgraded from scumbag scab to just plain old scumbag. That's next, this discountdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead on countdown. How's your right side feeling just above the belt line? Does it feel a little achy, a little hot? You know what? You need to do press into that area with a couple of your fingers. Then stop the pressure and pull your fingers back out. Now, if you just went, ah, go see a doctor, that's your appendix. You know how I know that because my appendix blew up sixteen years ago this week and I didn't know it for two days because I'm a moron. Don't be like Keith. Check your appendix often first time. For the daily roundup of the miscrants, morons, and donning effect specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world. And no, I will not put Lauren Bobert in here just because she and her date enjoyed the live musical version of Beetlejuice without ever watching the show. She now tells TMZ that it was her mistake because she was dating a Democrat and he hosted a drag queen party at the bar he owns. But he's a great guy, but he's private and now they've broken up. Just so long as it had a happy ending. The worst the Bronze Yeah's Rachel Meadow. Guess what I was not wrong? She did not say boo about the deplorable NBC and MSNBC Meet the Press quote interview unquote of Trump. NBC is itself investigating whether somebody on the staff of Meet the Press assured the Trump campaign there would not be any serious fact checking as he lied and lied and lied, and Kristen Welker asked him touchy feely dateline questions about how it feels when he sees his mugshot. It does not seem that the investigation is formal, at least not yet, or whether the NBC News employee handbook I mentioned yesterday is being poured over by those involved. But the questions are being asked at thirty Rock. They're just not being asked on the networks of NBC by compliant employees. There was a sad irony last night. Rach began her show with a monologue about how little things like being asked by a friend to be a dog sitter was a good sign that you were a good person and could be dependent upon. Last night, on the subject of making at least some noise of protest about her employers rolling over for Trump, prostituting her network, and standing up against truth, she had the chance to be that person, and she failed. While I was fighting NBC management to get her the chance to do that show. He told me success might destroy her as a person. I did not listen. She was not mistaken. The runner up Elon Musk still claiming two hundred and sixty five million people quote saw unquote Trump's Twitter video with Tucker Carlson, Remember Tucker Carlson. Even though that would count everybody who watched and everybody who didn't watch. That's a genius rating system. By that measure, the TV version of Countdown had a rating of six billion viewers a night. Anyway, this comes the same day that Musk does a video conversation with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin net Nahu for some reason, and during it he reveals he is quote moving to a small monthly payment for use of the X system. Translation from muskox he is going to start charging you to use Twitter. Everybody to pay for that, in which case his next post about Carlson's video view count will be nearly three hundred people saw it. But our winner Bill Maher like Drew Barrymore a day earlier, my old college contemporary saw the end of his career as a tangible thing in front of him, and so he changed his mind at the last minute. Now says he will not cross the Writer's Guild picket line, even though he's a Writer's Guild member. He will not bring his HBO show back right now. But unlike Barrymore, who apologized and cried and made you think, all right, fine, maybe we'll forget that you volunteered to be a strike breaker and you didn't do it only to save your own worthless ass. Fine, just stop crying at me, please, Bill Maher made up a bad excuse, a stupid excuse. My decision to return to work was made when it seemed nothing was happening and there was no end in sight to this strike. Now that both sides have agreed to go back to the negotiating table, I'm going to delay the return of real time for now and hope they can finally get this done. Unquote, Well, that's the kind of script you get when your writers are on strike. Bill, And in addition to whatever long term ramifications there are for Mar, like maybe nobody will go on a show again. Who's a celebrity or member sag After or the WGA, He's already gotten this. CBS Radio News did a pre recorded report on Mars about face yesterday. It ran several times on all the CBS stations, Reporter Wendy Gillette gravely announced that Bill Mayer. Bill Mayer had reconsidered and would not ignore the strike after all, and would not be bringing back his show Real Time with Bill Mayer, Bill Maher, Where is it Mayor? Happily, there's no way to mispronounce scumbag, So Bill may have been upgraded from scumbag scab to just scumbag, but it'll always be scumbag Bill Mayor two days Mayor worse person and allah to the number one story on the Countdown and my favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell, So it's another anniversary. One. Sometime on Wednesday, September twelfth, two thousand and seven, I began to feel bad, all strained on my right side. But my girlfriend at the time, Katie Turr, and I had just moved only a few weeks before into our new apartment and I was still pushing boxes around and I thought I'd just strained something. The next morning, the thirteenth, I was still feeling like crap, but now my stomach also hurt, and I thought I was bloated or constipated or something, and maybe some sit ups would help, and actually they felt like they had relieved some of the pressure. And Katie's father, who was among many many things in EMT, happened to be in town. He gave me a vic it in or something, and I took a nap and went into work a little later than usual at MSNBC, which I could get away with that day because President Bush was speaking that night, and almost all of my work that night would be ad libbed before his speech, and then after his speech. I wrote what I needed to write quickly, and at about seven fifteen I went out to the show line producer Greg Kordick, who sat in exactly the right place that he could make certain that I had left for makeup and was going to the studio on time. I had to walk right past him, and I said, I'm exhausted. I'm just going to close my eyes at my desk for a couple of minutes. If you don't see me go pass by like seven point forty, come in and wake me up. And I sat down and put my legs up on my desk. I folded my hands behind my head, and I just closed my eyes, more to rest my eyes than in any real hope of sleeping. I am a fickle sleeper. There's not a chance I could snooze like that. Next day, I know, it's seven point forty and I'm feeling somebody shaking me and seriously a hand on each shoulder. Apparently it took mister Cordick a little while to wake me up, and I thank Greg and staggered to the makeup room. And I realized now I had a little fever, but it was too late to do anything about it. So I got my makeup, went to the set, did the lead into Bush's speech, took some notes during it, did the post speech wrap up with the analysts, and after two hours in the air, I got in the car that they sent for me to go home to New York from New Jersey, and I fell asleep again in the car. I still thought, this is some weird stomach flu and I'm bloated beyond belief, and I really don't feel good. But I bet that's just from listening to George W. Bush one time too many. I'll just go to bed. I found it was too difficult to lie on my stomach or my side, which presented a problem because rarely can I fall asleep on my back, but I had to try, and the next thing I knew it was morning. I slept like a stone, but I still felt really bad, in fact, a little bit worse. On top of all which Katie was yelling at me about something. And I had a check up for something unrelated at my doctor's office, and I left early so I could go buy something for the constipation. And then when my doctor called me and he said, you look terrible. Are you okay? And I said, no, I got this really sore stomach and the last time I had this fever for a while, he kind of gasped, and now he looked terrible, and he said, when was the last time you ate? I said, you know, funny, I haven't thought about food for a couple of days. And then he asked me when was the last time that happened? And I said when I was in the womb, and he had me stand up and he pushed his finger into my stomach about five inches to the right of my navel, and holding the finger there, he said, does this hurt? And I said not at all? And then he said does it hurt now? As I take my finger away, And I don't remember if I said anything or not, because I saw the proverbial stars in front of my eyes and I let out a scream. So he said, get back in your car, and you go to our other office at fifty ninth and tenth and go see our gastro specialist. And I said, sure, just don't poke me again. And when I got there, they showed me right in and she taps me and she says, why are you hunched over like that? And I said, I'm hunched over and she says, if you haven't eaten in two days, how come your stomach is heard is a rock? And I said, is this a medical quiz? Because you're the doctor, And she says, I want you to go across the street to the hospital emergency room. I'll call them while you're walking. Just go right in and tell them you're the one doctor Lou called about, because boy, you're appendix burst. And although I think you'll be fine, technically, you've got about oh eight, ten twelve hours to live. Well, that got my attention, and as I'm grabbing my jacket my bag, I say, wait, if this isn't just constipation, how come it felt better when I did the sit ups? And she says, because when you did the sit ups. You only had an affected appendix that was going to burst when you did the sit ups, dummy, That's when the appendix burst. You burst it. So I said, wait, I went on TV for two hours after my appendix burst. Shut up, She explained, she was right there. People saw me immediately. They ran a bunch of tests and reminded me that if I hadn't already, I should probably