Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.

I don't care if Trump puts the Pope in charge of ICE.

It ends, it disbands, it is defunded, shut the whole government down if necessary.

I don't care if they offer body cams you cannot turn off.

And I don't care if they offer un observers on every raid.

I want ICE gone.

I want its gestapo gone.

I want its headquarters torn to the ground.

I want to go there in the middle of the night, and I want to build a memorial to Renee Good and Alex Pretty and Keith Porter Junior and all the others on its ashes.

The greatest threat to the continuation and the of this democracy right now this week is Chuck Schumer.

Because Chuck Schumer still thinks that somewhere, somehow, like my poor friend Joe Biden thought, somewhere, somehow, the government of this country was just gonna snap back into its old form, and he could trade a little of this for a little of that, and it would never be perfect.

But we just keep chugging along until the next Senate recess and the next trip to the Hamptons, and Chuck Schumer is still the guy who will hear de escalation and investigation and reset, and he will make the unforced, tragic, and fatal error of assuming that the people saying those words are not goddamned liars.

Democrats elected democrats, elected Democrats who have been there for more than ten years all still want it to just go back to normal, as if the only people who could possibly make anything like that happen were still operating with the slightest glimmer of good faith, the good faith and trust that kept this country's form of government alive for two hundred and thirty nine years until Donald Trump started strangling it to death in twenty fifteen.

They are not.

There are no good faith Republicans.

There is no maga to trust.

There is no de escalation, there is no investigation, there is no reset, and there now must be no deal, no deal on ICE the art of the no deal.

There still is no pivot.

Trump threatened Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry and the Constitution again yesterday.

ICE and Patrol have just established a base at the Army Reserve Center at Fort Snelling, down the street from the Minneapolis Saint Paul Airport.

Someone in Trump's invasion force in Minnesota leaked to memo to Ken Klippenstein from late Monday, reading that the deployment quote is steady state and expected to continue as planned.

They continue to threaten people filming them.

They continue to threaten them with arrest, even though it is entirely legal to film them in Maine.

They went to the homes of people who have been filming them from a distance.

The only investigation remains focused on what laws they can pretend that Alex Pretty broke and what groups Renee Good and her wife were associated with, and they might they might expand it to see if the agents violated protocol when they murdered them, and that might resolve in them being severely punished for the rest of their lives by being forced to take several days off with pay on administrative leave, which is where they put them.

Finally, yesterday, there is no reform, there is no regret.

There is no deal to make with these scumbags.

The only thing Trump wants is better public relations and more money for Ice and for this to all go away.

And the only thing a deal by Schumer and Senate Democrats can create is better public relations for Trump and more money for Ice, and for all of this to go away, no deal, no Ice.

Moreover, the Trump administration is in its greatest crisis yet, and for once, the Democrats cannot give them a lifeline.

Trump has reignited Iran to distract from Ice, just as he reignited Ice to distract from Epstein, just as he reignited Epstein to distract from Venezuela, just as he reignited Venezuela to distract from Epstein and Ice.

They threw the Ice murderer and his accomplices on administrative leave yesterday.

They threw them under the bus, and they're going to try to do not another damn thing.

But they did throw them under the bus.

And Trump is now running out of distractions and he can only get new ones if Chuck Schumer gives them to him.

Because the Trump field marshals and the Trump commandants are this close to staging a night of the Long Knives, they are out to get each other.

They threw Bovino under the bus Tuesday.

Thankfully he was short enough to roll right under it.

No damaged.

Then Boveno or somebody threw Nome under the bus, thankfully, what with all the plastic she just bounced.

Then Nome threw Stephen Miller under the bus.

He's not carbon based.

He never noticed.

Then Miller threw Customs and Border Patrol under the bus.

Then Trump threw his Second Amendment people under the bus.

Then Roger Stone threw Cory Lewandowski under the bus and said Nome quote is so busy taking bribes through Lewandowski, She'll never notice.

Now.

The under Secretary of Hair Extensions at Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin through the troops on the ground under the bus, calling Alex Pretty an assassin, insisting that he went there to quote massacre law enforcement, actually saying the man they had just murdered had committed an active domestic terrorism, insisting Pretty went there to assassinate agents.

Nome told someone who told Axios, probably on her instructions, quote everything I've done, I've done at the direction of the President and Stephen Miller then told the media on the record any early comments made were based on information sent to the White House through Customs and Border Patrol.

A part of the Maga Wall of bullshit is caving in on itself.

For God's sakes, let it cave.

They are not only fighting with each other, they are fighting with their entire understanding of the fictional world Trump has fabricated for them.

