Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.

The first news reporter who stands up to Trump and calls him out to his face in public will get fired and within forty eight hours will get a new job paying twice as much or more, and will become a national hero.

America is crying out for somebody to take the risk that isn't really a risk and tell him to shut the hell up, and tell him to f off, and tell him to shove his threats and stochastic hints at destruction and violence and his A plus plus plus plus up his ass.

It is time, now, now now, Because Trump has now threatened the New York Times with sedition and treason charges for committing the heinous, unpatriotic act of suggesting he's a little tired for criticizing him for criticizing him.

Doesn't matter that it's just another threat that his losses over Kimmel and Komi and Tish James have set back the clock on when he completely loses it and tries to do any of this.

Doesn't matter that legally none of this fits sedition or treason.

None of it could fit in a million years.

This is a mentally deteriorating man.

His disease or diseases, whatever they are, are accelerating before our eyes.

And each hour he gets further and further convinced of his omnipotence, and worse that only a tiny minority in this country opposes him in the slightest he has almost unchecked power, and the Republicans won't check the rest, and somebody has to check the rest.

And if he threatens the Times with treason and insists in that stochastic terrorist way of his, we should do something about it.

I'm next, or your next, or the guy down the street is next, or some Republican who stands up is next.

Two weeks ago he wanted to hang Democratic senators and congressman like Kelly and Slotkin.

And now he wants to charge the New York Times with treason and sedition and you are next.

And just because this isn't enough of a crisis that nobody's reacting to it as a crisis, because well, he's always threatening the media, and well he's always claiming somebody's guilty of treason, and well he's always planning to get somebody anged.

Ask Mike Pants, am I right there is a pattern here over the last week about which we need to take note and summon genuine alarm.

He is now trying to decide who owns and operates the national news organizations and what they say, even the tepid ones like CNN, and which shows get to run on them, and which anchors must be fired Aaron Burnett.

And worst of all, this ties into that word you're sick of me hearing.

This is part of anosognosia, because it's clear to the world that Trump is desperately, menacingly psychologically dysfunctional, and there is no chance in a million years that he has any idea that what he is doing is part of that illness or any illness, and no chance that anybody around him sees it that way or will tell him that's the truth.

This is psychological dysfunction, This is mental illness.

This is stochastic terrorism.

I will read that all to you now.

Quote.

There has never been a president that has worked as hard as me.

My hours are the longest and my results are among the best.

In addition to all that, I go out of my way to do long, thorough and very boring medical examinations at the Great Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, seen and supervised by top doctors, all of whom have given me perfect marks.

Some have even said they have never seen such strong perfect marks.

Some have even said they have never seen such strong results.

I do these tests because I owe it to our country.

That's right, He's doing this a favor.

In addition to the medical I have done something that no other president has done on three separate occasions, the last one being recently, by taking what is known as a cognitive examination, something which few people would be able to do very well, including those working at the New York Times.

And I aced all three of them in front of large numbers of doctors and experts, most of whom I do not know.

In other words, he's used to being tested by doctors who he does know, does pay, and does tell what to say to resume.

I have been told that few people have been able to ace this examination, and in fact most do very poorly, which is why many other presidents have decided not to take it at all.

Despite all of this, the time and work involved, he said it was pretty easy.

The New York Times and some others like to pretend that I am quote slowing up and maybe not as sharp.

As I once was or am in poor physical health.

Knowing that it is not true, and knowing that I work very hard, probably harder than I have ever worked before, I will know when I am slowing up.

But it's not now, said every patient of every neurological disorder and physical ailment ever.

And here is the operative part of this.

Here is the true pathology.

Quote.

After all of the work I have done with medical exams, cognitive exams, and everything else, I actually believe it's seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for the New York Times and others to consistently do fake reports in order to libel and demean quote the President of the United States in capital letters.

They are true enemies of the people, and we should do something about it.

Yeah, somebody has to do something about it.

Remove him under the twenty fifth Amendment.

He's as crazy as a jbird.

Of course, that will not happen, So somebody else needs to do something a little simpler.

Answer him, Answer him when he says things like this, Answer him when he attacks you, answer him in the same language.

Answer him to his face, not with threats, not with violence, for God's sakes, not even yelling or a loud voice.

Just answer him with reality, answer him with the thing he never sees in his life, the real world and the real world of how sick Donald Trump is.

