SERIES 2 EPISODE 214: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Whaddya MEAN Tucker Carlson warned Trump last month that he might be assassinated if he DIDN'T pick a non-Neocon VP like J.D. Vance? Whaddya MEAN The New York Times had Carlson warning Trump weeks ago that if he chose somebody besides Carlson's choice - Vance - "the U.S. intelligence agencies would have every incentive to assassinate Mr. Trump in order to get their preferred president" - and they put it in paragraph 69 of a 71-paragraph article? Anybody ASKING Carlson about this, uh, coincidence? Or the Times about the sources? Or Vance?

Trump still hasn't called the family of the man murdered at his rally; England's Channel 4 says the 2016 Trump Campaign had the shooter's family in a special database of battleground state voters who probably owned guns. Nothing new from the Pittsburgh station's report that there were Trump signs in front of the family home.

There's new polling on who voters blame for the atmosphere that led to the Trump shooting (Trump), their reaction to his selection of Vance (27% of Republicans think he was the best choice; 56% have no idea who he is), Rudy Giuliani falls at the convention, and why nobody should ever compare Trump to Braveheart. 

BIDEN MEANWHILE is going to run against Trump AND the Supreme Court and propose term limits and mandatory ethics. And while he is reportedly not broadening but tightening his circle of advisers about the race, the impossible happens. The polls show Trump ahead by about two - no "near miss bump" - but the 538 Electoral College simulator shows Biden with a 53% chance of winning (and by 16 votes).

B-Block (24:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: I got Jon Stewart interviewing Bill O'Reilly in a kind of Old Timers' Day of frauds. Joe Scarborough is so mad at NBC for suspending his show to appease the Republicans that he's risked firing by calling them out on the air (who do you root for in THAT battle?), Katy Tur seems to have forgotten Trump tried to get her killed, Ron Johnson becomes the latest to lose in Republicans Versus TelePrompters, and inexplicably Hugo Lowell deletes the greatest tweet to emanate from the Republican convention

C-Block (35:50) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: MSNBC silencing Joey Scars and having Tur praise him seems awfully familiar to some of us and when I say 'some of us' I mean: Me. The Republicans blackmailed NBC to get ME off the air after their convention in 2008 because nothing is more easily scared than a billion dollars.