Suddenly, Trump and his ice devils are the ones threatening MAGA guns, threatening to kill MAGA if they bring guns to a protest protests like at the Michigan Capitol or Black Lives Matter with the fat Family from Saint Louis or January sixth, and it's still deeper than that.

I gotta be honest with you, said Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois.

When I talked to a few of my colleagues, they had not even seen the videos.

It's almost like they put blinders on.

They're uneasy.

Unquote damn right, they're uneasy.

And it's exactly like they put blinders on because they've seen the videos now and the videos alone were enough to put a hole a mile wide through MAGA fantasyland.

They didn't look at the videos of the paramilitary street execution of Alex Pretty.

They never look at the videos.

They never look at Trump's posts, they never listen to his threats.

When they say they haven't seen it, they haven't read it, they haven't heard it.

That is the only time they are not lying.

They do this to avoid any responsibility, any internal understanding.

They do it so they can sell the Sergeant Schultz bullshit.

I know nothing, and it's easier to know nothing when you've seen nothing.

They knew in their heart because Trump told them this world he has created is real and not simply a scam he is pulling on them.

They knew in their heart that anybody shot by proxy, by extension by Trump, that person had to be the guilty one.

Not your noble Ice agents selected from the cream of law enforcement and militia and proud boys.

But the idea that they are noble and anyone who attacks them must be a terrorist.

That is the core of the Trump world of lies.

The lies not to the public, not to other people, the lies these people give to themselves, what Christy Nome tells herself, That is the essence of the cult.

Why do you need to look at the video when you already know that they are automatically guilty and we are automatically innocent.

The Magas have been thrown under the bus by reality, and Chuck Schumer's only job right now is to rent more goddamned buses.

Chuck, you want to make a deal in which ICE is shut down and replaced by something else that actually does immigration control intelligently, efficiently, humanely under bipartisan supervision.

Make that deal, Chuck Schumer.

You can even bargain your way back to reforming ICE.

Because even the in house terrified anti liberal Democratic Searchlight Institute sent a polling memo to Democratic senators yesterday and it's about Ice.

And it's a poll of people who will be voting in the midterms just nine months plus from now, and fifty eight percent of those voters oppose what Trump's Ice is doing.

Now, these aren't the Democratic voters, or this is bipartisan fifty eight percent and rising seventy percent.

Bipartisan.

Start with hating the simple fact that Ice is not clearly wearing uniforms.

We're deep in the woods on training and body cams and lethal force, and the voters are starting at the essence, at the visceral with the fundamental rule that if the guy is carrying a weapon and he comes up to you and he's not wearing a law enforcement uniform, why in the hell is it up to you to know he's a cop and not a kidnapper.

The same poll detaining US citizens by ICE, just detaining them, not just murdering them, just detaining them has seventy three percent opposition bipartisan three quarters.

This newest memo that they have created giving Ice cover to break into homes without warrant opposed by seventy nine percent of all voters, seventy nine Democrats, Republicans, lunatics, fascists, unwashed, unloved, uneducated, seventy nine percent.

The proverbial eighty twenty issue and here it is and noo.

There are Democrats willing to cut a deal because it's no longer gestapo fascist bully Greg Bovino in charge.

It's Gestapo fascist bully Tom Homan in charge.

There are Democrats willing to make a deal to fund because bodycams.

And I will repeat my observation from Monday, Wow, bodycams because the thought that the next time they kill some unarmed or disarmed American citizen, there might be video of it.

That sure held Ice back from murdering Alex pretty.

It sure held Ice back from murdering Renee Good.

Bodycams.

Searchlight Institute memo to Schumer and the others concluded Democrats should quote play hardball on the shutdown because of Ice.

Play hardball, huh, And it said they should use their quote, leverage to reform ICE.

This is the dead center of the Democratic Party.

Play hardball, leverage to reform ICE.

And the author adds, voters want ICE to follow the law.

There is a desire for immigration enforcement that is lawful, reasonable and effective.

And the author of this was a top aid to Harry Reid and more recently he was just chief of staff to John fing Fetterman.

This is not Zoran Mamdani saying play hardball on the shutdown over ICE.

This is not me saying this.

This is John Fetterman's chief of staff saying this.

The memo doesn't even completely wave Schumer off from the abolish ICE or disband ICE or defund ICE catch phrase.

It suggests voters respond slightly better to reform ICE, but even that's almost a push.

Abolish gets nineteen percent support and reform thirty percent support.

The bottom line is the Democrats somehow own the issue of immigration, and the fascists are wounded, and they are responding with panic and by damaging themselves, and most importantly, the ones on the fringes are doubting the whole thing.

This is the time not to compromise, but to get aggressive any deal, and there has to be somebody at the borders.

