Countdown with Keith Olbermann

COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 8
A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT): BREAKING: Republicans finally throw Trump overboard - or maybe it's "Republicans finally throw Trump under the campaign bus."
-Trump toady Byron Donalds, running for Governor of Florida and only ahead in the polls by 1/10 of a percentage point, scrubs Trump from his website.
- Foundering GOP Senate candidates in Iowa and Michigan criticize Trump's war in Iran and resultant high prices.
- Trump's approval among Pure Independents drops from +15 to -71 since Election Day (an 86 point swing against Trump!; 99 point swing on the economy)
-The percentage of Trump voters who supported him - not the GOP - goes from +23 on Inauguration Week to -22.
-And the Tump staff response? They want to rename Ford's Theatre after Trump! 'Ford's Theatre - because the one thing you really want as the midterms loom is some commercial that includes the tag lines 'The Lincoln Assassination - brought to you by Donald Trump!'
The De-Trumpification Has Begun!
PLUS the polls are crashing around him and Trump can't decide if the midterms are about him or aren't about him, and I have to take some of your time to protest this claim that a baseball player who may lead the American League in Runs Batted In this year after leading the National League four years ago, will be the first to ever do it. He isn't. There is now a desperate bid to make everything that happens, something that has never happened before. 'The first time since 1904' is a plenty big enough accomplishment without hyperbole.
B-Block (40:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Stephen A. Smith is back and fully up to date on politics (as long as that date is July 15 2024). Jared Golden, phony Democratic congressman from Maine, endorses a Republican in New York because they worked together prioritizing lobstermen over democracy. And Friedrich Merz, a German chancellor having trouble fending off a bunch of fascists bent on ethnic cleansing. Get some help, Ethel Mertz.
C-Block (52:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I cherish the memory of a friend no longer with us and the extraordinary person she was. In fact, she should've been president - at minimum, she should've been the VP candidate on the Democratic ticket, not her husband. Elizabeth Edwards - my friend.

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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 7
A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT): I confess - I fell for it.
Trump banned CNN and MS Now from the White House and I immediately thought: the rest of the media finally, FINALLY, has to walk out and not give this bastard any further coverage.
No - I was wrong.
Then I thought: he ADMITS “we took the freedom of speech away.” And I thought: it IS the most blatant attack on the 1st Amendment in the history of our country And it should – it WILL – it MUST inspire even this nation’s somnambulant media to rise up as one and for once use its power to fight back – to defend not their jobs, but their country.
No. I was wrong.
On second thought, I realized this was a set-up. Trump has picked fights with Iran, with Canada, the EU, over oil, over tariffs, over hockey, over arches, over the Kennedy Center - and he's lost them all. He needs a fight against a weak opponent who will fold up when the first punch lands. It's his only chance to salvage the midterms.
Weak opponent? Who will fold up? When the first punch lands? That's our White House press corps! I'm asking them to do what comes naturally to them - do nothing. Nothing until after Trump gets fricasseed in the midterms. Don't give him the fight he needs. Then, humiliate him.
And at this rate he is going to get fricasseed. 97% chance the Democrats take the house, 65% the Democrats take the Senate, Democrats winning all the key Senate races (the one in North Carolina by FIFTEEN points). Let's not shoot off our big bazoos and snatch defeat from the jaws of Trump's defeat.
Also: he's threatening Iran again, the Greenland deal is just a climbdown, and if the 25-story D.C. Arch (a life-sized reproduction of Trump's ego) weren't already bad enough, he's added a platform for snipers and a staging ground for drones. Because that's what you need next to a major airport.
B-Block (38:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: King Charles, some rando on Threads who thinks the Democrats are admitting "illegal ALLENS" and Puck media guy Dylan Byers, not only carrying water for the disaster that is Bari Weiss, but now with new reported financial conflicts of interest whenever he covers CBS (The Conservative Brainwashing System).
C-Block (51:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: MS NOW is in the news for being too political and as the founder of the only iteration of it or MSNBC that succeeded, I find this infuriating - and ironic. During my first stint there in 1997-98 we were so non-political and so ultra-tabloid that I walked in one day and the rundown said our lead story was an advance look at the publication of "The Farmers' Almanac" and our guest was its publisher. Live. Lead. FARMERS. ALMANAC.


