Countdown with Keith Olbermann

A shocking alliance emerges as Donald Trump is criticized for his dealings with Ghislaine Maxwell, raising ethical alarms over a controversial immunity deal. The conversation digs deep into the moral implications of Trump’s associations and his supporters' complicity. Engaging humor punctuates the critique of political absurdities and media narratives, exploring how personal anecdotes reflect broader themes of accountability. Tackling media integrity, the discussion also critiques censorship while navigating the complexities of past political entanglements.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 148: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Now that it's Murdochian Official (WHAT? Trump is IN the Trumpstein files? I'm shocked to discover there's gambling going on in here) and a Politico source says Trump and his White House goons are so lost "it's the first time I've ever seen them sort of paralyzed," expect them to push even harder on their QAnonTM fantasy that Barack Obama is guilty of 'treason' - even beyond the farce that the nitwitted Tulsi Gabbard and Karoline Leavitt presented yesterday. So it is time for President Obama to respond - and crush Trump. It is Obama's moment. Rather than again insist that EVERYBODY ELSE needs to DO more and SAY more and STAND for more, he should give a national address in which he sues Trump personally for slander and defamation and announce a ridiculous figure sought - like $500 Billion - and call for a conference at which he and President Clinton and other Democratic leaders and the SCOTUS justices they appointed and every decent Republican and every true American meets to strategize how to legally and immediately remove Trump from office and replace his criminal gang with a bipartisan caretaker government to carry us through to Election Day 2028. I will give a version of the speech Obama should now give, because he has been unexpectedly afforded the opportunity to perhaps actually start something that could end this nightmare of a madman steadily disassembling American democracy, a Temu Hitler gradually turning harassment of minorities into persecution and ethnic cleansing, a criminal who must stay in office at any cost or face the reality of dying in prison for his countless crimes. I have no doubt he can do better. I would not doubt he has a better idea. I will take no offense - provided he DOES something. “Trump is clearly furious,” a Politico close-to-the-White House source told its Trump stenographer yesterday. “It’s the first time I’ve seen them sort of paralyzed.” Say Hey! Trump’s White House is paralyzed! Excellent – kick them down the stairs, they can’t fight back. It’ll hurt more. The Trumpsteen Birthday Card is real and it CAN’T be the worst thing about Trump in the files that we now know Bondi told him about in May, otherwise he would’ve released the files. The photos of Epsteen at Trump’s second wedding are real, and THEY can’t be the worst otherwise he would’ve released it. Whatever’s worst is at LEAST B+ material. Keep hammering. B-Block (37:16) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: They piled up quick! Trump just asked Washington's NFL team to change its name; Trump once hammered Obama for asking Washington's NFL team to change its name. Mike Lee fell for an AI Jerome Powell resignation so badly done that the only word in the office logo that wasn't gibberish was "BUREAU," Chris Cillizza is actually criticizing somebody else for talking politics when nobody wants to hear that person talking politics, and the passing of the eternal Ozzy Osbourne inspires John Yang to get Ozzy's native country wrong and Alex Jones to get the cause of death wrong. C-Block (48:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Can you believe it? After I presented the inarguable evidence that CBS didn't fire Colbert just to please Trump (how are you shutting him up if he's not fired until next May?) I get invited to speak at a PRO-Colbert rally. I explained what I was going to say, and the line went dead. One of the things I was going to say was how this is the same as MSNBC's firing of Phil Donahue in 2003. I was actually in the room for that, so let's go through it step by step.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 147: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: We have been burying the lede here. Trump. Is. Suing. Murdoch. Trump and Murdoch are at war. Over Jeffrey Epstein. The two worst people in the country, probably the world, at each other's throats, until further notice. Weeks, months, years. Amid rumors Murdoch's people at the Wall Street Journal are upworking ANOTHER Trump-Epstein/Epstein-Trump/Trumpstein story. And that Murdoch is preparing a Defcon scenario in which he turns Fox News against Trump. Because if Trump is stupid enough to try to put Murdoch out of business, Murdoch will have no choice but to try to put Trump out of business. Trump also seems to be doing everything else he can think of to make sure the Trumpstein story never leads the headlines again. Attacks his own people again. Left a paper trail inside the DOJ and FBI of Pam Bondi searching