But any deal should start with changing the damn name and establishing bipartisan control and instituting a full investigative process for any injuries inflicted by Ice, And that starts with murder charges against the Ice scum who killed Renee Good and Alex Pretty and establishing windows in which no Ice or ICE successor, or Border patrol or National Guard or Trump Nazis can be dispatched to any American city.

No Ice near polling places, no ICE in American cities in the week of any election.

No troops on the streets at the elections.

Former Washington Governor Jay Insley underscored this yesterday.

The Senate, he wrote, needs to prohibit Trump from using Ice as a voter suppression tool.

Senate Dems need to put into their Appropriations bill a prohibition on ICE agents being near polling places.

This is a must have, Insley concludes ominously, but with complete justification, quote last chance to do this, and that's it.

Isn't it last chance to do this?

Because if it's not done now, there will be troops with masks standing outside every polling place in every democratic city, in every up for grabs election venue this November.

What we saw in Minneapolis the last three weeks has been practice for the midterms.

After the murder of Alex Predy, the Democrats grew a pair in the Senate.

It looks like just the one pair, and they just share it and at least it's there.

Then Gnoame and Miller and Trump cracked over.

Just bad press.

They didn't head an iceberg, and they hit an ice cube and sunk.

They are down on the canvas and looking to quit.

Do not help them up.

Hit them harder, no deal, You lean completely into those guns sound bites.

Take ads in red states.

Donald Trump wants to take your guns away.

Play the tape of him saying it, no guns, you can't bring guns.

This means you Red States.

That's one two back in the Senate, you get everything, or you shut the government down.

When you back up six months from now, back up half a step, and you give them phrases.

All right, we won't defund or disband ICE.

We will reform it.

Literally, reform start from the beginning.

Form it a new new image, control enterprise.

Nice.

Nice, that's it.

Trump wants more than that.

Okay, here's more.

Government shuts down and seventy percent of Americans still oppose him at his gestapo and that's all anybody's talking about, because that is the cause of the shutdown.

Those are your choices.

Donald.

You have thirty five seconds and call them what they are.

We have the words, we have the evidence.

Embrace the language.

He had a book of Hitler's speeches, according to his first wife, on his bedside table in the eighties.

Embrace the language.

Stephen Miller on a good day is a fascist and a white supremacist and a lunatic.

Call him that.

Haul him that on the floor of the Senate.

The White House is desperate enough that they tried to take the strong but entirely correct warning from the District Attorney of Philadelphia, Larry Krasner and turn it into martyrdom for Ice.

How dare you call us Nazis?

How dare you say DA's and Attorneys general are going to prosecute us?

How dare you threaten to expose the identity of ice thugs?

If not now, then later, like like the whole world did with the original Nazis in the seventy years after we destroyed your predecessors in World War Two.

Oh no, Larry Krasner called ice Nazis.

You know why, because they're fucking Nazis.

This is a small bunch of wanna be Nazis, that's what they are.

In a country of three hundred and fifty million, we outnumber them.

And as long as we.

Stay to our values, protect our rights, make it very clear that homicide is not okay just because you are a federal officer.

If we do that, this will end differently.

I have one final promise to you, and that is that I, along with a bunch of other state prosecutors, keep your eye on this.

You'll be hearing more about it tomorrow.

But I, along with a bunch of other state prosecutors, are rallying around Mary Moriarty, who is the prosecutor in Minneapolis.

I know for a fact she is working twenty four to seven to make sure that there is justice coming out of what appeared to be by all indications, criminal homicides and what appears to be by all indications and criminal shooting of someone in the leg I want you to understand that just as you have come together, there are state prosecutors coming together right now to make sure that people understand there will be accountability there will be accountability now.

There will be accountability in the future.

There will be accountability after Trump is out of office.

If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities, We will find you We will.

Achieve justice, and we will do so under the Constitution and.

The laws of the United States.

Hunt down was too strong, Find, unmask, reveal, prosecute.

Those are fine saying hunt down again to a bunch of people who suddenly think Donald Trump is going to take away their guns a little strong.

I don't think you have to fix it, just skip it.

But make the ads.

Let the Republicans run against the Second Amendment.

Let them have to deny every day until November that they are Nazis because they have nothing to prove that with.

And by the way, do not demand and Christy Nomes firing while she is still trying to get Stephen Miller fired.

Wait till one of them wins, then fire the survivor, and most importantly, give them nothing, not a dollar until you get full control of Trump's internal anti democracy election fiction death squads.

And you twist, and you turn the entire stinking, sinking, futured apparatus around and you point it back on itself, and this nightmare begins to end because the moral corruption that is at the center of Ice will then destroy the center of Trump's presidency.

By the way, Trump is out of his mind.

Not my words, for once out of his mind.