Because the time is nigh.

He is going to snap soon enough.

And though it won't look like he sounds in these ranting almost fugue state, king lear off his med's penultimate stage of whatever disease he happens to have at the moment, wild rides on the dementia j Trump delusion train.

These are only the big picture.

Well, let's then nuke them.

Fantasies the likelihood he tries anything beyond the threat involved in this, That likelihood is remote because nobody in power, not even the morons like Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who's now decided she's going to make the midterms next year a referendum on Trump, and thank you for that, Pat Summerl's daughter, not even Susie Wiles.

Things Actually pursuing anything like this against The New York Times is anything but madness.

What they like is the threat element.

They can sell the threat element.

They also like that darkest of undercurrents, the possibility that, again he writes, we should do something about it and his stochastic call for violence is picked up by the way it was on January sixth by the insurrectionists, or buy the pipe barmber, or buy the Maga militia.

There is always that chance, and it is very real.

But the immediate threat is action to silence and manipulate media to a degree not yet seen even under this president.

Three examples this week.

First, Trump has decided he gets to program what's on CNN.

He's already said he's going to be involved in the process.

Why which CNN may change hands.

He's been in the Oval office with Larry Ellison, who's still trying to buy that network and make it even softer on Trump than David Zaslav and Warner Bros.

Discovery and Chris Lickt made it soft on Trump.

Per Natalie Andrews at The Wall Street Journal.

Quote, Trump has told people close to him that he wants new ownership of CNN as well as changes to CNN programming.

He's got a close eye on paramount efforts to take over Warner Discovery, while Netflix is talking to Trump too.

Unquote Trump mysteriously, since she is the most milk toast person in primetime cable wants Aaron Burnett out and probably Caitlyn Collins again, why you would bother?

I don't know these and the shows on MS are not widely watched nor cited television programmings.

They are now nothing, again compared to say, the CBS Evening News over which he is now a measure of control via Barry Weiss and those schmucks.

But he sees Aaron Burnett and Caitlyn Collins and CNN, and as brain damaged as he is, he must silence the critics and the criticism that he sees.

Also, there have been two more attacks on women reporters.

To ABC's Rachel Scott, here's a shock.

She's gifted, she works for Disney, and she's attention all you racist presidents of the United States.

She's an African American woman.

Quote.

You are the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place.

Let me just tell you.

You are an obnoxious, a terrible reporter.

And it's always the same thing with you.

I told you unquote.

Also, Lachland Cart writes Breaker reports that the fatuous, flatulent lap sitting quote interview unquote of dementia J Trump the other day by the austed NBC correspondent dash of Burns for Politico in which you'd recognize her if you saw the video.

She was the one asking the softball questions, not following up on any of the stupid answers, and then basically taking dictation throughout.

They're reporting at breaker that that interview was essentially the result of a quid pro quote and Politico staffers are nearing open revolts over it, and Trump attacked Politico specifically, and dash of Burns by extension two dash of burns of Politico in the interview with Politico, And no, I don't think she's very much of a journalist, but I'll defend her right to try, and God damned any president who tries to intimidate her or anybody else, and that would even include Barry effing Weiss.

Attacking her is the job of media critics and journalists and those of us who dabble in those fields, and not presidents with enough influence to get her harmed anyway.

Politico named Trump to the top of its twenty eight influencers in Europe or something, and then suddenly bingo it had an exclusive with Trump during which he said he was only giving their Crappola Organization an interview because it had just made up another award for him, and then he insulted them in her and she sat there because the job is more important to her than is America.

Lachlan Cartwright writes, quote, breaker has learned what was brought into the Oval Office fifteen minutes before the interview was set to start.

Brought in by senior administration officials, including Communication Director Stephen Chunung or Chunk, as he's also known.

I wrote that, not Lachlan White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who made it clear they expected Burns to go easy on Trump.

The White House, however, explained there was a simpler explanation for why Burns entered the Oval ahead of the interview.

Unquote.

That was in the denial that there was any attempt to influence the softball nature of this interview.

But it was just naturally softball.

They brought her into the Oval Office, according to the White House because because she'd never actually been in the Oval Office before, because she's only Politico's White House Bureau chief and a former NBC News Washington political reporter.

I'm having a hard time believing their story.

