Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. We need a Walter cronkit moment from the New York Times. The New York Times needs one day, one day soon, one day now, to devote the entirety of the front page to one headline and one editorial signed by the publisher Sealzburger, and the editor con and the key columnists, and the important correspondence headlined Trump Imperils Democracy, sub headlined your life at Stake and he is insane. I'll get to the trial and Michael Cohen and how they got what they needed from him, which was a headline in the Washington Post with the word calmly in it. But first we need a Walter Cronkite moment from the New York Times. And instead we get the backup, backup, backup, backup, election reporters, backup, trying to be witty as Trump crashes and burns intellectually, morally and phonetically, and as his whores like Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott try to erase the bright lines of democracy while they think we are not watching them, and as his jihadists try to sabotage the twenty twenty four election. The Times needs its Walter Cronkite moment too, like Cronkite shocking the nation out of much of its Vietnam delusion, Like Cronkite personally moving Watergate to the front burner, the Times needs its Cronkite moment to save itself. We need a Times Cronkite moment to just add to our dwindling chances of saving this democracy. Saturday, Jump went to a Philadelphia area seaside resort called Wildwood, drew maybe ten thousand cultists, eleven thousand lied and had the Republican mayor there lie and say it was eighty thousand. He talked, he complained, He complained that immigrant students don't speak English, and immediately afterwards he said something like Borden in Riviv. And he said something else like carried Daudite. By right, he claimed the president between Ford and Reagan was named Jimmy Conners. He said the Chinese were preparing to invade Beijing, which is their own capital. He insisted the entire country was grateful that he killed off Roe v. Wade. He thanked by name the Supreme Court justices who gutted Roe v. Wade. He suddenly invoked the fictional Cannibal character Hannibal Lecter, seemed to praise Hannibal Lector, claimed the character Hannibal Lecter was dead and got the name of the movie wrong, and then insisted all immigrants are Hannibal Lecter. And all of that was after he was introduced by some immigrant who called him President Chump, and the New York Times story by a sixth stringer named Michael Gold mentioned none of that. This was what editor Joe CON's writer told consumers of the most influential news organization in America. Quote. After a long and often tense week in his criminal trial in Manhattan, Trump took part in a time honored ritual enjoyed by countless New Yorkers. In need of a break, he went to the shore. Oh how clever Michael Gold. The New York Times could save a lot of money by firing all of its political reporters and simply asking the fictional Twitter writer Doug J. Balloon of New York Times pitchpot fame to write all of its leads because they are now sounding exclusively like the Times pitch bot clunky attempts at wit that don't quite land. Trump has renounced his New York residence. He is thus not a New Yorker, Michael Gold. Wildwood is not a destination for New Yorkers anyway. It's for Philadelphians. And he is the greatest criminal in the nation's history. Michael Gold. He is not in need of a break. He is in need of a lifetime prison sentence. This occurred over a weekend in which three of Trump's most fierce, most dishonest, most anti democracy supporters in the Senate went on national television and said sure they would accept the outcome of the election so long as Trump won. The Times headline about that was Vance says he would accept the election results with a caveat, which sounds like he's wearing a tie with a caveat, a lovely floral caveat. Yet it was also a weekend in which a small newsroom called the Bucks County Beacon wrote about how Trump's sewer rats are openly subverting the election today, not twenty twenty, not twenty twenty two, the one in November quote. The RNC and its allies have already sued in five states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Nevada, to challenge their voter roles, accuracy, and in turn voter's credentials. In Georgia, a republican bill empowering mass challenges of voter registrations was signed into law on May seventh. More importantly, the Beacon also reveals the existence of something on the right wing social media site Telegram called the Election Education Channel, which is encouraging and setting the stage four legal and extra judicial challenges to every single stage of every presidential vote count inconceivably every single precinct in this country. The kind of Sidney Powell Jenna ellis legal quicksand we saw after the twenty twenty election, only while the votes are still being counted, and immediately thereafter in every county in this country, to create chaos and genuine danger. The Times. The Times has reported none of that. It has instead let Maggie Haberman dismiss as hearsay Michael Cohen's first hand recounting of what Trump told him about not being on the market for long. If Milania dumped him, and if Haberman doesn't know the legal definition of here, say get rid of her. And The Times made room for an op ed bashing Joe Biden written by Mark Penn a dishonest right wing polster who has been posing as a Democrat for at least twenty years, and it made room for a report on the upcoming attempts to sabotage the election by the Republicans. No, a radio shock jock named Charlemagne the God, a reactionary who does nothing but take sides, and they pronounced he is someone The Times fell for it quote who won't take sides? We need a Walter Cronkite moment out of the New York Times. If the reference eludes you, First of all, congratulations on your youth. Then to explain briefly for all of the almost biblical invocations of his supposed impartiality and the use of the name Walter Cronkite as a substitute for complete impartiality in reporting. The three biggest moments in the career of the great CBS newsman were when he barely stopped himself from crying while reporting the assassination of President Kennedy. When he burst through the constraints of his job as the anchor of the CBS Evening News to present fully formed but fully opinionated commentaries, first on Vietnam and then four years later on Watergate. In February of nineteen sixty eight, Walter Cronkite went to Vietnam, and he spent a week there talking to people on the record and off, and he went back to his desk, and on February twenty seventh, nineteen sixty eight, he delivered an extraordinary closing editorial after a long report on our status in Vietnam. His editorial began with, we have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. His commentary ended with it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could. President Lyndon Johnson was not watching Walter Cronkite live that night, but Bob Scheffer insists Johnson told him he did see clips, and Schaeffer and Bill Moyers insist the President did then say something like if I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America, and Johnson soon after then announced he was not going to run for reelection in October nineteen seventy two. Cronkite may have topped himself at a time when only the Washington Post was giving Nixon's Watergate scandal daily coverage. Yes, the New York Times was largely asleep at the switch then too. At that point, Walter Cronkite devoted roughly half of the editorial content time of two editions of the CBS Evening News just to the one story to Watergate, fourteen minutes out of what was basically a twenty two minute newscast on Friday, October twenty seventh, and what was cut down to eight minutes due to the rets of the Nixon administration and the pleas of Walter Cronkite's terrified bosses. On Tuesday, October thirty first, Walter Cronkite did not f around. We need that out of the New York Times, and we need it now. And if the Times does not have a Walter Cronkite moment in it, they need to get everybody out of their building and then implode that building, because the Times is simply now mocking the idea of responsible American journalism and Also, I know that area. I used to work a block away at sixth and fortieth. The City of New York could really use that lot for parking. And no, I'm not expecting a Walter Cronkite moment from the New York Times. The New York Times does not make mistakes, let alone correct them. Don't you know that, By the way, if you missed it as the Times did, what follows is a mashup of Trump's now constant indecipherability and Trump on President Jimmy Connors, and Trump on the late Great Hannibal Lecter, and then Trump walking away from the microphones yesterday when an astute reporter at the trial asked him, Hannibal Lecter, we'll play this and then we'll go to court. President Donald J.

Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. We need a Walter cronkit moment from the New York Times. The New York Times needs one day, one day soon, one day now, to devote the entirety of the front page to one headline and one editorial signed by the publisher Sealzburger, and the editor con and the key columnists, and the important correspondence headlined Trump Imperils Democracy, sub headlined your life at Stake and he is insane. I'll get to the trial and Michael Cohen and how they got what they needed from him, which was a headline in the Washington Post with the word calmly in it. But first we need a Walter Cronkite moment from the New York Times. And instead we get the backup, backup, backup, backup, election reporters, backup, trying to be witty as Trump crashes and burns intellectually, morally and phonetically, and as his whores like Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott try to erase the bright lines of democracy while they think we are not watching them, and as his jihadists try to sabotage the twenty twenty four election. The Times needs its Walter Cronkite moment too, like Cronkite shocking the nation out of much of its Vietnam delusion, Like Cronkite personally moving Watergate to the front burner, the Times needs its Cronkite moment to save itself. We need a Times Cronkite moment to just add to our dwindling chances of saving this democracy. Saturday, Jump went to a Philadelphia area seaside resort called Wildwood, drew maybe ten thousand cultists, eleven thousand lied and had the Republican mayor there lie and say it was eighty thousand. He talked, he complained, He complained that immigrant students don't speak English, and immediately afterwards he said something like Borden in Riviv. And he said something else like carried Daudite. By right, he claimed the president between Ford and Reagan was named Jimmy Conners. He said the Chinese were preparing to invade Beijing, which is their own capital. He insisted the entire country was grateful that he killed off Roe v. Wade. He thanked by name the Supreme Court justices who gutted Roe v. Wade. He suddenly invoked the fictional Cannibal character Hannibal Lecter, seemed to praise Hannibal Lector, claimed the character Hannibal Lecter was dead and got the name of the movie wrong, and then insisted all immigrants are Hannibal Lecter. And all of that was after he was introduced by some immigrant who called him President Chump, and the New York Times story by a sixth stringer named Michael Gold mentioned none of that. This was what editor Joe CON's writer told consumers of the most influential news organization in America. Quote. After a long and often tense week in his criminal trial in Manhattan, Trump took part in a time honored ritual enjoyed by countless New Yorkers. In need of a break, he went to the shore. Oh how clever Michael Gold. The New York Times could save a lot of money by firing all of its political reporters and simply asking the fictional Twitter writer Doug J. Balloon of New York Times pitchpot fame to write all of its leads because they are now sounding exclusively like the Times pitch bot clunky attempts at wit that don't quite land. Trump has renounced his New York residence. He is thus not a New Yorker, Michael Gold. Wildwood is not a destination for New Yorkers anyway. It's for Philadelphians. And he is the greatest criminal in the nation's history. Michael Gold. He is not in need of a break. He is in need of a lifetime prison sentence. This occurred over a weekend in which three of Trump's most fierce, most dishonest, most anti democracy supporters in the Senate went on national television and said sure they would accept the outcome of the election so long as Trump won. The Times headline about that was Vance says he would accept the election results with a caveat, which sounds like he's wearing a tie with a caveat, a lovely floral caveat. Yet it was also a weekend in which a small newsroom called the Bucks County Beacon wrote about how Trump's sewer rats are openly subverting the election today, not twenty twenty, not twenty twenty two, the one in November quote. The RNC and its allies have already sued in five states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Nevada, to challenge their voter roles, accuracy, and in turn voter's credentials. In Georgia, a republican bill empowering mass challenges of voter registrations was signed into law on May seventh. More importantly, the Beacon also reveals the existence of something on the right wing social media site Telegram called the Election Education Channel, which is encouraging and setting the stage four legal and extra judicial challenges to every single stage of every presidential vote count inconceivably every single precinct in this country. The kind of Sidney Powell Jenna ellis legal quicksand we saw after the twenty twenty election, only while the votes are still being counted, and immediately thereafter in every county in this country, to create chaos and genuine danger. The Times. The Times has reported none of that. It has instead let Maggie Haberman dismiss as hearsay Michael Cohen's first hand recounting of what Trump told him about not being on the market for long. If Milania dumped him, and if Haberman doesn't know the legal definition of here, say get rid of her. And The Times made room for an op ed bashing Joe Biden written by Mark Penn a dishonest right wing polster who has been posing as a Democrat for at least twenty years, and it made room for a report on the upcoming attempts to sabotage the election by the Republicans. No, a radio shock jock named Charlemagne the God, a reactionary who does nothing but take sides, and they pronounced he is someone The Times fell for it quote who won't take sides? We need a Walter Cronkite moment out of the New York Times. If the reference eludes you, First of all, congratulations on your youth. Then to explain briefly for all of the almost biblical invocations of his supposed impartiality and the use of the name Walter Cronkite as a substitute for complete impartiality in reporting. The three biggest moments in the career of the great CBS newsman were when he barely stopped himself from crying while reporting the assassination of President Kennedy. When he burst through the constraints of his job as the anchor of the CBS Evening News to present fully formed but fully opinionated commentaries, first on Vietnam and then four years later on Watergate. In February of nineteen sixty eight, Walter Cronkite went to Vietnam, and he spent a week there talking to people on the record and off, and he went back to his desk, and on February twenty seventh, nineteen sixty eight, he delivered an extraordinary closing editorial after a long report on our status in Vietnam. His editorial began with, we have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. His commentary ended with it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could. President Lyndon Johnson was not watching Walter Cronkite live that night, but Bob Scheffer insists Johnson told him he did see clips, and Schaeffer and Bill Moyers insist the President did then say something like if I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America, and Johnson soon after then announced he was not going to run for reelection in October nineteen seventy two. Cronkite may have topped himself at a time when only the Washington Post was giving Nixon's Watergate scandal daily coverage. Yes, the New York Times was largely asleep at the switch then too. At that point, Walter Cronkite devoted roughly half of the editorial content time of two editions of the CBS Evening News just to the one story to Watergate, fourteen minutes out of what was basically a twenty two minute newscast on Friday, October twenty seventh, and what was cut down to eight minutes due to the rets of the Nixon administration and the pleas of Walter Cronkite's terrified bosses. On Tuesday, October thirty first, Walter Cronkite did not f around. We need that out of the New York Times, and we need it now. And if the Times does not have a Walter Cronkite moment in it, they need to get everybody out of their building and then implode that building, because the Times is simply now mocking the idea of responsible American journalism and Also, I know that area. I used to work a block away at sixth and fortieth. The City of New York could really use that lot for parking. And no, I'm not expecting a Walter Cronkite moment from the New York Times. The New York Times does not make mistakes, let alone correct them. Don't you know that, By the way, if you missed it as the Times did, what follows is a mashup of Trump's now constant indecipherability and Trump on President Jimmy Connors, and Trump on the late Great Hannibal Lecter, and then Trump walking away from the microphones yesterday when an astute reporter at the trial asked him, Hannibal Lecter, we'll play this and then we'll go to court. President Donald J.