That's Robert Fitzso, the Prime Minister of Slovakia, as quoted by five different European diplomats themselves quoted by Politico Europe.

Let me quote the report precisely quote.

Slovakia's prime minister told EU leaders at a summit last week that a meeting with Donald Trump left him shocked by the US president's state of mind.

Five European diplomats briefed on the conversation said Fitzso seemed to be quote traumatized by his encounter with Trump.

One of the European diplomats said Fiso characterized Trump as being quote out of his mind.

A diplomat said, using the words briefed to them by their leader, who was direct involved in the conversation, unquote Robert Fiso, a Trump supporter, Prime Minister of Slovakia.

Slovakia, ain't Ukraine.

This guy has actually addressed seapack.

Fiso immediately called it all lies.

Of course he did addressed seapack.

The White House called it lies.

Politico has quotes from five diplomats, five diplomats from four different European nations, and the fifth is from the EU organization itself.

Five people briefed by those who were there at this informal huddle part of the emergency EU summit a week ago about Trump's threat to seize Greenland.

That's where Fizo recounted meeting Trump at Mari Lago on the seventeenth, when Fizo decided Trump was quote out of his mind.

Fizo called him dangerous, said he was concerned about Trump's quote psychological state, and then the money quote out of his m word.

Now, why would he ever think that?

Because Tuesday, Trump again said it was so sad that Ice killed Renee Good because her family were such Trump fans.

Because he cannot avoid praising himself.

Trump cannot risk the chance that somebody complimented him and you don't know it, or maybe Fizzo read New York Magazine in the long and rather underwhelming takeout on Trump's health, underwhelming till the author got to the billion dollar question about whatever it is that is at this moment melting Trump's brain, and he neatly tied it into Trump's obsession with bloodlines and his nonsense about his uncle discovering the unibomber, and how smart Trump has to be because he has good genes, and the fact that Trump always leaves out what killed his own father.

Ben Terris, the author, finished the Superhuman President, and yes, countless maga do not realize the title is meant ironically and as a dig at the idiot who suggested calling it that, the idiot being Stephen Miller.

Terris finished it with this, I'll quote again.

Fred Trump died in nineteen ninety nine at age ninety three.

He had, Trump said, a heart that couldn't be stopped, with almost no health conditions to speak of throughout his long life.

Quote, he had one problem, Trump said, at a certain age, about eighty six eighty seven, he started getting what do they call it?

He pointed to his forehead and looked to his press secretary for the word that escaped him, Alzheimer's.

Caroline Levitt said, like an Alzheimer's thing.

Trump said, well, I don't have it.

Is it something you think about at all?

I asked, No, I don't think about it at all.

You know why, he said, because whatever it is, my attitude is whatever.

Uh oh, So Trump couldn't remember the word for the brain disintegration that took his own father.

Then he looked at Caroline Levitt and pointed to his own forehead, and she immediately said Alzheimer's because every Trump accusation is a confession.

Also of interest, here, you heard Bruce Springsteen's instant protest song.

You didn't, Streets of Minneapolis.

It's it's it's pretty good, it's pretty direct.

He pulls no punches.

I got chills three different times, old fashioned political protest chills.

But you haven't heard it.

Well, okay, with I'm honored to say Bruce Springsteen's permission.

Here it is Streets of Minneapolis, through the winters, ass and cold.

Down the gleneaven.

A city of flame, fought fire and dice.

The then occupiers, boots King Trump's private army from the DHS, gun's belted to the coats, came to minnieaf Bliss to enforce.

The lawn or so.

Their story coast.

Against smoking rubber foods in Down's early light, citizens stood fortstice.

Their voice is ringing through the night, and if the world bloody footprints where mercy should have stood, and to dead, left to die on Snowfield Street, Alex pretty dry named.

Over reatlace, here your voice saying through the bloody miss we'll take our stand for this land and the strange out miss hearing our home they killed and long in the winder twenty SATs.

Will remember the names of those who died on the streets of Miniapenist trumps fooled Berg's Peter, the bone, his.

Face and his chest.

Then we heard the gun shots, and Alex readily in the snow did their claimed silt de fancier.

You just don't be leave your flies.

It's our grand bones.

And these whistles and phones against Miller and norms, dirty laughs.

Less hear your vois cries l miss for a number of names of those who die on the streets of Minias.

Now they say they're here to a poll the law, but they trample along our rights.

If your skin is black or brown, my friend, you can be questioned or to put it on side.

In our chance of nice side.

Our city's hard as soul persist soon brooking glass and bloody tears on the streets.

Of many ass.

Less side here your face saying it.

There's a lot of missed you all.

They killed a Rond in the middle of twenty seas.

Would say, I stand for this lane on the strange jo of miss remember the name the person.

Devil on the streets.