The tragedy here, of course, is that it is accepted inside the new business without a second thought.

That there is nothing that reporters, even bad ones, can do about this without risking their careers and maybe their lives.

Bullshit.

The first one, the first one of you who gets told you are the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place.

Let me just tell you are a terrible reporter.

The first one who hears that to their face and replies, so, what what does that have to do with my question?

Nothing?

And what does that have to do with the fact that you didn't answer it?

Nothing?

And with all due respects, sir, The majority of this nation, sir, considers you a failure as a president.

And what does that have to do with your answer?

The one you didn't?

Just give me?

Nothing?

But the majority of this nation thinks you are a vindictive, stupid, hypocritical, hateful, destructive soul is and quite probably insane person.

I am a terrible reporter.

You are the worst government leader in the history of the Western hemisphere.

Answer my effing question, asshole.

You don't have to repeat that word for word.

The first reporter, though, who does something like that anything like that gets ushered out, maybe by secret service, and fired before they hit the street outside on Pennsylvania Avenue, And within forty eight hours they will get statues built of them, and they will get new job offers at twice the salary, at least half a dozen networks and online facilities, and they may have to stop and give up a wonderful life of being on the road with this madman and instead become an anchor, or a host or something for several million dollars more than they're currently making.

And as somebody said to a baseball writer decades ago, the road ruins the best of them, and kid, you ain't the best of them.

Take the deal, take the desk job, give that answer to Trump.

Work for truth, not for CBS or Politico or NBC or MS.

Now go off on him.

And then turned it into a series.

I know a little something about this after years of complaining about it on the air, and I was not a White House reporter.

I was not a confrontational guy.

I couldn't say this directly, but it was at a time when something that was set on network television or cable television would reverberate and would almost be the equivalent of saying it to a man's face.

And one day, after years of minor and relatively controlled complaints, I read what Bush and Cheney and Gingrich and Rumsfeld and the others were saying about those of us who criticized the policy of the Bush administration against Iraq and the way they were leading this country.

And one day I said, I've had enough.

Nobody is telling this guy to go to hell.

Somebody has to say he has to go to hell.

Somebody has to let him know.

Somebody has to say this on behalf of all the people out here.

And I don't know how many there are.

There could be thirty five, there could be one hundred and fifty million, I don't know, but they're there.

I can feel them saying, tell this man to go to hell.

And I did it.

And I did it expecting to be fired, maybe before the show was over, and maybe not even having some extra place to go outside of politics and news, maybe not being able to go back to sports.

And when the president of the network then came into my tiny office after this, as the room outside me was shaking with people who really liked what I said, but figured they were all going to get fired too.

One percent of me thought, you know, he's not going to fire me.

He's going to get me thrown into the trunk of a car, and I'm going to wake up and get mo Instead.

The president of the network said, hey, buddy, did you see the ratings?

Can you do one of those every night?

Would you like a new contract, would you like a real office, would you like a lot of more money.

I wasn't some kind of journalistic profit.

I wasn't some sort of historic genius.

I wasn't some sort of societal soothsayer.

I wasn't imbued with the spirit of Edward R.

Murrow for a year, or a month or even a week.

Only three things were required then and are required now, even in a time of fear, to become the one who shouts, hey, Emperor, you have no new clothes.

First, you have to be prepared.

It's tough, but you have to be prepared to make way more money than you're making now.

Two, in this environment, this guy has to yell at you.

First, directly with fifty cameras rolling at the time.

You have to be prepared for an event that may not come or may not come for six months.

But lastly, and most importantly, you have to correctly divine that the American public has passed the tip points and it desperately wants somebody to confront this asshole and tell him to his face he's an asshole.

No matter what the personal risk might be, You're already under personal risk.

He already wants to charge you with sedition.

People supporting him already want you harmed or dead.

It's not that much of a percentage increase, and you don't even have to divine that they were past the tipping point.

Just guess, Just assume it hasn't changed that much since the last time you actually really assess this.

He tells Poor Burns of Politico that the economy is an A plus plus plus plus plus, exactly the wording of the fantasy from Little Ralphie in a Christmas story when he's in the fourth grade.

He says a plus plus plus plus plus.