Trump, We're going to evict this man, the worst president by far.

Trump, We're going to evict this man, the worst president by far.

Jimmy Connors is Jimmy. Jimmy Connors is good.

Jimmy Connors is Jimmy. Jimmy Connors is good.

He's also happy.

He's also happy.

Jimmy is a very happy man, both of them. And they don't speak English.

Jimmy is a very happy man, both of them. And they don't speak English.

They're sitting in chairs listening to a teacher talking English and they don't speak English.

They're sitting in chairs listening to a teacher talking English and they don't speak English.

And it won't mean Biden's burden if silence of the lamb has anyone ever seen.

And it won't mean Biden's burden if silence of the lamb has anyone ever seen.

A silence of the lync the late Great Hannibal Elector.

A silence of the lync the late Great Hannibal Elector.

He is a wonderful man. He oftentimes would have a friend for dinner. Remember the last saying, excuse me, I'm about to have a friend for dinner. Is this poor doctor walked by? I'm about to have a friend for dinner.

He is a wonderful man. He oftentimes would have a friend for dinner. Remember the last saying, excuse me, I'm about to have a friend for dinner. Is this poor doctor walked by? I'm about to have a friend for dinner.

But Hannibal Elector, congratulations, the late Great Hannibal Lector.

But Hannibal Elector, congratulations, the late Great Hannibal Lector.

No reason to put any of that madness in the times. What I'd have to leave out the Jersey Shore references. Michael Cohen calmly describes Trump's hush money instructions, reads the headline in the Washington Post today. The sub headline quotes, Trump, just do it. That's what the prosecution needed out of Cohen, and it needs it again out of him today and especially whenever the cross examination begins. It needs him making more self abnegating jokes about angry even for me. It needs him testifying, as he did yesterday, that he was there in Trump Tower days before Trump was sworn in as President of the United States, with Alan Weiselberg reviewing a handwritten document with Trump to repay Cohen for the Stormy Daniels hush money and how they would hide it amid legal fees, and testimony that Trump said smart individuals had told him Trump to pay the one hundred and thirty thousand dollars to Stormy Daniels, and that Trump told him he knew if the Daniels story got out it would be a disaster for the campaign that it needs Michael Cohen producing one outstandingly sleazy quote from Trump per day on the stand, like he did yesterday about the time Cohen asked Trump about the impact on his wife, Milania if the story got out, and Trump said, don't worry. How long do you think I'll be on the market for?

No reason to put any of that madness in the times. What I'd have to leave out the Jersey Shore references. Michael Cohen calmly describes Trump's hush money instructions, reads the headline in the Washington Post today. The sub headline quotes, Trump, just do it. That's what the prosecution needed out of Cohen, and it needs it again out of him today and especially whenever the cross examination begins. It needs him making more self abnegating jokes about angry even for me. It needs him testifying, as he did yesterday, that he was there in Trump Tower days before Trump was sworn in as President of the United States, with Alan Weiselberg reviewing a handwritten document with Trump to repay Cohen for the Stormy Daniels hush money and how they would hide it amid legal fees, and testimony that Trump said smart individuals had told him Trump to pay the one hundred and thirty thousand dollars to Stormy Daniels, and that Trump told him he knew if the Daniels story got out it would be a disaster for the campaign that it needs Michael Cohen producing one outstandingly sleazy quote from Trump per day on the stand, like he did yesterday about the time Cohen asked Trump about the impact on his wife, Milania if the story got out, and Trump said, don't worry. How long do you think I'll be on the market for?

Not long?

Not long?