Of media happiness, will remember the names as one streets of happy.

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

Not the last time somebody I worked with would threaten to kill me in the studio, but the first time, and then an hour later he came back and said he wanted to hire me.

The story of the morning radio legend who was no longer remembering anything like what had happened an hour before.

Ted Brown, You're a morning man plus bonus coverage me on the air at WNW Radio in New York in the Year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty.

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 misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's other worst persons in the world.

The Bronze Worse batcha Unger's Sargun Batcha as in batshit crazy, one of the people on the train wreck they put on on CNN every night nine o'clock.

I guess no one actually watches this show, but the volume of viral clips is high, which is what CNN is apparently in the business of.

Now we don't want you to watch the shows.

We want you to watch these clips on social media because we make no dollars for this.

But we're all convinced this is sustainable long term.

So let's put this show on that boosts everybody's blood pressure and makes them enraged at these simpletons like Scott Jennings and the other guys, all of whom look like something happened and there was an accident where they got their heads caught in bus doors and squeezed.

Funny, funniest looking people I've ever seen in the world.

Are the conservatives on that Abby Phillips show on CNN.

Anyway, She's one of them, bat Ya Unger Sargan Alex Pretty, she said, was obviously not murdered.

He was in a scrum that ended in a bad shoot.

Scrum bad shoot, like this was a hockey broadcast.

Oh, he's in a scrum.

No, a scrum is where a couple of players, maybe three, maybe four, usually two get kind of tangled up and one of them winds up going to the penalty box for two minutes in feeling shame.

No, he wasn't in a scrum.

They murdered him.

He's dead.

And if that scrum reference from bat Ya Unger Sargon was not bad enough, it ended in a bad shoot, which either sounds like a movie gone wrong or another hockey term.

There is an AI hockey ad, an ad about AI and how it's going to change your life, and all the people questioning the AI expert are players in the National Hockey League, and the last one is a fellow named McAvoy from the Boston Bruins, who, after these serious questions, shouts, hey, AI guy, how's it doing a scrum?

And the AI guy goes, what's a scrum?

And everybody makes fun of the AI guy, and some of them make fun of McAvoy.

But the thing runs on hockey broadcasts usually three or four times a minute, and evidently bat Ya Unger Sargan saw it because she decided essentially to to characterize one of the can the Kent State incidents of our times as a scrum that ended in a bad shoot.

If you can't get enough of bat Ya Unger Sargun and her complete inability to understand that that was a real person murdered by the government, murdered by the government.

If you're not getting enough of her, she has her own show on the weekends on the Trojan Horse Network.

You may know it as News Nation, but in fact it's the Trojan Horse Network.

They claim it's a neutral network, when in fact it's just more effing fascism on TV.

And also, I'd need to say this because for some reason I haven't mentioned it in the many years that I have criticized News Nation.

What the hell kind of name is news Nation?

News I mean Red Sox Nation, Music Nation.

We get it.

News Nation The runner up Silver Worser Milania, the star of perhaps the greatest box office disaster in motion pictures since what is that Chris Kristofferson film, Heaven's Gate.

It actually is better than anybody ever thought it was, but that's not the way it was perceived at the time, and nobody went Plenty of good seats available for Milania the documentary, possibly because whoever writes her tweets for her is dumber than she is, and she is.

If you had to pick the dumbest person associated with the president and you picked her, it's a dark horse pick.

But she might be the dumbest.

She certainly might be the winner of the Dunning Krueger competition inside the Trump family because she thinks she is a complete genius and the rest of us are just mice.

I'll read you the tweet you see when you hear something wrong.

Milanna the film a historic moment.

I don't mean in terms of evaluative nature.

I mean an actual typo Milania the film a historic moment.

Well, it is a historic moment.

It's going to make people go, let's go watch Heaven's Gate.

It can't possibly be as bad as Milagna.

I am deeply humbled to have been surrounded by an inspiring room of friends, family, and ready cultural iconoclasts at the White House last night.

No, No, you meant you meant icon cultural iconoclasts.

Getting back to the subject of AI, it sounds like her AI was a scrum when it decided to write iconoclasts.

There are no iconoclasts at the White House because the Trump administration shoots iconoclasts.

But wait, there's more from Milania.

Each of these individuals each brought their unique vision to the world, making a lasting impression.

How many each is go, you're gonna need here resting each face.

But your Winner, and I'd like to point out I think this is the first time the worst persons in the world have all been women.

Oh no, there was that time I did all my exes.

That was two shows ago.

Keith Your Winner, Katie Miller, Steven's wife, the relationship that makes Trump and Millenia seem normal.

Steven and Katie Miller the people who make Jeff Bezos and my former colleague Lauren Sanchez seem non plastic.