And a new poll from Public First Polling says that in the last two years, twenty seven percent of US have skipped a medical checkup because of the costs, and thirty seven percent of us said they can no longer afford to go to a pro ballgame, and forty six percent of us cat afford a vacation if we have to use a plane during it.

And these are the inflation figures they are fighting against.

Bacon three and a half percent, checking five point three percent, let us seven point four percent, bananas eight percent, ground b fourteen percent, coffee one hundred percent.

You know where I got those goddamn inflation figures from?

From the Efing Maria E Fing Bartiromo show on Fox.

This is the tipping point.

You are here on the map.

America wants you to tell Trump he's full of shit.

One well crafted paragraph of suppressed and controlled anger and it's over.

I'd be happy to do it myself, but as you may have noticed, my skill at suppressing and controlling my anger on this subject is waning.

And also I retired from that platform more than a day to go.

But you are on that platform now, You are on a platform while Trump is trying to light the platform on fire, and he's trying to light you on fire, and he's trying to light America on fire.

You are on the platform.

Now use the platform.

Looking at you, Rachel Scott, looking at you, Dash of Burns, looking at you, Caitlin Collins and Aaron Burnette and anybody else he thinks he can get fired from his new CNN looking at you, New York Times, do it now now before he actually snaps and does charge you with sedition.

The other headlines as Trump continues his cover up of the Second Strike, and that's in addition to his cover up of the Epstein files, two rather startling stories that didn't really change the score, but which do remind us that the creatures who are loyal to Trump, the ren fields of our time, are also hypocrites and frauds who, outside of Stephen Miller, do not even believe their own hate.

They just sell it as A federal court rules that the Trump usurpation of the National Guard to terrorize citizens in LA was illegal, Thus you can extrapolate that those military orders were also illegal.

CNN reports that throughout twenty sixteen, one Fox News pundit and sometimes host kept beating the same drum about the military carrying out illegal orders.

As Trump kept insisting in twenty sixteen, they should and they would, and when pressed about what would happen if they didn't, he told a Republican primary debate quote, they won't refuse, They're not going to refuse me.

Believe me as that we're telling began of our current crisis in which he is changing the United States of America military into Trump troops.

Inc.

While that was going on in twenty sixteen, one Fox commentator, a military contributor, insisted it was illegal and should not happen and would not happen.

Quote, You're just not going to follow that order if it's unlawful.

He insisted, the military is not going to follow illegal orders.

A month later, he came back on and said the military won't follow unlawful orders from their commander in chief.

And after that, as a guest on Meghan Kelly's Fox Show, Remember Meghan Kelly, the man said, quote, here's the problem with Trump.

He says, go ahead and kill the family, go ahead and torture, go ahead and go further than waterboarding.

What happens when people follow those orders or don't follow them.

It's not clear that Donald Trump will have their back.

Donald Trump is oftentimes about Donald Trump, and so you can't if you're not changing the law and you're just saying it, could you create even more ambiguity?

Unquote, who who was so morally and legally clear, Who was so insightful as to the nightmare behind the nightmare.

Trump issues illegal orders, you carry them out, and then he backs away from the orders, pretends he doesn't even know who you are, and you go to jail.

Who saw that coming?

Who was almost psychic about this?

Pete hegseeth?

No, the same pete hegseeth And just as tragically.

A year ago, a lawyer representing America First Policy Institute answered a lawsuit by claiming that the issue of Trump ordering Seal Team six to kill a rival candidate, this was part of the presidential immunity thing, that that was just a fantasy.

Quote.

Military officers are required not to carry out unlawful orders, this lawyer wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court that was dug up by The Times.

Quote, the military would not carry out a patently unlawful order from the president to kill non military targets.

Indeed, service members are required not to do so.

Unquote again, who wrote that powerful conservative viewpoint?

Pambondy Yep, same Pambondy.

When this is over and Bondy and hegxeth go to prison for facilitating illegal orders to the military, hegxeth and BONDI can at least say I told you so as they look themselves in the mirror.

Thank you, Nancy Faust.

Another day, another petard, another hoisting to continue that theme.

Remember those Bill Pulty specials trying to prosecute Adam Schiff and Lisa Cook and Eric Swalwell for filling out forms that said a home they were mortgaging was to be their primary residence.

Only it wasn't, or it wasn't going to be all the time, or it wouldn't be later, Remember that from pro Publica.