That's the quote Haberman of The Times falsely dismissed as hearsay, and the quote that underscores all of us who have viewed the latest of the many Trump quote marriages unquote as exactly what Trump clearly viewed it as a contract negotiated with terms dictated by the market. How long do you think I'll be on the market for? And all of it that Cohen testified to and testifies to today and in the cross examination accompanied by receipts, metaphorical receipts and literal ones. Trial notes in passing. Trump wanted some distinguished Republicans to show up and show solidarity, but he could only get Tommy Tuberville, JD. Vance and Nicole Mally attackus OH and Brenna Bird. Brenna Bird is the Attorney General of Iowa who was there in court, who should be disbarred, because whatever you think of this case or this defendant, you cannot be the head of criminal enforcement in any state and show up in court to kiss the ass of a defendant in another state. It is disqualifying. Senators Vance and Tuberville do not have to worry about that. They have long since disqualified themselves. They caught Trump sleeping again in court, and somebody finally aptly compared this to his alertness during the Egene Carroll trial. Vance stayed only for the morning session yesterday, and then he and Tubberville blew town and Vance, violating court rules, evidently was tweeting from his phone in the courtroom. I saw a media report a few days ago. He wrote that Trump looked like he was falling asleep or board or something. The obvious narrative they're trying to sell is, yeah, Biden is mentally unfit. But this other guy's bad too. It's an absurd narrative. I'm thirty nine years old and I've been here for twenty six minutes and I'm about to fall asleep. Unquote. I'm sorry, Sonny, but how does your failed mental health help Trump. It's like saying I'm jd Vance and I have multiple chins. That shows that Trump is in the best possible health. This scumbag Tubberville meanwhile went out to a propaganda conference with the media and said that the people in the court were quote, supposedly American citizens. Supposedly American citizens. He segued right from that into an insult towards the district attorney, and of course what he was saying was now, well, that was code for, hey, this Alvin bradguy is black. Today, Vivek Ramaswami will be there with Trump if Ramaswami can get his hair done in time. And ABC News reports that Junior Trump has gone to visit Peter Navarro in federal prison, and I look at it this way, good practice for Junior for once Dad goes there. Last point, the nice thing about this nightmare is that Trump and his defense team and his cultists and his Republican supporters have so little to work with that they always telegraph their response because generally speaking, they can only find one response per crisis. And the response to Michael Cohen is he's a liar. He lied, He's a convicted liar. The jury can't trust a liar. America can't trust a liar. Leave a side. That liar might as well be Trump's actual middle name. But say this long enough to Cohen and they expect him to blow up in the witness box. Say this long enough to the fascists and they'll forget that Cohen was convicted of lying on Trump's behalf. Say this long enough, and maybe we'll all forget that. If we disqualified everybody who has ever lied for Donald Trump, we had to wipe out about ninety nine percent of the Republican Party, wouldn't we Okay, I don't know if you hear it or not, but I've got a lovely sinus infection working and the voice is beginning to go, and I needed about an hour to record this opening segment. So I'm going to go lie down in a moment and hope for the best. But before that happens, yesterday, a DVD literally fell off a shelf, and I swear it was of the outtakes from one of my favorites from the old This is Sports Center commercials, and I'm going to play you the audio from it and tell you the backstory of how we re created the scene from Animal House when John Belushi grabs the guitar out of the folk singer's hands and smashes the guitar against a wall. Only an our vision of it. The folk singer was the then soccer star now soccer commentator Alexei Lalas, and an our vision of it. The John Belushi part was played by me. That's next. This is Countdown, El Kabong. This is Countdown with Keith Oberman. Just to hit on this editiontive countdown, the Alexi Lalas guitar smashing, This is Sports Center commercial and the outtakes I just found after thirty years. First Dogs in Knee, You can help. Every dog has its day. Big Day today. In the effort to try to stop shelters from killing healthy, adoptable dogs in California, my friend Elaine Boosler, actress, comedian, singer, recently arrested at Dodger Stadium for trying to use her ticket to get into the game. She will be lobbying in the Capitol in Sacramento alongside the sponsors of a bill, the Shelter Transparency Bill AB two two sixty five. The goal is to get California Appropriations Committee Chair Buffy Wicks to advance that bill out of committee. The bill would increase the chances of dogs in shelters to be saved rather than killed, and it would also save shelters millions of dollars in expenses what they now spend heartbreakingly to kill adoptable animals and dispose of their bodies. Elaine Boosler is on social media with how you can help with emails or phone calls, and she says she will post video and good news or I'll handcuff myself to the state Capitol. It's my thing now unquote. So look for Elaine Boosler's accounts bs ler and help support the California Shelter Transparency Bill. Elaine, thanks you, and I thank you now things I promised not to tell. And it was nineteen ninety four and they just had the first Soccer World Cup ever held in the United States and Alexei Lalas was the folk hero of the plucky American team, and we put them in a This is Sports Center commercial. And there's a long, great story to this. I will tell you in a moment, but first listen to what I've found. It is a DVD with the out take. Now, I didn't do this twice. It's two separate angles of it. I might add. In the second angle, when I hit the guitar against the wall, the fret of the thing flew directly into the lens of the backup camera that was on the floor. I couldn't do that again in a billion years. Please enjoy. If you don't recognize me, I'm the one grunting. It's okay.