for thousands of Trump references inside an evidence pit the size of The New York Public Library. Changing the story of the latest plot against him for the sixth time in a week. And watching the polls - 17% approve of his handling of the Epstein issue - actually get worse since just last Thursday (89% want everything, not just the almost-meaningless Grand Jury testimony, released). Oh by the way there IS a Trump Client List inside DOJ/FBI. The only part of Trump's claim that there isn't that's true, is that it may not bear that title. There's literally 40 computers, 70 CDs of video, and 300 gigabytes of data. The Trumpstein story will swamp his presidency. For sheer volume it exceeds almost everything else Trump has ever done. It makes Watergate look like the editing out of four words in a 5,000 word document. IT'S WONDERFUL. Trumpstein, Trumpstein, Trumpstein. ALSO: Trump's unpopularity has now reached 1st Term proportions. Tulsi Gabbard is conflating two Russian stories and claiming the one nobody believed (Russia tampered with voting machines) disproves the one Robert Mueller proved (Russia hacked emails and got them to Trump's campaign). How does that work? I'll explain the psychology of morons who want to please their bosses, with the story of Tennessee Ernie Williams. And if you think Trump isn't brain dead he wrote something that must've come directly from a dream about how the Cleveland Guardians (formed 1901, not named "Indians" until 1915) are one of baseball's "six original teams" (Major League Baseball started 30 years earlier; it's HOCKEY with "the original six" and that's wrong too). B-Block (39:15) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: I understand this busts the narrative and reduces our ability to suffer as martyrs, but there is one inarguable and unanswerable fact that disproves the almost-universally accepted premise that CBS cancelled Stephen Colbert solely to appease Trump. It's this: If they are silencing him, why have they decided to keep him on TV for THE NEXT TEN MONTHS? This is the Phil Donahue cancellation all over again. It works to CBS's corporate advantage to make it look like they are sucking up to the psycho. Sorry. This is the least of the reasons.  C-Block (1:09:10) MONDAYS WITH THURBER: Haven't done any of his priceless stories lately, and with Trump's new permanent Trumpstein Crisis, it's fitting to do James Thurber's stunningly prophetic saga "The Greatest Man In The World."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 146: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN BULLETIN "I never wrote a picture in my life," Trump told The Wall Street Journal, with his typical cognitive confusion, as he denied its bombshell report tonight that he contributed a bawdy letter and drawing of a naked woman to a special bound '50th Birthday Book' for Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.  Within minutes, literally dozens of pictures wrote (or as we'd call it, "drawn") by Trump appeared online - most of them auctioned for charity. Trump was immediately defended by others like JD Vance who said was written in the book (compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell) didn't sound like him. Which him? The "Grab 'Em" him or the "I never wrote a picture in my life" him? Vance also asks why WSJ hasn't produced the letter. And Laura Loomer says Trump never types letters, he writes notes. I have a fan letter from Trump - from 2014 - typed by him or somebody for him. The denials aren't relevant to the existence of the letter or what it says about Trump's relationship with Epstein at this perilous moment in Trump's presidency. And the denials didn't survive an hour. And they didn't deal with the most ominous part, the content of the letter, which includes Epstein and Trump "talking" to each other and concludes with Trump "saying" "Happy birthday - and may every day be another wonderful secret." Another wonderful secret? What in the HELL could that mean? ALSO: in addition to the Trump Epstein cover-up there is the Trump Health cover-up and parts of the story about his acutely swollen ankles don't hold up. And the only thing swollen about Stephen Colbert is his ego. CBS has tonight cancelled his show, effective next May. The man is untrustworthy and rarely funny but his platform was consistently anti-dictatorship so the forum will be missed even if he will not.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 145: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45): Trump self-destructs over the Epstein files: now calls his supporters “weaklings” calls Republicans “stupid” for believing the Epstein story HE sold them, now demands reporters don’t cover it, and demands MAGA stops talking about it. And now - most meaningfully - HE is connecting his Epstein Cover-up to his Russia Collusion Cover-up and continually tying Epstein to "The Steele Dossier." And what was the most grotesque part of the Steele Dossier story? Sexual perversion. Video. Blackmail. Trump is himself tying himself and Epstein to the purported pee tape! And that nauseating link and amazing implications (which he alone is making) are on top of the