In a span of seven weeks in nineteen ninety three, one real estate guy signed a mortgage for one house in Palm Beach, Florida, declared on the application that it would be his principal residence.

Seven months later, he bought another house, same street, same pledge, same mortgage app He never lived in either.

It was so transparently false that the buyer's real estate guy told the Miami Herald that his client had quote hired an expensive New York design firm to dress them up to the nines and lease them out annually, so they weren't his primary resident.

He was dressing them up to the nines and leasing them out annually, so the mortgage app thing was a lie.

The buyer of both those houses was Donald J.

Trump.

Well there's another coincidence also of interest here another tech pro billionaire wants public executions.

Cool you first, and pro tip.

If you're a congresswoman from Missouri claiming there is a George Sorows plot to make Missouri's political decisions for it, you probably better know that the city where you claim that plot is being hatched.

That city is not in California.

It is in Missouri, in the district next to yours.

But you've never looked at a map of your own state while you're trying to gerrymander your own state for the fascists.

You will believe this.

California, here we come.

That's next.

This is Countdown.

This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead on this edition of Countdown.

Somebody asked me the other day what I thought about Chris Matthews reappearing back with Joe Scarborough on MSNBS forgive me MS now dumbest name change of all time, ludicrous Werson killing off HBO to call it Max anyway, Matthews on with Scarborough?

How did I feel about that?

I said, I actually felt sorry for Scarborough.

Then I told him the story of Chris Matthews drooling on air while I sat next to him drooling on air about Jennifer Granholm.

So I'll tell it to you next.

In things I promise not to tell first, believe it or not, there's still more new idiots to talk about.

The roundup of the miscrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's other worst persons in the world to the bronze the secretary of reality TV cancelations, Sean Duffy.

All right, I'm going to confess something to you.

Duffy said it would improve air travel if people didn't wear pajamas on the plane and go barefoot, and and he's God, He's right.

The days of everybody in suits and fedoras is long gone, and good riddance.

In point of fact, your safety in the event of a disaster on a plane is increased if you wear a cap or a hat of some kind and a leather jacket because it's flame retardant.

Increases your chances zero point zero, zero zero one percent or something is your clothing choice.

So the key improvement in our air traffic chaos no of course, not him suggesting that is stupid, but it is not a stupid suggestion, or at least it wasn't until he followed it up by then suggesting that maybe what people want in airports now is a workout area for stair climbing and chin ups, and they trotted out Robert F.

Kennedy Junior, I finally realized is actually one of the characters from the animated series Family Guy, one of the weird guys in their office.

And Robert F.

Kennedy did chin ups in the middle of the airport because of course you see that all the time, don't you.

My god, you see more penguins in airports than you see chin ups.

Because what Sean Duffy wants you to do is wear a suit and a tie and then work out inside the airport and perspire through your suit and your tie, and then get on your plane and sit down next to somebody and cause them to pass out from your stench.

And if Sean Duffy thinks that will decrease problems on planes, especially pass singer intolerance and rage, he's dumber than I thought.

And frankly, I didn't think that was possible.

The runner unp worser data platform company Pallenteer and its co founder, right wing nut job tech money fascist bro Joe Lonsdale, paal of Barry Weiss and Peter Thiel and the rest of the people who are using the money they got from us to try to turn us into indentured servants or silent cogs in a machine they own.

Mister Lonsdale left Pallenteer long ago, but when you hear about Volunteer or Barry Weiss's university, which he's also been involved with, this is what is at its heart, and certainly at Lonsdale's He's joined this club of people demanding public executions.

Remember Charlie Kirk wanted public executions on pay per view.

He wanted kids to be forced to watch the public executions of criminals.

Well, now Lonsdale has posted on Twitter quote, if if I'm in charge later, we won't just have a three strikes law.

We will quickly try and hang men after three violent crimes.

And yes we will do it in public to deter others.

Our society needs balance.

It's time to bring back masculine leadership.

Imagine being Joe Lonsdale and having so wasted your life, that you think that the desire to see someone, anyone executed publicly hanged is somehow masculine, as opposed to being a sign of your sadism and fear and mental illness and stupidity, and probably you know elon musk cocktails.

Also note there is no indication there that the opening of that tweet, if I'm in charge later, that that's meant in some sort of ironic or acutesy way.