That's the quote Haberman of The Times falsely dismissed as hearsay, and the quote that underscores all of us who have viewed the latest of the many Trump quote marriages unquote as exactly what Trump clearly viewed it as a contract negotiated with terms dictated by the market. How long do you think I'll be on the market for? And all of it that Cohen testified to and testifies to today and in the cross examination accompanied by receipts, metaphorical receipts and literal ones. Trial notes in passing. Trump wanted some distinguished Republicans to show up and show solidarity, but he could only get Tommy Tuberville, JD. Vance and Nicole Mally attackus OH and Brenna Bird. Brenna Bird is the Attorney General of Iowa who was there in court, who should be disbarred, because whatever you think of this case or this defendant, you cannot be the head of criminal enforcement in any state and show up in court to kiss the ass of a defendant in another state. It is disqualifying. Senators Vance and Tuberville do not have to worry about that. They have long since disqualified themselves. They caught Trump sleeping again in court, and somebody finally aptly compared this to his alertness during the Egene Carroll trial. Vance stayed only for the morning session yesterday, and then he and Tubberville blew town and Vance, violating court rules, evidently was tweeting from his phone in the courtroom. I saw a media report a few days ago. He wrote that Trump looked like he was falling asleep or board or something. The obvious narrative they're trying to sell is, yeah, Biden is mentally unfit. But this other guy's bad too. It's an absurd narrative. I'm thirty nine years old and I've been here for twenty six minutes and I'm about to fall asleep. Unquote. I'm sorry, Sonny, but how does your failed mental health help Trump. It's like saying I'm jd Vance and I have multiple chins. That shows that Trump is in the best possible health. This scumbag Tubberville meanwhile went out to a propaganda conference with the media and said that the people in the court were quote, supposedly American citizens. Supposedly American citizens. He segued right from that into an insult towards the district attorney, and of course what he was saying was now, well, that was code for, hey, this Alvin bradguy is black. Today, Vivek Ramaswami will be there with Trump if Ramaswami can get his hair done in time. And ABC News reports that Junior Trump has gone to visit Peter Navarro in federal prison, and I look at it this way, good practice for Junior for once Dad goes there. Last point, the nice thing about this nightmare is that Trump and his defense team and his cultists and his Republican supporters have so little to work with that they always telegraph their response because generally speaking, they can only find one response per crisis. And the response to Michael Cohen is he's a liar. He lied, He's a convicted liar. The jury can't trust a liar. America can't trust a liar. Leave a side. That liar might as well be Trump's actual middle name. But say this long enough to Cohen and they expect him to blow up in the witness box. Say this long enough to the fascists and they'll forget that Cohen was convicted of lying on Trump's behalf. Say this long enough, and maybe we'll all forget that. If we disqualified everybody who has ever lied for Donald Trump, we had to wipe out about ninety nine percent of the Republican Party, wouldn't we Okay, I don't know if you hear it or not, but I've got a lovely sinus infection working and the voice is beginning to go, and I needed about an hour to record this opening segment. So I'm going to go lie down in a moment and hope for the best. But before that happens, yesterday, a DVD literally fell off a shelf, and I swear it was of the outtakes from one of my favorites from the old This is Sports Center commercials, and I'm going to play you the audio from it and tell you the backstory of how we re created the scene from Animal House when John Belushi grabs the guitar out of the folk singer's hands and smashes the guitar against a wall. Only an our vision of it. The folk singer was the then soccer star now soccer commentator Alexei Lalas, and an our vision of it. The John Belushi part was played by me. That's next. This is Countdown, El Kabong. This is Countdown with Keith Oberman. Just to hit on this editiontive countdown, the Alexi Lalas guitar smashing, This is Sports Center commercial and the outtakes I just found after thirty years. First Dogs in Knee, You can help. Every dog has its day. Big Day today. In the effort to try to stop shelters from killing healthy, adoptable dogs in California, my friend Elaine Boosler, actress, comedian, singer, recently arrested at Dodger Stadium for trying to use her ticket to get into the game. She will be lobbying in the Capitol in Sacramento alongside the sponsors of a bill, the Shelter Transparency Bill AB two two sixty five. The goal is to get California Appropriations Committee Chair Buffy Wicks to advance that bill out of committee. The bill would increase the chances of dogs in shelters to be saved rather than killed, and it would also save shelters millions of dollars in expenses what they now spend heartbreakingly to kill adoptable animals and dispose of their bodies. Elaine Boosler is on social media with how you can help with emails or phone calls, and she says she will post video and good news or I'll handcuff myself to the state Capitol. It's my thing now unquote. So look for Elaine Boosler's accounts bs ler and help support the California Shelter Transparency Bill. Elaine, thanks you, and I thank you now things I promised not to tell. And it was nineteen ninety four and they just had the first Soccer World Cup ever held in the United States and Alexei Lalas was the folk hero of the plucky American team, and we put them in a This is Sports Center commercial. And there's a long, great story to this. I will tell you in a moment, but first listen to what I've found. It is a DVD with the out take. Now, I didn't do this twice. It's two separate angles of it. I might add. In the second angle, when I hit the guitar against the wall, the fret of the thing flew directly into the lens of the backup camera that was on the floor. I couldn't do that again in a billion years. Please enjoy. If you don't recognize me, I'm the one grunting. It's okay.

I still love you, man. It's okay, I still love you man.

I still love you, man. It's okay, I still love you man.

The nineteen ninety four Soccer World Cup did not really do that much for American soccer, which, as you know, is the sport of the future in this country and always will be. But it did make a lot of Americans into fans of European soccer clubs, especially the British ones. But for a while, Alexi Lalas, with his shoulder length, reddish blonde hair and billy goat beard and anti establishment vibe was on the front burner of American sports, and he made quite a nice career out of it as a commentator on soccer on TV. But back then, naturally, ESPN, launching its surrealist fake documentary commercial series, wanted him to be in it, and sure enough he came to Bristol and Hank Perlman devised a bit in which Gary Miller, our anchor who was himself a soccer immortal for his soccer breakdown which I've played to you, you know, John, Luca, Palyuka, the Mother, etc. Gary would be sitting at a desk in the sports Center newsroom, as atop the adjoining desk, Alexi Lalas sat cross legged in sunglasses, osifizing on relaxation and finally playing on his guitar. Michael Rowe the boat ashore. At that point the commercial turned into one of the classic scenes from John Belushi's film Animal House. Another sportscaster was to storm into the newsroom, pull the guitar out of Alexei Lalas's hands and smash it against a cubicle wall and emit a loud primal grunt as he did so, and then hand Lalas back whatever was left of the guitar, and like Belushi in the movie, say sorry, Well, Hank had a sportscaster in mind for that role, and guess who it was me? So picture that in your mind as I play what it sounded like. And then I have what I think is a really good backstory to the filming of this. This is SportsCenter SportsCenter commercial, and I'm talking to you all afternoon.