established reality: Donald Trump is president of the Jeffrey Epstein cover-up.Trump is RUNNING the Jeffrey Epstein cover-up. It’s TRUMP’S Jeffrey Epstein cover-up! President Pervert. President Epstein. President Pee Tape. President Pedophile. President cover-up. "TRUMP’S EPSTEIN COVER-UP" -  I want to hear that every day, from a leading Democrat. Every day and SIX TIMES on Sunday. Forever. I’m delighted Trump is destroying himself; I want Democrats to finish the job. I want it to destroy MAGA. I want it to bury them all, under a mountain of their own amoral, uncaring, "bullshit" – the word Trump just used in an enraged screed against his own MAGA "weaklings" whose support he now claims he no longer wants. Is pursuing this Shapiro-Steele story disgusting? Yes. Is it sleazy? Yes. Is it what the Trumpist scum would do? Yes. Is it a terrible way to prevent dictatorship and terror? What? There are RULES here? No, there are no rules. Pick up the damn tire iron. This is democracy-saving gold. Every. Damn. Day. Trump's the one who did this. He's the one who has now linked whatever he's choosing to do in covering up the Epstein story, to whatever there was in the Steele Dossier that would destroy him. He's the one who... crossed the streams. B-Block (32:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Homeland Security Spokesman Micah Bock with a cleverly phrased bit of dishonesty which actually says Texans calling FEMA during the floods had the same chance of getting through as people buying tickets have of winning the lottery. Mehmet Oz, whose senate bid crashed over crudités, now sees his Medicare disembowlin rationalization not cut it over carrot cake, and what trophies did soccer mogul Gianna Infantino let Trump walk away with this time? C-Block (42:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Twenty years, almost to the day, since I quit smoking and began my MSNBC campaign to get others to quit, too. Which the PRESIDENT of MSNBC naturally responded to...by trying to kill me.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 144: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Well, there it is, finally - the perfect storm that can dethrone or at least deplete Trump and of course it's his fault. HE has openly admitted he's covering up the Epstein Files, and he has in essence confessed he's in the Epstein Files. The problem is a simple one: Trump promised to give them pedophiles. They were promised politician pedophiles. They were promised that the politicians who were covering up Epstein were the pedophiles. And then one day Trump suddenly decided to announce that HE was the politician who was covering up Epstein and he SCOLDED them and HUMILIATED them and YELLED at them for challenging his god-ordained RIGHT to cover up Epstein, and they said in their confusion “but you promised us that you would reveal the pedophile politicians that were covering up Epstein and…wait a minute... that means...” As of mid-afternoon Trump was getting ratioed, on his own social media site, nearly 4:1 by angry, confused, moronic MAGAs. They have lived and died by his insistence that only pedophile politicians personally implicated in the Epstein documents and "client list" would be keeping them from being released. Now his two conflicting piles of bull have clashed, and he has been buried under them. UNFORTUNATELY TRUMP'S RESPONSE is utterly predictable: he will double down on Trump-ISIS atrocities, on torturing immigrants. It will give his 'people' the snuff films they want and may deflect their rage, at least for awhile. But remember, any time you see ICE threatening kids, to shout "Watcha doin? Grabbing those kids so Trump can take them to Epstein Island?" B-Block (30:46) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Karoline Leavitt thinks her conference calls are being interfered with by the devil. Riley Gaines' reward for stirring up murderous hate against Trans people? She gets to audition for Fox, and conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Her skills are so varied: she's 85th best in swimming AND propaganda! And then there's winner Caitlin Francis, a rando from California who has the kind of advice only a homeschooling MAGA mother can present to you: dogs and cats have no souls, so if their vet bills exceed $1000, kill them. Say, Mrs. Francis, what's your over-under on your sick kids? (44:17) SPORTSBALLCENTER: Would you like to play in tomorrow night's baseball All-Star Game? Because that's the only stunt they have left to save the dying exhibition, now that they've decided that five big league games is sufficient experience to be an All-Star? And the floodgates may have just opened in St. Louis, where a pro sports team is eliminating its separate radio and TV play-by-play teams and simulcasting. This is the future, and it's not pretty. C-Block (1:05:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Somebody asked me what was my favorite joke that I ever did on the air. So here's a bunch - starring Albert Hall, the Takko-Bell trade, and the day the Reading Phillies set me up to get ejected from a minor league baseball game.