He means he intends to be in charge later.

They all think Trump is just the start of business men owning the country, but the winner the worst.

And Wagner Republican representing the Missouri second in the House of Representatives and in the middle of the redistricting controversy in Missouri, and idiot middle of redistricting and apparently she's never looked at a map of her own state in her life, not even a map of the area around its state capital.

The California Democrat posted this on Twitter at the end of last month.

Concerned citizens gathered at California City Hall Railroad Park on five hundred South Oak Street to stop gerrymandering in Missouri.

Access the California Democrat to read the full story California MO, mid MO are the hashtags and then there's a link and she has retweeted this and taken umbrage and Wagner congresswoman, and Wagner writes, Missouri's elections aren't decided in California.

The real threat isn't our map, but the Sorrow's funded network trying to manufacture outrage.

Missourians will choose Missouri's future.

Uh.

Miss the California Democrat newspaper, it's based in the town of California, Missouri.

That's that's how.

That's how they have a city hall, railroad park in California, California.

It says California city Hall.

This this California is not in the state.

It's it's in Missouri.

And you the six term congresswoman from the district next to California, Missouri.

Apparently you didn't know that.

And oh yeah, she's the former chair of the Missouri Republican Party.

And oh, by the way, California.

The town is the seat of Monitou County, Missouri, and it's the largest city in that county.

And it's the third largest city in the Jefferson City metropolitan area.

And if Jefferson City sounds familiar.

Perhaps it should, since it's the capital of the goddamn state.

Her office denies she didn't know California, Missouri was in Missouri, insisting, of course she knows that she just deliberately wrote it this way because because because it's it's George Soros's fault somehow.

Then if this sounds like the start of a Hallmark movie and a bad one, yep, Congresswoman Ann Wagner used to be an executive with Hallmark.

Should have stayed there a Christmas in California, Missouri.

See the twist Representative Anne as her Democratic opponent Fred Wellman ads wait till she hears about the Missouri towns of Mexico and Cuba.

Wagner redistricting Missouri, and she doesn't even own a map.

Today's other worst person things I promised not to tell.

And I was speaking a couple of days ago about the coverage of the two thousand and eight presidential election.

You remember two thousand and eight ancient history, back when there was an American democracy, back when there was hopey changey things as opposed to I hope you change into something other than the president of the United States.

I was talking about two thousand and eight and was asked a series of questions about our coverage at MSNBC, and the person asking me questions had yet to mention the most significant roadblock to getting things done, to getting that broadcast and the other broadcasts that we did politically at MSNBC all those years ago off the ground and then again safely on the ground when it was all done.

The assets we had were extraordinary through most of the primary campaign that year, and through all of two thousand and six in the midterms, we'd had Tim Russert who would come on and after the network coverage was completely over, would just sit there with us for another hour on the air.

What a pleasure that was.

And then we'd go out in the hallway and talk about baseball, the good part of it, plus dozens of people and that then new and sincere Rachel Matdow, other people who really knew what they were talking about and were trying to make a point and make an inroad in what was then all conservative corporate media, even at NBC.

But the person had not asked me one question about the major impediment, And the major impediment was my co anchor for almost all of this was Chris efing Matthews.

Over the years, I have made allusions to Chris Matthews and just how rare it was when he was actually in the same plane of existence as the rest of us in the universe.

And I know Chris never heard me say any of these things, because Chris never listened.

If Chris listened, Chris would probably still be on the air every night with a nightly show on MSNBC.

There's a Dorian Gray picture of him somewhere because he hasn't changed in appearance since the late nineteen nineties, even though he's now well, you know how old he is.

He's two hundred and six.

The story I want to tell about Matthews, though, that I think symbolizes and summarizes the entirety of my experience with him, which began in two thousand and three.

I was on the set with him when he discussed the fact that this was George Bush's day and mission accomplished was not an exaggeration.

And look at how well he fits in that flight man's uniform, and he was talking about how he looked good in the pants.

That was the beginning of it.

And I said, don't you think there's something about bringing up the whole flying experience and the Texas Air National Guard and that whole question.

You think that's a bad idea or declaring mission accomplished while American servicemen's lives are still at risk in Iraq and will be no.

No, this is his day, This is his day.

Chris can always point to being right about any issue that ever came across his desk because he took every possible point of view on every possible issue.