The nineteen ninety four Soccer World Cup did not really do that much for American soccer, which, as you know, is the sport of the future in this country and always will be. But it did make a lot of Americans into fans of European soccer clubs, especially the British ones. But for a while, Alexi Lalas, with his shoulder length, reddish blonde hair and billy goat beard and anti establishment vibe was on the front burner of American sports, and he made quite a nice career out of it as a commentator on soccer on TV. But back then, naturally, ESPN, launching its surrealist fake documentary commercial series, wanted him to be in it, and sure enough he came to Bristol and Hank Perlman devised a bit in which Gary Miller, our anchor who was himself a soccer immortal for his soccer breakdown which I've played to you, you know, John, Luca, Palyuka, the Mother, etc. Gary would be sitting at a desk in the sports Center newsroom, as atop the adjoining desk, Alexi Lalas sat cross legged in sunglasses, osifizing on relaxation and finally playing on his guitar. Michael Rowe the boat ashore. At that point the commercial turned into one of the classic scenes from John Belushi's film Animal House. Another sportscaster was to storm into the newsroom, pull the guitar out of Alexei Lalas's hands and smash it against a cubicle wall and emit a loud primal grunt as he did so, and then hand Lalas back whatever was left of the guitar, and like Belushi in the movie, say sorry, Well, Hank had a sportscaster in mind for that role, and guess who it was me? So picture that in your mind as I play what it sounded like. And then I have what I think is a really good backstory to the filming of this. This is SportsCenter SportsCenter commercial, and I'm talking to you all afternoon.

About the darkness, Michael, for time's sake, the word sorry didn't make it.

About the darkness, Michael, for time's sake, the word sorry didn't make it.

So the backstory and it's out of chronological order. The guitar that Alexei Lawis was playing was not the one I smashed. There was an exact duplicate that had been bought. It had been taken apart, it had been sawed, and basically it was put back together with scotch tape. It would hold together long enough for him to scrum a few sour notes on it, and then for me to grab it and smash it. They were confident it would not fly apart until I hit the cubicle wall with it, but they still told me to simply grab it, not yanked out of his hands, or I might be left holding the neck of the guitar. And Alexey holding the rest of it. It was especially problematic because we only had the one prop guitar. That's right, We made the business end of that commercial in one take. This is SportsCenter campaign not only freakly achieved something approaching genius levels of originality and creativity, but they were all done cheaper than local news promos. In Burlington, Vermont in nineteen eighty two, we often shot three of these commercials in one day, and it wasn't until the second series of ads did the SportsCenter anchors who start in one or two or three even get credit for a day off. In one of them, Charlie Sneiner is trying to get his tape of highlights back from the Harlem Globetrotters who are passing it around like a basketball, and he says, can he have a little help? Then I'm typing away at my computer and I say, sure, Charlie, and I don't even look at him, let alone stop typing, let alone give him any help. And that's done because the commercial was shot in the area right behind my desk, because nobody was working there that day except me, and it was around five PM, and I was, in fact sitting at my desk writing the eleven PM Sports Center script, and the original commercial script did not call for me to even be in Charlie's commercial. But on the fly the writer said, hey, Keith, can you give us one line? And I said, as long as I can keep writing, and they said perfect. By the way, Charlie did the commercial around five o'clock or so and then went and anchored the six thirty PM Sports Center. The spot we did where hockey legend Gordy Howe beats me up while I am trying to read through a script also shot at my desk, also on a day I was anchoring the show, and that was my real script. Anyway, back to alex A. Lallis and the guitar, so we only had the one prop guitar, and so we only had the one take, and we were shooting it in the actual Sports Center newsroom of course, in fact, they were remodeling the real newsroom to accommodate the launch of the new ESPN News network, so this was the temporary, even more crowded than usual newsroom. So the cameraman and the producer and the writer and I walked through how they thought it would work best since I would have to weave past people who were really doing their jobs and going to other desks and talking to people and stuff. They had two cameras in the little hallway that constituted the temporary newsroom's northern border, and they put a third, smaller camera on the floor where they guessed that a piece of the guitar might land after I smashed it. See if you can get the fret or something to go here, The producer said, that would make a great shot. I asked him how in the hell I was supposed to do that since we couldn't even practice the smash, and he said, well, honestly, I don't know. Telepathy. Maybe that was the other salient part of the backstory, since we only had the one take and we wouldn't need to be doing a dry run because they didn't want the guitar to fall apart in my hands. I would say less than half the people crowded into the temporary newsroom had any idea that when I came in, i was in the commercial let alone, that I was going to actually and loudly destroy a guitar by smashing it against a low cubicle wall, even if the guitar has been pre broken and taped back together as that one was. It is still going to make a lot of noise. Wait, I said to my friend Hank, who wrote it. You're not warning anybody, are you, you little devil. Hank got a gleeful, evil glazed look in his eyes. No, isn't that great. So they filmed the closeups of Gary, and they filmed the closeups of Alexi, and then they set me up to enter from a vestibule through two swinging doors with windows in them, which was along the periphery of the temporary newsroom. Then a right turn, and then about no, No, No, fifteen twenty feet to where Alexei and Gary were still sitting. My target for exactly where I should hit the guitar was clearly marked on the cubicle wall, and they even put marks on the carpet of where a couple of the practice walks had shown would give me the best chance at a solid stance. When I swung the guitar and sent it el kabonging to its doom, and nobody ever said quiet or roll or here we go. They told people in the room that they were just shooting some cover angles on Gary and Alexi, and people could say or move whatever and wherever they wanted to, just so long they didn't get away the cameras. Then they just tapped the desks for Alexa and Gary to start, and the producer waved to me and in I went, trying to channel John Belushi when he takes the guitar away from Stephen Bishop on the stairs of the Front House and Animal House. I furrowed my brow and I tried to fake some venom towards Alexei Lalas. I found the emotion as I came through the doors. I kept thinking that since I had been eight years old, I had heard people call soccer the sport of the future here and I was now thirty seven, and I was damn tired of hearing it. Lalas was scrumming on the nearly prop guitar. It made a sick sound. I took my strides, I hit the marks. I grabbed the guitar by the neck with my right hand and simultaneously Alexey let go, and then with both hands, I swung the guitar back over my head and smashed it right on the mark. As you heard Michael.

