Decline of Credibility in Media and Political Engagement

SEASON 3 EPISODE 105: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump has just lost World War Three.

Trump listens to Musk maybe because he recognizes Musk is more insane than he is. Musk literally wants to own and rule the world. Musk just demanded this country withdraws from NATO. Other Muskers and Trumpers are following. If we leave NATO its remaining members will turn into a private hunting ground for Putin, or China, or both. Eventually he or they will run out of European countries to destroy and subsume and he or they will turn to destroying us.

As Senator Chris Murphy said yesterday: "The White House has become an arm of the Kremlin." It's that simple. Trump is the Russian Commissar of America.

And he's already lost World War Three - and evidently so have the British. Back home, Prime Minister Starmer did the unthinkable, met Zelensky not at the front door of Number 10 but he went INTO Downing Street to embrace him on the sidewalk. The front page of yesterday’s far right tabloid the Daily Mail headlined “outrage over U-S President’s humiliation of Zelensky” and insisted “Now stop the state visit for Bully Trump.” Demanded the British WITHDRAW their invitation for Trump to go there. But within hours their ambassador here undid all of that. Lord Peter Mandelson went on ABC This Week here and called for a “very radical re-set” that “has to consist of the United States and Ukraine getting back on the same page and President Zelensky giving his unequivocal backing to the initiative that Trump is taking to end the war and to bring a just and lasting peace to Ukraine.” Europe's nations “need to back the calls for a ceasefire and by the way I think that Ukraine should be the first to commit to a ceasefire and defy the Russians to follow."

Hey, Lord Mendacious? Forgotten already? Zelensky already signed a cease-fire with Putin. Signed in 2019. Putin broke it in 2022.

200,000 guys named Lord Gaseous and Sir Toby Belch and they sent the one who sounds most like Neville Chamberlain. The British are defending Zelensky but their Ambassador just surrendered to Hitler. I mean Trump. No, Hitler. It’s impossible to believe the Prime Minister hasn’t fired Mandelson already (“recalled” is the polite term; “vaporized” would be the accurate one). Regardless the schism is present and the schism is a repeat, a throwback, a re-enactment of 1938, where as Churchill said the British leaders had a choice between shame and war. They have chosen shame, they will get war later. The war THEY got later was World War Two.

The war WE will get later will be World War THREE.

We will have to go to war – the real thing, none of this Iraq bullshit – the real thing, millions dead – not just to free Europe and all the other places who thought we understood that the world is simply successfully managed tension between the forces of more-or-less-good and the forces of the Putins, Hitlers, Musks, Trumps, Chamberlains, and Mandelsons… not just to free them but to save whatever’s left of this nation after the headstart Trump and Musk are giving, right now, as we speak, to Putin and China.

Thus I’ll repeat what I said in the bulletin after the pre-planned performative and nauseating ambush of Zelensky last Friday: Trump has not only imperiled the freedom of the United States of America AND the existence of Ukraine AND the independence of all the nations of Europe he has also lost all moral right to keep power in this country and he must lose that power.

B-BLOCK (25:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: So. HOW does he non-violently lose power (and it must be non-violent, albeit probably unconventional)? I have the beginnings of ideas: a shadow cabinet, weekly press conferences to co-opt the Sunday and Monday news cycles, a huge multi-faceted protest at Trump's speech to Congress tomorrow. Aggressive behavior. Maybe the Democrats can do it, maybe not. Also: some thoughts on Trump pardoning and baseball seeking to reinstate Pete Rose, the alleged pedophile and child rapist. 

C-BLOCK (48:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Andy Ogles just proposed a law that will fire anybody who altered the FBI evidence on Jeffrey Epstein. So you want a law forcing the firing of Kash Patel and Trump? Cool! Trump stooge Ed Martin wants to prosecute something that never happened. And we've missed the true meaning of the Jeff Bezos launch of Katy Perry, Lauren Sanchez and Gayle King on Blue Origin: BEZOS WANTS TO SEND HIS OWN GIRLFRIEND INTO SPACE LOL.

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