He was anti Bush, pro Bush, anti Trump pro Trump.

He was everything at all times.

And the way you do that is the way Trump does.

You just don't remember what you said last time.

You don't think it's relevant, you don't think that anybody else is going to remember it.

There's a lot of similarity, there's a lot of overlap in the ven diagrams of Chris Matthews and Donald Trump.

But I'm diverging.

I promised you the Chris Matthews story I could have before I sat down in front of the microphone gone and looked this up to get the exact date.

I'm sure it was two thousand and six or two thousand and seven, doesn't matter much.

It was cold, it was the winter.

It was deep in the winter, probably January or February, and I had traveled to Washington on short notice because they wanted me to co anchor with Matthews.

The memorial coverage of the funeral rolls two of them, a former president Gerald R.

Ford.

Gerald Ford ultimately is down there with what Harrison and a couple of other really short term presidents like Chester Allen Arthur who just didn't make a huge impact except for in his case one event the pardoning of Nixon, really didn't do much as President of the United States and yet President of the United States.

State funeral, Plus they were also going to give him a second funeral the next day in Michigan, back in his home state Grand Rapids, if I remember correctly.

So we were there for two days, me and Matthews all day, doing the state funeral one day and then the next day the funeral in Michigan.

The state funeral was just a typical day with Chris Matthews.

I would say something and he would then repeat it as if he had heard it in his own head rather than coming out of my mouth.

Chris heard things that were said, he just never heard who had said them.

So he tended to repeat a lot of the things I had just mentioned, and he would jump in on interviews that he was not supposed to be a part of, and all the rest of the usual nonsense.

He would read things on the teleprompter that said Keith.

He would read everything except the word Keith, the usual stuff.

So that was a good day.

The next day, when we moved to Michigan, that was not quite as good a day.

The Michigan part of the two days of the burial Gerald Ford was well, I'll make the joke now that I made off set then and off air then, which was took two days to bury him what he wouldn't stop moving.

The second day was conducted out of a Protestant church in Grand Rapids, if I remember correctly, that had an overhead window.

And I forget the technical terms.

Although my dad was an architect, I don't think he did a lot of churches.

But there was an overhead length of the church glass ceiling, and it provided extraordinarily bright and mood altering light.

And on that day, in the middle of winter, at the middle of the day, the light came in at such an angle that it really did look kind of otherworldly.

If not heavenly, and so as all the leading Michigan politicos and many of the national politicos who had traveled to Michigan to attend both halves of the doubleheader of the burial of Gerald Ford as they filed in, and to his credit, Chris Matthews knew every one of them by sight, even if they were on the monitor in front of us half an inch tall.

He knew that that was the dog catcher from Grand Rapids, Michigan from nineteen thirty eight who convinced football star Gerald Ford to go into politics and not football.

He knew every one of them.

He knew the former mayor, he knew the attorney general of Michigan.

Seventeen attorneys general will go and that was great.

That was why when they once gave me the opportunity in two thousand and eight, I think it was to go solo and leave Matthews out.

I said, no, See, he's too valuable for stuff like that.

You couldn't possibly get a researcher to give me that information.

It would not be genuine and it would not be timely.

Chris Matthews knows off the top of his head who that is.

He has no idea why he's important.

He has no idea whether he has served democracy or undermined it.

But he knows who the hell that guy is.

Why that's Milton J.

Erseg the twenty third still Solicitor General of Michigan A's two hundred and six.

So, now, when the former governor, then the governor of Michigan came into this church at high noon with light coming in above her, the great former governor of Michigan came in, he knew exactly obviously who she was.

We all knew who she was.

She was Jennifer Granholme.

Jennifer Granholm, whose public career began as the woman contestant on an episode of the Dating Game.

Jennifer Granholme was then on The Dating Game in the seventies.

Was in two thousand and six seven at the funerals of Gerald R.

Ford.

Is today a most attractive woman, fetching, handsome, beautiful, whichever word you would like to use that is both complimentary and yet not sexist.

Well, on that day she appeared in a very formal kind of mourning hat and a black dress, and the light shining from above her was perfect, and she hit a perfect hair day, all the things that could combine to render one essential element to this story.

He wasn't wrong.

Matthews was reeling off the names of these other people.