So the backstory and it's out of chronological order. The guitar that Alexei Lawis was playing was not the one I smashed. There was an exact duplicate that had been bought. It had been taken apart, it had been sawed, and basically it was put back together with scotch tape. It would hold together long enough for him to scrum a few sour notes on it, and then for me to grab it and smash it. They were confident it would not fly apart until I hit the cubicle wall with it, but they still told me to simply grab it, not yanked out of his hands, or I might be left holding the neck of the guitar. And Alexey holding the rest of it. It was especially problematic because we only had the one prop guitar. That's right, We made the business end of that commercial in one take. This is SportsCenter campaign not only freakly achieved something approaching genius levels of originality and creativity, but they were all done cheaper than local news promos. In Burlington, Vermont in nineteen eighty two, we often shot three of these commercials in one day, and it wasn't until the second series of ads did the SportsCenter anchors who start in one or two or three even get credit for a day off. In one of them, Charlie Sneiner is trying to get his tape of highlights back from the Harlem Globetrotters who are passing it around like a basketball, and he says, can he have a little help? Then I'm typing away at my computer and I say, sure, Charlie, and I don't even look at him, let alone stop typing, let alone give him any help. And that's done because the commercial was shot in the area right behind my desk, because nobody was working there that day except me, and it was around five PM, and I was, in fact sitting at my desk writing the eleven PM Sports Center script, and the original commercial script did not call for me to even be in Charlie's commercial. But on the fly the writer said, hey, Keith, can you give us one line? And I said, as long as I can keep writing, and they said perfect. By the way, Charlie did the commercial around five o'clock or so and then went and anchored the six thirty PM Sports Center. The spot we did where hockey legend Gordy Howe beats me up while I am trying to read through a script also shot at my desk, also on a day I was anchoring the show, and that was my real script. Anyway, back to alex A. Lallis and the guitar, so we only had the one prop guitar, and so we only had the one take, and we were shooting it in the actual Sports Center newsroom of course, in fact, they were remodeling the real newsroom to accommodate the launch of the new ESPN News network, so this was the temporary, even more crowded than usual newsroom. So the cameraman and the producer and the writer and I walked through how they thought it would work best since I would have to weave past people who were really doing their jobs and going to other desks and talking to people and stuff. They had two cameras in the little hallway that constituted the temporary newsroom's northern border, and they put a third, smaller camera on the floor where they guessed that a piece of the guitar might land after I smashed it. See if you can get the fret or something to go here, The producer said, that would make a great shot. I asked him how in the hell I was supposed to do that since we couldn't even practice the smash, and he said, well, honestly, I don't know. Telepathy. Maybe that was the other salient part of the backstory, since we only had the one take and we wouldn't need to be doing a dry run because they didn't want the guitar to fall apart in my hands. I would say less than half the people crowded into the temporary newsroom had any idea that when I came in, i was in the commercial let alone, that I was going to actually and loudly destroy a guitar by smashing it against a low cubicle wall, even if the guitar has been pre broken and taped back together as that one was. It is still going to make a lot of noise. Wait, I said to my friend Hank, who wrote it. You're not warning anybody, are you, you little devil. Hank got a gleeful, evil glazed look in his eyes. No, isn't that great. So they filmed the closeups of Gary, and they filmed the closeups of Alexi, and then they set me up to enter from a vestibule through two swinging doors with windows in them, which was along the periphery of the temporary newsroom. Then a right turn, and then about no, No, No, fifteen twenty feet to where Alexei and Gary were still sitting. My target for exactly where I should hit the guitar was clearly marked on the cubicle wall, and they even put marks on the carpet of where a couple of the practice walks had shown would give me the best chance at a solid stance. When I swung the guitar and sent it el kabonging to its doom, and nobody ever said quiet or roll or here we go. They told people in the room that they were just shooting some cover angles on Gary and Alexi, and people could say or move whatever and wherever they wanted to, just so long they didn't get away the cameras. Then they just tapped the desks for Alexa and Gary to start, and the producer waved to me and in I went, trying to channel John Belushi when he takes the guitar away from Stephen Bishop on the stairs of the Front House and Animal House. I furrowed my brow and I tried to fake some venom towards Alexei Lalas. I found the emotion as I came through the doors. I kept thinking that since I had been eight years old, I had heard people call soccer the sport of the future here and I was now thirty seven, and I was damn tired of hearing it. Lalas was scrumming on the nearly prop guitar. It made a sick sound. I took my strides, I hit the marks. I grabbed the guitar by the neck with my right hand and simultaneously Alexey let go, and then with both hands, I swung the guitar back over my head and smashed it right on the mark. As you heard Michael.

Show.

Show.