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 143: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL REPORT: Which is worse? That Trump is running a “Protection Racket Presidency” and bribed one Senator to vote for his Big Beautiful Soak The Poor Budget Bill while metaphorically bumping off one Senator who wouldn’t? Or that Trump threatened Israel, threatened the government of Israel, if Israel's courts don’t do what HE wants on behalf of Netanyahu – and nobody noticed. Which is worse? Well it’s a trick question because these are actually just two different aspects of the same story. It’s a protection racket. These are a) the domestic operations of the protection racket, and b) the international operations of the protection racket. Thom Tillis, the vaguely responsible Republican senator from North Carolina, refused to let Trump politically rape him Saturday night and would not vote to advance the budget bill. Trump had been threatening him for weeks, months, accelerated it, finally began to ask for volunteers to primary him, Tillis announced yesterday he will retire from the senate at the end of his term next year. So much for Mr. Tillis. So much for somebody, anybody, in the Republican party saying “I owe this country something.” So much for the thought that when the country is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell ‘em to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Tiller. I don’t know where I’ll be then, but I’ll know about it and I’ll be happy.” Well I know where Thom Tillis will be: he’ll be back home in Cornelius, North Carolina. Presumably drinking heavily. Reflecting on how he represents the utter moral and ethical decline of the already near-bankrupt and nearly-totally-declined Republican Party. Meanwhile Senator Lisa Murkowski turns out to be Susan Collins with less Kibuki make-up. She sold her soul to get herself a carveout for Alaska, only to find out the Senate Parliamentarian says it violates the Senate's Byrd Rule and the carveout must be carved out. Lol. AND TRUMP THREATENED TO DEFUND ISRAEL - what would be the end of the political career of any other American figure - and nobody noticed. And it seems to have worked. ALSO: WHY KRISTEN GILLIBRAND MUST RESIGN (and get treatment), Stephen Miller has a financial interest in the ICE raids, the plot to make Eric Adams the Republican nominee for mayor of New York, and you missed the new SCOTUS rulings on porn! Pay attention, Mike Johnson! B-Block (37:32) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jeopardy aficionados worried about a conflict of interest because the contestant was related to the person who was the answer to the question? I was on two episodes of Jeopardy in which a contestant had the same name as the answer to the question, and where a contestant wrote four of the five sketches that were all the answers in an entire category! Plus the Fox host who doesn't know when World War 2 was or which American party caused breadlines; Chris Cuomo thinks AOC destroyed the Democratic Party not, say, he and his brother; and idiot Senator Bernie Moreno discusses "anals" with Laura Ingraham. C-Block (56:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It's that time again. July 10 is the 46th anniversary of my first broadcast on my first full-time broadcasting job, which means you have a choice: you have to listen to it, or skip it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 142: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: The only “scum” here is Trump and the only thing that’s been “obliterated” is America’s reputation. We have now descended to that level of hell in which the entire purpose of the government of the United States is to say and shout and lie so loudly and so often that the insane, deteriorating, mentally-dissolving, international joke that IS the current president doesn’t yell at the fools and whores who work for him. He has now gotten the government of Israel to lie for him about his attack on Iran; he has now gotten his own government to issue assessments that not only completely contradict YESTERDAY’S assessments but completely contradict his OWN assessments; he has now gotten his own Director of National Intelligence – presumably under threat of being fired – to cherry-pick SOMEBODY’S intelligence, maybe ours, maybe Qatar’s, maybe Joe Rogan’s, who knows – and insist that it is NEW and it confirms his obsession that everybody in the country, everybody in the world, everybody in the universe, everybody YET TO BE BORN, agree with him that Iran’s nuclear capacity is quote “obliterated” and for all time and forever and no arguments and it’s the greatest military success since Hiroshima and Nagasaki and don’t you dare say otherwise, don’t you dare say inconclusive obliterated obliterated obliterated. Except that 24 hours ago Trump said… inconclusive.  THERE ARE SEVERAL SIDEBARS to Zohran Mamdani’s startling first-round win in the Democratic primary for mayor here in Fun City. First: the tepidness of national Democratic support for him. Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and the rest of the gerontocracy better shape up fast because Mamdani won the MIDDLE class by doing the two things you idiots refused to even try to do last year: combine concern for the financial crushing OF the middle class, AND standing up for what’s right in the country and the world, including opposing Trump and ICE and punishing corrupt political cynics like Andrew Cuomo. The hesitation can only open an avenue for Eric Adams to whore himself out as a pro-business "centrist" who will be Trump's tool. B-Block (27:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Larry Ellison and my old ex-friend Jeff "You Should've Known I Was Lying To You" Shell have a plan for CBS News: more Bari Weiss. The one time we could've used propaganda and Voice of America in Iran, Kari Lake made sure we were off the air. And it's so easy to miss and to minimize, but Trump went full gay-bashing this week. Silence is compliance. C-Block (37:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Now that I'm with my fifth different network just doing baseball games (FanDuel Sports) it's a good time to revisit my departure from my first. A scant 28 years ago this month I left ESPN - but we came thisclose to keeping the relationship going just enough to continue the Sunday SportsCenter.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

BULLETIN: SEASON 3 EPISODE 141. TRUMP'S PROFANE, INSANE RANT Donald Trump's limited tether to reality has snapped this morning and he must be removed from office, by his own party, first via the 25th Amendment and then by Impeachment. Even as individuals as far from being anti-Trump as Speaker of the House Johnson and Pennsylvania Congressman Scott Perry have said, live, on networks like Fox and CNN, that Iran's nuclear capacity was obviously not fully destroyed in Trump's undeclared war against Iran, he has now raged against the networks, against Israel, and against Iran - because reality is not doing what he is telling it to. After a session with the press that was disturbing even for him, Trump then went aboard Air Force One and began to struggle (again, well beyond his usual struggle) to locate certain words and even repeat words just said to him. Asked about possible Iran "sleeper cells" he raged against "super cells." Trump is a lethal, imminent, clear and present danger to the life of everybody on this planet. He cannot continue in office.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 140: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: We join the Trump Dictatorship, already in progress. He has attacked Iran, declared undeclared war on Iran, denied he wanted regime change there and is now insisting there should be regime change. And it's all because he has lost America. The Economist polling that has his OVERALL approval underwater in FIFTEEN states… that HE WON LAST YEAR. SEVEN under in Pennsylvania, FOUR under in Georgia, FOUR under in North Carolina, eight under in Michigan, eight under in Pennsylvania. Even CNN’s pollster Harry Enten says “I think we can say Trump has lost the political battle when it comes to what has happened in Los Angeles." CNN has Trump at -15 approval on his key issue: immigration, and -24 among independents. Trump attacked Iran because he has lost America. As a political observer wrote on January 17, 2012, “Obama will attack Iran in order to get re-elected.” And the SAME political observer wrote on October 9, 2012, “Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.” And the SAME political observer then wrote on September 16 2013 “I predict that President Obama will at some point attack Iran in order to save face,” and as the SAME political observer wrote on September 25, 2013 “Remember what I previously said, Obama will some day attack Iran in order to show how tough he is,” and how finally that SAME political observer wrote on November 10 2013 “Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly – not skilled” – and that political observer was… Donald J. Trump. I'll analyze the consequences of Trump's unconstitutional act - including angering Putin - and the hilarious moment when Pete Hegseth got the location of the target wrong. Plus Trump's nonsensical "I'd especially like to thank God," his lies about being opposed to Iraq, and the small victory: the Senate parliamentarian says they have to strip from the budget bill the move to limit the courts' ability to restrain Trump. B-Block (37:32) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: It's like Champions Week on Jeopardy: Mayor Eric Adams keeps digging, Jake Tapper keeps digging, and Stephen A. Smith is digging so hard to align himself with the reprehensible Candace Owens that at this rate Smith will be forcing ESPN to fire him. C-Block (50:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Of all the things you don't expect to come up on Jason Benetti's Detroit Tigers telecast is not one but two ex-pitchers confessing they still have dreams - thirty years later - that the anthem is playing, they are supposed to be pitching, but they cannot find their uniforms or that their shoelaces have been tied together. I'll explain why the mini-PTSD dream has become a nostalgic dream for these guys from my cohort: Frank Tanana, Dan Petry, and me.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.