And speaking of that joke, I just did Katie Miller, the woman with the resting kvetch face looks like she just chugged an entire carton of sour milk and then went back and had another one.

Conservative women, she writes, are just factually more attractive than liberal women.

It's why more conservatives than liberals are having babies.

I'm not going to evaluate this assessment by Katie Miller.

I'm just going to say we need to establish a gofund me to buy Katie Miller, Today's Worst Person in the World, A mirror, I'm Dave Spencer, WNWWS and now WNAW Sports and Commentary with John Kenner and Good.

Morning Keith Olberman for Big John Sports is brought to you by Amtrak America is getting into training with Metro Ironers service thirteen times every business day to Philadelphia.

They run from Penn Station And if you were there last night, you probably heard some noise from upstairs.

It was Ranger fans celebrating the new year.

A little bit.

This remains, in short, as terrifying as anything else in my career, death threats, fake anthrax, What New York felt like post nine to eleven, the frozen feeling of realizing you've made a terrible, damaging mistake on a story, even working for Rupert Murdoch.

Worse than that.

Forty two years have passed since the event, and nothing has dimmed the memory, nothing has reduced the palpable sense of anxiety in every joint in my body.

On Sunday, December twenty first, nineteen eighty, the Oakland Raiders defeated the New York Giants thirty three to seventeen to end the Giant season at four wins and twelve losses, with the most points they had given up in one year.

Since nineteen sixty six, I was the backup sportscaster at w NEW Radio in New York.

We carried the Giants game broadcast.

In fact, we had carried them since I was two years old.

I was now a month shy of twenty two, and it being Christmas week, I reported bright and early to the studios at forty first Street and Third Avenue on Monday, December twenty second.

My first sports cast was at five thirty am.

There was a theme song which invoked the name of the regular sportscaster, John Kennelly.

It said sports and commentary, And my first few weeks filling in that year, I stuck mostly to the sports, with just an occasional commentary, but mostly a joke or pithy observation.

Well kind of pithy.

But that first weekend of winter, the giant stink was all that we could smell in New York, and I felt I had to point it out, pointed Lee.

And so while I observed that there was a positive they had started one in eight, but then had actually won three of their last seven games.

The rest of my commentary was cynical, acerbic, dissatisfied.

In other words, the average day of the typical New York sports fan.

I ended my show right on time at five thirty five AM, and to my surprise, I heard the disc jockey skip his usual post sportscast remarks and instead simply play the next record, which I think was Frank Sinatra's The Way You Look Tonight.

We were a big band station.

I stepped out of the booth and took the dozen strides through the newsroom, busy even at that hour, with eight or ten staffers, and I was sitting down at my desk when the door from the main air studio slammed open.

In the doorway stood the disc jockey, and he had a message for me.

The message was you punk.

The disc jockey's name was Ted Brown.

On the air, he was your morning man, Ted Brown, speaking upbeat drivel, mostly to women who loved the mellow sound of his voice.

Off the air, WNIW was his station and the morning show was his show.

He would fight for it.

In fact, he had fought at least two news reporters in his time in the studio.

While Frank Sinatra records played on a turntable thirty feet away.

Ted Brown was a big man, six' three six' four maybe by THIS point i, don't know two thirty forty two fifty thick tortoise.

Shell glasses he was, a sportsman a huge.

Gambler racetracks Mostly the giants had Begun on wniw in nineteen.

Sixty One ted brown had Begun on wnaw in nineteen.

Forty nine and he, was tough and it was not Even The new YORK tough i had go.

Up with this guy had been a tail gunner ON a b seventeen During The Second, world war And the nazi shot, him down and they took Him to Stalog nine Sea, near leipzig and they kept him there for, eighteen months and basically he chewed up and spit out guys like me, for BREAKFAST and i.

Respected him, you punk so you don't like how?

The giants did you think any of?

Us do he gestured towards the newscasters.

And staffers nobody.

Looked up you know how easy it is to sit there in, a, nice, heated dry.

COMFORTABLE newsroom i Was in stalog.

Nine c his contempt for the idea of the newsroom.

Was amazing you sit here in your newsroom and pontificate, while men men in helmets with mud, on them, they're, bones breaking their.

Hearts pounding they are out on, the field fighting and tackling and working on the field.

Of battle so you can sit here in your.

News room it was at this POINT that i REMEMBERED where i had first seen a Photograph Of.

Ted brown he was in a Booth At, yankee stadium Where the giants played in the.

Nineteen sixties he was the, third man a combination color announcer and Host on giants radio BROADCASTS.

On wnw he was the worst possible person to have heard me Rip The New, york giants even the four and twelve Nineteen Eighty New, york giants even IF editorially i was completely correct and not nearly as hard on the team as its own announcers had been on our station the.