And there's the front row in which the former deputy assistant dogcatcher of Kalamazoos.

And then he saw Jennifer Granholm walk in, and he said, and now we see coming down the aisle the former governor, the governor of a He started to pant on the air.

It's Governor Jennifer Granholme and she's perfectly attired.

This went instantaneously from the usual Chris Matthews high speed patter to something akin to Robert F.

Kennedy Junior on FaceTime.

There's no other way to describe it.

If you were just listening to Chris Matthews, and everybody but me was just listening to him.

I was seated next to him in a studio at NBC headquarters in Washington.

I could see the look on his face, the look of astonishment, him putting his head down next to the monitor so he could see her better.

And as again I noted, she was extremely fetching that day.

In all of her great days of fetch she was very fetched that day.

This is absolutely true.

On the other hand, we are covering the burial of the former President of the United States, Gerald R.

Ford, and Chris Matthews is panting about the pulkratude of the Governor of Michigan, and he wouldn't stop look at the shape of the dress and how the light comes in through the whatever the word was for it, of the church.

And she's this event is he began to lose the ability to form sentences.

And I don't mean in the normal way that he would lose the ability to form sentences.

I mean he would get to part that They were clearly telling him to stop doing this because it was not just sexist and not just inappropriate.

But we were covering the burial of Gerald R.

Ford, I mean in the front row next to as we continued the shot of Governor Granholm on a pool camera.

I must admit that nobody at NBC said, yeah, I got me more of that hot governor.

As the pool shot gave us this of Governor Granholm, there was a coffin out there with Gerald R.

Ford inside, and he's talking about Governor Granholm and how great she looks.

I can't imagine that anytime she should just hope they took photographs of her for her next campaign for whatever.

It's like, oh my good God.

And they're clearly talking to him from the control room, telling him to stop, because every once in a while he stops and speaks to them like no, oh, no, I won't.

And finally the producer of this Court Harson, who was the producer of Hardball Matthew's show on MSNBC, gets into my ear and says, for God's sake, is there anything you can do?

Can you stop him?

And I just looked at the camera and shook my head and put my arms up in what would be the you know, hands up, nothing I can do about it emoji.

I may have been the model for that emoji.

This is two thousand and six or seven, after all.

And they said, can you try?

Can you write him a note or something?

So I took a piece of script and I wrote on the back of it Chris stopped talking about Grand Holme that way, we are at a presidential funeral, and I underlined we are at one two three line at one two three line A one two three presidential one two three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten lines under that funeral circled and I slipped it to him, and he kept talking about her, and he looked at me, paused and nodded yes, like I was asking him a question.

About five minutes later, we threw to a break and I saw one of the executives of MSNBC come out and tell Chris that he had to go and prepare Hardball for later that afternoon, and that the rest of the thing would be anchored by me.

So every time and they did the pool camera go back to reaction shots of Governor Granholm.

I made sure that that piece of paper that I had handed Chris to which he thought was some sort of some sort of question like are we at a president at funeral, not an admonition that he was making an absolute jack wad out of himself.

I kept that note in front of me, just in case I veered back into this.

I later told this story to Governor Granholm, who was briefly a colleague of mine, Although you wouldn't remember this because the network no longer exists, and I don't know by that point if ten thousand people were watching our shows on it, but it was a colleague of mine on current TV.

Even as I was trying to explain to her, don't take this job.

They're never going to pay you.

They're already running out of money.

Jennifer Granholme laughed coquettishly and said, Oh, that's not the first time that's ever happened.

I've done all the damage I can do here.

Thank you for listening.

Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Schaneil, our musical directors of Countdown.

It was produced by Tko Brothers.

Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums, and mister Shanail handled orchestration and keyboards.

Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.

You heard her with I Fought the Law and the Law one.

The Olderman theme from ESPN two was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.

It is our sports music.

Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.

My announcer today was my friend Chris matt Oh No, sorry, that was Tony Kornheiser.

Huh.

Everything else was as always my fault, so that's Countdown for Today, Day three hundred and twenty six of America held hostage again, just thirty seven days until the scheduled end of his lame duck and lame brained term, unless he's removed sooner by Maga and Epstein or Anosagnosia or Taile and All, or affordability or the second Strike video.

The next scheduled episode of the program is Monday till then.

I'm Keith Olderman.

Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.

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