The SportsCenter newsroom promptly went silent for several seconds. The reaction was identical to what it would have been had there been no commercial being made and no cameras present, and I had just walked in and destroyed somebody's guitar, which I guess a lot of people expect that I might do someday, because even a lot of the people who were surprised were not surprised surprised. Craig Wax, the skinny research guy, can be seen in the finished commercial, which is on YouTube, for a second far left, just staring at me like, yeah, well, we always knew Keys would do something like that. After I'd destroyed the guitar, and I have to say, I did it really well. I kept moving for the plan until I walked back through the swinging doors and out of shot. The director shouted cut. I walked back in, and the crew gave me a round of applause, and a couple of them were cheering out of all proportion. Even if I had done is good of a job, as I thought, come here, come here. The cameraman kept saying, come here. That extra camera on the floor. They backed the videotape up from it, and they showed it to me. When I smashed the guitar, the fretboard, the actual wood and metal piece on the neck flew off and not only landed near the third camera's lens, it hit it on the fly and it stuck there. They were as happy as if they were engineers imploding a building for the first time and it had fallen exactly as they had hoped. Plus, they showed me the playback from the first camera, and there was an assignment desk editor with her back to the action on the phone, completely unaware of what was happening or even that they were rolling film and videotape, and she literally jumped several inches out of her seat of her chair. But to me, the best part of this thing is Gary Miller. Even if you know a loud noise is coming, it is quite the effort to not flinch a little when it happens basically right over your shoulder. I mean, ask the little kid in the movie North By Northwest where Iva Marie Saint shoots Carrie Grant and he sticks his fingers in his ears because it's take thirty seven and he knows the noise is coming. I mean, you're aware of it just for the possibility that somebody will screw it up like me, and debris will fly into the back of your head. But if you watch Gary Miller in this Sports Center commercial, he doesn't even blink, just a little deadpan head jerk. It's perfect. What also amazes me is that we got all this done in twenty four seconds of running time. Alexei goes on about negativity. I have to do something about it. He plays enough of the song that you recognize it. You got a shot at cheerleaders incongruously in the middle of the background. I appear from nowhere, move over there, smash the guitar while roaring spectacularly. I give him back the neck of the thing. The only thing missing is that shot from the fret bar flying into camera three. They explained they didn't have the extra two seconds scene. I remember enjoying doing this so much that I asked them for the front of the body of the guitar, and I had Alexi sign it to me on the spot. It hung framed in my various offices for about fifteen years. In twenty fourteen, I was leaving the recording of Stephen Colbert's final episode for Comedy Central. I was one of one hundred guests, and I went out onto the street to find a cab home and I got one, and in getting into it a near he ran into Alexei Lalas, who was one of the other one hundred guests. I laughed, He laughed, and he said, and I don't even have my guitar with me. And one last note, I doubt this will be of any practical use to you, But I must say, as somebody who was accorded this rare privilege, not only of doing this, but of doing this with impunity, and doing this to applause. If you are trying to health an event, any frustrations or anger in your life, smashing a guitar against a workplace cubicle wall is exactly as satisfying as you would expect it would be.

The SportsCenter newsroom promptly went silent for several seconds. The reaction was identical to what it would have been had there been no commercial being made and no cameras present, and I had just walked in and destroyed somebody's guitar, which I guess a lot of people expect that I might do someday, because even a lot of the people who were surprised were not surprised surprised. Craig Wax, the skinny research guy, can be seen in the finished commercial, which is on YouTube, for a second far left, just staring at me like, yeah, well, we always knew Keys would do something like that. After I'd destroyed the guitar, and I have to say, I did it really well. I kept moving for the plan until I walked back through the swinging doors and out of shot. The director shouted cut. I walked back in, and the crew gave me a round of applause, and a couple of them were cheering out of all proportion. Even if I had done is good of a job, as I thought, come here, come here. The cameraman kept saying, come here. That extra camera on the floor. They backed the videotape up from it, and they showed it to me. When I smashed the guitar, the fretboard, the actual wood and metal piece on the neck flew off and not only landed near the third camera's lens, it hit it on the fly and it stuck there. They were as happy as if they were engineers imploding a building for the first time and it had fallen exactly as they had hoped. Plus, they showed me the playback from the first camera, and there was an assignment desk editor with her back to the action on the phone, completely unaware of what was happening or even that they were rolling film and videotape, and she literally jumped several inches out of her seat of her chair. But to me, the best part of this thing is Gary Miller. Even if you know a loud noise is coming, it is quite the effort to not flinch a little when it happens basically right over your shoulder. I mean, ask the little kid in the movie North By Northwest where Iva Marie Saint shoots Carrie Grant and he sticks his fingers in his ears because it's take thirty seven and he knows the noise is coming. I mean, you're aware of it just for the possibility that somebody will screw it up like me, and debris will fly into the back of your head. But if you watch Gary Miller in this Sports Center commercial, he doesn't even blink, just a little deadpan head jerk. It's perfect. What also amazes me is that we got all this done in twenty four seconds of running time. Alexei goes on about negativity. I have to do something about it. He plays enough of the song that you recognize it. You got a shot at cheerleaders incongruously in the middle of the background. I appear from nowhere, move over there, smash the guitar while roaring spectacularly. I give him back the neck of the thing. The only thing missing is that shot from the fret bar flying into camera three. They explained they didn't have the extra two seconds scene. I remember enjoying doing this so much that I asked them for the front of the body of the guitar, and I had Alexi sign it to me on the spot. It hung framed in my various offices for about fifteen years. In twenty fourteen, I was leaving the recording of Stephen Colbert's final episode for Comedy Central. I was one of one hundred guests, and I went out onto the street to find a cab home and I got one, and in getting into it a near he ran into Alexei Lalas, who was one of the other one hundred guests. I laughed, He laughed, and he said, and I don't even have my guitar with me. And one last note, I doubt this will be of any practical use to you, But I must say, as somebody who was accorded this rare privilege, not only of doing this, but of doing this with impunity, and doing this to applause. If you are trying to health an event, any frustrations or anger in your life, smashing a guitar against a workplace cubicle wall is exactly as satisfying as you would expect it would be.

Okay, I still love you, man.

Okay, I still love you, man.

I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips Chanel arranged, produced and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on the guitars, the bass, and the drums, and mister Shanelle handled the orchestration and the keyboards. It was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by no horns allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend Howard Fineman, and everything else was pretty much my fault. Let's countdown for this the one hundred and seventy sixth day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the two hundred and twenty fifth day since Dictator Jay Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the legal system such as it is, Use the mental health system, use presidential immunity if it happens, use the not regularly given elector objection option. Use the campaign to stop him from doing it again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Again, I'm going to label that as probable game time decision till the next one. I'm Keith Alderman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, apple pots, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips Chanel arranged, produced and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on the guitars, the bass, and the drums, and mister Shanelle handled the orchestration and the keyboards. It was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by no horns allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend Howard Fineman, and everything else was pretty much my fault. Let's countdown for this the one hundred and seventy sixth day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the two hundred and twenty fifth day since Dictator Jay Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the legal system such as it is, Use the mental health system, use presidential immunity if it happens, use the not regularly given elector objection option. Use the campaign to stop him from doing it again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Again, I'm going to label that as probable game time decision till the next one. I'm Keith Alderman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, apple pots, or wherever you get your podcasts.