call in sick for a couple of days. And I said, wait, what day is today? And they helped out and they said Friday. So I called MSNBC, and I called the producer of Football Night in America, which I was doing for NBC on Sundays, and I said, hey, sorry, looks like I'm technically dying from a burst appendix. And they're going to operate on me as soon as they can get a surgeon in here. And they say it's real unlikely I'll be out of the hospital by Sunday or Monday. Have a nice day. I called Katie, who had already gotten to her job in local cable news in Brooklyn, and she turned around to come help me out at the hospital. And then I just waited and got goofyer and Goofyer and goofyer in goof here. I think they operated around seven or eight pm. The surgeon introduced himself. He was a big sports fan, Fred Kimmelsteele, the surgeon named by prophetic parents. And I went to the anesthesiologist and I warned him. I said I'd once woken up from anesthesia during an endoscopy, and could he make sure that that didn't happen again. In fact, I said that the other day when I had my knee operated on, and this guy did the same thing. They both of these anesthesiologists just laughed when I challenged them to knock me out a little bit harder. So doctor kimmel Steele asked me about the latest met choke job. This is the one in two thousand and seven, not the one in twenty twenty two, and I started to talk about David Wright, and the next thing I knew, I was freezing cold and trying to open my eyes. And it was three hours later and the surgery was over. What a mess, said Doctor kimmel Steele. Never had one that bad before. Thank God, it absesss. You'll be here all weekend, And I was the next day. They made me get out of bed, and I think it took me half an hour to walk about twenty feet down the hallway and back. And there was a morphine drip and a new bag of intravenous antibiotics every two hours, and at one point the phone rang, and I really did have to go back the following weekend ask the producer if this actually happened or I merely hallucinated it. But the phone rang, and it was the football night in America people, and they said they were going to shoot video of the hospital I was in. And I said, I don't think you can see me from the street, and they said, right, we know that. We're just pretty much doing this for a laugh at your expense while you're in the hospital and we're on TV. And then finally my appetite came back on Monday and I was able to eat some pancakes and they sent me home in the afternoon. And for two days after that, I was still sweating out the poisons and the antibiotics and the painkillers, and I mean I was so warm I could not bear to have a shirt on. But by Thursday, I was able to go back to work, and just to show off, I wrote a special comment about Bush from my first show back. I was extremely pleased with myself. Now there are three postscripts to this. Now, obviously I learned, and I've just taught you the test for appendicitis or a burst appendix. If you poke it and it doesn't hurt until you stop poking it, it's your appendix. Fat lot of good that'll do me. Now I don't have an appendix. Second weeks later, I was at dinner with my friend John Clees from Monty Python's Flying Circus, and he said he'd heard the story about my appendix and he was very upset with me. I did the exact same thing. John said, it blew up, and for two days I had no idea how serious it was. Thought it was a cold. But don't kill people that don't undersell it and call it a burst appendix. You and I we were both dying of septacemia. Never let anybody forget that, and I haven't. And the last and best PostScript was, while I'm lying there recovering after the surgery, the phone rings and it's my executive producer and she says, good news. When you anchored before and after Bush's speech, you got sick. After you got sick. You beat CNN in the ratings by like twenty five percent, and as stone on them painkillers. As I might have been, I was still able to say to her, I beat CNN. I beat CNN with one appendix tied behind my back. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown has come to you from the studios of the Olderman Broadcasting Empire in New York. The music you've heard was for the most part arranged, produced, and performed by Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanel. Brian Ray handled the guitarist, bass and drums. John Phillip Shanelle did the orchestration in keyboards produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some other Beethoven tunes, were arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is courtesy of ESPN, Inc. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis, and we call it the Olderman theme from ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend Stevie van Zant. Everything else was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this to nine hundred and eighty seventh day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Convict him now, well, we still can. The next schedule countdown is tomorrow, presuming my throat continues to permit till then, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.