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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 6
A Block (SPECIAL COMMENT): We're actually under-reacting to the threat from A.I. because it is not just 'A.I. Will Kill Us All' - it is 'TRUMP'S A.I. Will Kill Us All.'
Trump is up to his each of his 27 chins in his own investments in A-I; for all we know he's also thinking A-I might fix the midterms for him; humanity is at risk because Trump and his idiot sons and his cabinet members and his foreign fixers and everybody in the Epstein Files and the whole kaleidoscope of corruption is thinking about one thing only - not how to protect mankind but how to protect their money.
Humanity is at risk, because Artificial intelligence is meeting Trump's total LACK of intelligence

Also: when Trump's SkyNet gains sentience it will get U.S. weapons in space to use against us. And remember the Epstein Files? Trump Junior's new wife mainlines back not just to Putin's flunkies but to one of Epstein's bankers: her own father. Speaking of Putin's flunkies: Putin is why the National Hockey League must ban its all time leading goal scorer. And the 60 Minutes ratings are in – they’re down 21% so it’ll now be called 47 MINUTES.
Well done CBS – The Conservative Brainwashing System.

B-Block (40:00) THE RETURN OF THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The latest in the endless parade of football quarterbacks and TV pitchmen, Arch Manning, recommends and busts out laughing at an AI video of his college coach knocking a woman reporter to the ground. Another Michigan Republican candidate thinks God is sending him messages for Dan Bongino. Lee Greenwood's latest business deal with Trump: his wife is gonna be an Ambassaduh. And Kash Patel leading the FBI: the Federal Bestiality Investigators?
C-Block (58:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The terrible truth about TV newscasters and the real draw of the profession for many of them - the free hair care. The whole thing clarified itself to me when I discovered that the gifted craftsman who cut my hair when I was in radio in 1980 is still working and is still a gifted craftsman.
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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5, EPISODE 5
A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT) - Hey, yeah, sorry, we forgot to mench...before U.S. servicemen were killed at a base in Jordan, Iran got satellite images of the facility from "Chinese entities" according to The Wall Street Journal. Nobody's saying it's the GOVERNMENT so end of story, especially if you have the IQ of a Trump. Use your brain: Iran didn't buy these on eBay - there's only one kind of Chinese "Entity" - a Chinese GOVERNMENT Entity.
Ten days before he's supposed to entertain Chinese Dictator Xi at the White House, Trump is on the losing end of a war with Iran (assists: China, Russia) and naturally Xi is threatening to cancel it because we're selling Taiwan nation-saving weapons. China knows Trump is useless, weak, imbecilic.
As, obviously, does Putin, who is now threatening Kiev-to-Warsaw trains as they near the Polish border and Trump is blaming Zelensky because Diesel prices because Trump cannot understand people, only money.
Thank god the president of Ireland, Catherine Connolly, made Trump sit at the kids' table yesterday. Literally.
All this while A.I. might destroy all of humanity. All of humanity? So Trump is safe?
B-Block (30:00) (MORE SPECIAL COMMENT) - The good news is, MAGA is slipping from a close second to extinction levels in all polling, polling analysis, and on the campaign trail. Jon Ossoff called Trump a draft-dodger but reserved worse remarks for his opponent, Mike Collins. Turns out Jon Karl and vandals didn't destroy the Lincoln Reflecting Pool remodeling - the contractor did, and confessed. And 25 years later and Ari Fleischer is still lying for George W. Bush, and as usual, managing to only make him look worse.
C-Block (50:00) (THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL) - I put no weight in dreams as prophesy. Maybe as messages to yourself. But I don't mind telling you I was reminded of the breadth of the failure of cable and broadcast news in this time of institutional collapse, when my late friend Tim Russert showed up in a dream.
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COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - BULLETIN, SEPTEMBER 10 2026
An hour into his typical delusional speech at the Republican "Midterm Convention" in Texas last night Trump actually said something different: he offered each adult American $5,000 in a "tariff dividend" if the Republicans maintain control of the House and Senate in the midterms.
Without a lot of people being excluded from the bribe that would cost taxpayers $1 Trillion.
Bribing voters is completely illegal under a federal law passed in 1948 - although it's debatable whether or not it applies here.
It's also debatable about whether or not Trump would pay off on his promised palm greasing. He didn't deliver the "little tariff rebate" of "at least $2,000 each" last December, nor the "Doge Dividend" of last February.
Still, it indicates the desperation of Trump, underwater in all swing states with his candidates trailing Democrats in all key Senate races and the GOP privately conceded Congress.
And it could be a crime to offer it. Or - please note - to receive it.
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