Day before what did you do to earn?

Your?

Spot Here Punk ted brown was.

Turning red one of his fists was, already clenched while the other arm cut through the air to emphasize HOW much.

I sucked i truly believed he was about to take a swing.

At me then from, behind him the door from his studio swung, open again and the, elderly engineer the man who actually spun the Records on, ted's show came.

Through IT ted i just had to segue Out of Sinatra To jimmy Cagney Singing Yankee.

Doodle dandy and the general manager called and, HE said i should TELL you wnw does not segue.

No records don't do.

It again you better get back.

In Here the cagney's.

Almost finished the engineer then vanished silently back through.

The door this warning did nothing But Make ted brown.

Even angrier the.

General manager have you met the?

General?

Manager Punk?

Jack Fair And jack fair gets in here at eight twenty every morning on.

Dot, clockwork punk when you finish your eight thirty, Sports cast i'm dragging you in To Meet, jack fayre the, General manager and that punk is when your CAREER At wnw radio will come to an.

Abrupt end you Think The New york giants had a bad, nineteen eighty how about your nineteen eighty punk when your?

Career ended because the, real man the, real men are out there on the, playing field not sitting inside a noseroom in.

A sweatter this continued for.

Some time the Engineer returned tennet's.

THERE again i just segued to some.

Mel Tourme ted thayer wants to talk.

To you he thinks maybe you're, not Here and i'm covering.

For You ted brown turned and swore dark oaths against, the engineer and for, that matter against the, General Manager, jack thayer and for, that matter against mel tourmee you, And me punk eight, Thirty five the end of, Your.

Career punk he lunged.

At me suddenly the engineer grabbed him and pulled him back through.

The door in, the newsroom there were only, two sounds one, my HEART which i suspect was audible perhaps the next block the.

Other typing nobody said, A word nobody looked.

AT me a, phone rang the production assistant SANG Out.

WNYW news i went over to the newscaster who had been the most supportive of me to, That Point, bob hagen and through, MY shaking i said thanks so To.

Help bob bob did not look up from his typewriter what he said matter Of, FACTLY brown, i, Said, yes brown he's gonna get me fired in.

Three Hours bob, Hagen laughed now, HE'S not, i said he JUST spent i don't know how many minutes he spent three records screaming.

At me didn't you?

HEAR him i, Heard him we all.

Heard him we've all heard him every time he.

Said that he said that to every one of us.

Out here he said that about every one of us.

Out here he took a swing at eyes grow.

Over there what, Was it jimmy two?

Months ago?

IGNORE him.

I said i failed to see why any of what he had told me should encourage me To Ignore.

Ted brown when we had a meeting with the general manager at eight, Thirty Five bob hagen now stopped typhing and smiled up at me reassuringly from.

His, chair keith you do a.

Good job ted.

Is nuts ted.

Is mean ted is A crazy.

Giants fan ted is also still bitter that he's not on the radio broadcast Of the.

Giants Games but ted has also been doing morning radio almost every day since nineteen.

Forty, five keith that's thirty five years of getting up in the middle of, the night and many many, Years, Ago keith ted stopped remembering things like what somebody said on.

His show he, doesn't remember he.

Won't remember just finish off the.

Next sportscast with one of, your clever funny little.

Kicker stories and even if he somehow remembers what you said About, the giants when he hears a, good laugh all he'll remember is.

THE laugh i tried to be Respectful, of BOB but i TOLD him i found all this hard.

To, believe keith he, also drinks he, has nightmares he has, pow nightmares and he gets up at three am.

Every day he does not imprint new.

Memories anymore, but no why should you listen.

To me i've only been on his show for?

Ten years WHY would?

I know i'm, telling you get a good funny kicker for the six thirty and he'll.

LOVE you i.

NODDED grimly i did Not Believe, bob HAGEN but i knew he.

Meant well, and anyway he had started to.

Type again the clock now moved.

Impossibly, QUICKLY incredibly i did find just the kind, of funny clever Kicker story BOB suggested i should use to close the six thirty.

SPORTS cast i minimized my assault On the giants and then finished off my report with some story that shed a good Light On Montclair state College In.

NEW jersey i could not have KNOWN and I swear i did not Know That ted brown's sister had Graduated From Montclair state College In.

NEW jersey i finished off the sports cast with the story something That Made montclair state?

LOOK good a, little chuckle And then Keith ol Riman For john kennelly On The Ted brown show.

Ominously again to, My Terror ted brown now said nothing on.

THE air i could not see him through the window into the main.

Air studio the engineer played a.

Record instead it may have Been The montavani strings Play.

THE beatles i opened the door back to the newsroom slowly and.

WITH trepidation i CROUCHED as i moved back towards, my desk and that's when.

It happened the door from the main air studio slammed.

Open again It Was ted.

Brown again where?

Is he where?

Is He?

Montclair state my sister Went To?

Montclair state what, a story what a, great laugh?

Perfectly Delivered, my god that was the best sports cast we have ever had on.

This station don't you?

Think?

So?

Prely god love?

You kid what to?

TELL it i, laughed, OUT kid i don't laugh.

Out loud it was The Same.

TED brown i stole a quick glance at the newsroom to see if this whole thing was some kind of act being filmed for a HIDDEN camera.

Tv series nobody looked.

Up again nobody.

Looked Up, ted brown the man who an hour before was ready to beat me up and get, me fired was now repeating again and AGAIN that i had just delivered the best sportscast in the HISTORY Of.

Wnw radio that's when his engineer came.

Back in he had Segued from Montavani To, perry como and the general manager, Had called And Now ted brown's eyes widened behind the.

Thick glasses the, General Manager, jack, Thayer, say keith have you Ever Met?

Jack thayer this gives me a.

Great Idea jack thayer comes in here every morning at eight twenty.

Like.

CLOCKWORK look I Love, john kennelly, he's great but you you were exactly the kind, of, new fresh young voice we need on this.

Radio, station DAMMIT that i need on.

My Show When jack thayer comes in here at eight twenty, this morning YOU and i are going right into his office and we're gonna get you your own sports cast on.

My show we can do two sports casts.

An hour we'll take it out of the Stock report Montclair stage i'll get you.

A contract You and kenney will seventy five grand being up.

For.

You kid you're gonna hit the.

Big, time here, my friend and out the engineer.

Came Again jack thayer had again called in fourth TIME that i.

Knew of he Really needed ted back in the studio to talk to.

The Women ted brown happily, shouted, okay okay and began to back up into.

The doorway the look in his eyes towards me was one of.

Unimaginable, love comma, come, here wait, come here, come here, come here and he lunged at me and grabbed me into a.

Bear hug Just Brilliant.

MONTCLAIR state i gotta call my sister and.

Tell You seeing jack's office at eight, THIRTY five i, stood there having now been pummeled by two hurricanes arriving from different directions in the span of.

One hour all was silent IN the wnew newsroom again but for.

The typing but it was silent only for.

A moment That's When bob hagen addressed.

Me again he did not.

Look up all he Said, was keith he won't remember.

That, either finally they call it disastro turf and the closer and closer we get to, game day the more and more likely it Is the giants won't get to practice.

On it as the steady rains continue In The, bay area the forty nine ers continue to suggest That the giants cancel Their scheduled saturday Practice At cattlestick park for the good of the, bad field which means that the first time Folks Like rob carpenter will get their feet wet literally will be when they come out for The game.

Sunday afternoon that sport's brought to You By amtrak america is getting into Trading With metro liner service thirteen times everyday business Day.

To Philadelphia I'm keith Oberman For john kennelly On The Ted.

Brown show good.

Morning everybody Thank.

You keith it's twenty one BEFORE.

Seven a there's a WONDERFUL tape i think it's still exit Somewhere Of ted brown talking to the engineer AT the wnw studios as a segment began while the news was on, the air and he tells, the engineer not realizing the mics are on on, the air and he tells the engineer to put the, lights on only he describes.

The lights there's an adjectival term that he uses that begins WITH an f and ends with.

An ing what the lights on express is the same kind of thing he did to me after the first of.

Those sportscasts 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, on guitars bass, And Drums John phillip, scheneil handling orchestration.

And keyboards, they are, of course the musical Directors, of countdown and their work was Produced By.

Tko brothers our pithy and satirical musical comments are by the best baseball stadium, Organist Ever.

Nancy faust the sports music Is the olderman THEME from, espn two Written By Mitch warren davis COURTESY Of.

Espn inc other music arranged and performed by The Group No.

Horns allowed speaking, of music my announcer today is My friend Stevie.

Van zant this program was Produced.

By ted everything, else was as always.

My Fault it's countdown, For today day three hundred and seventy Two of america held hostage again just one thousand and nine, one thousand, ninety one Or in english ninety one until the scheduled end of his lame duck and lame brained term unless he is removed SOONER by Maga and epstein and Affordability or Marble arm Rests or Gnome or Venezuela or greenland Or The.

Ice gestapo i'll make him.

A deal he leaves, The presidency i'll end.

The podcast the next scheduled Countdown, is monday unless we get, you know lucky bulletins is the news merits until the.

Next One I'm.

Keith Oulderman, good morning, good afternoon, good night and.

Good Luck count Down With keith olderman is a Production.

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