Countdown with Keith Olbermann

President Biden's recent press conference merges both foreign and domestic policy, showcasing a new approach. Suggestions are made for Biden to go live on TV weekly to improve his image. The episode also criticizes Chuck Todd and discusses Lauren Boebert's speeding incident.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 211: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat," said Will Rogers. I said in February that the worst outcome was the scenario in which this played out in public and Biden dug in and those who doubted him kept coming back every 48 hours and saying “what about NOW?” And yet here we are. In February, Axios reported, quote: “When White House aides appear on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," they're often booked between 7 and 7:40 AM ET. That's so they'll reach one crucial and loyal viewer: President Biden.” Guess who was on yesterday at exactly 7:39 AM? To speak to the proverbial audience of one? Nancy Pelosi. And she soft-soaped him and urged him to make his decision. Obviously the point is: she said he should make a decision and of course he has not only insisted for ten days now that he’s MADE his decision but he PUT IT IN WRITING. Why? So it alarms him, without looking like she’s providing a platform or encouragement for the Joe-Must-Go’s – encouraging them YET anyway. THE BEST THING SAID YESTERDAY was actually from Biden's former White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield: “I know first hand better than almost anyone,” Ms. Bedingfield writes “how smart the Biden team is about DATA and about ignoring the noise. They are right that the game here is to convince voters, not pundits. But when the battle over the public data is so overwhelmingly negative, it’s a good moment to put forward your theory of the case. If they have data that supports the path to victory that they see, they should put it out there now and help people who badly want to beat Trump, rally around it. People want to see the path.” The thing is, there actually ARE indicators that there IS a path: a study suggesting that Biden retains 94% of the support he had before the debate while Trump only retains 85%. And “Asked about the upcoming presidential election,” Warner Bros Discovery CEO and CNN Uber-boss David Zaslav, "said it mattered less to him which party wins, as long as the next president was friendly to business. ‘We just need an opportunity for de-regulation, so companies can consolidate and do what we need to, to be even better.” Good morning fascism! B-Block (26:14) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Yeah the Federalist Society sure is backing up Trump's contention he knows nothing about Project 2025. It is a SPONSOR of the Republican National Trump Fascist Convention. There's a new exoplanet in the neighbor and to put it bluntly it smells like Fart. And speaking of which, Trump whore Sebastian Gorka just called Kamala Harris "Colored." C-Block (29:46) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Since I'm trashing corporate media it's a good time to talk about how, in the span of a couple of minutes in 1905 or so, my great grandfather made a great observation and a terrible mistake that handed as much as $70,000,000 to a big American corporation.    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Analyzing President Biden's campaign team's effectiveness and party unity, covering lack of support for a Democratic candidate, controversies around Justice Clarence Thomas, congressman's dishwasher frustrations, revival trusts for cryonics individuals, New York Times editorial on Trump's cognitive deficiencies, chaotic hotel misadventures during World Series prep, and closing remarks on 2024 election countdown

Urgent call for Biden to arrest Trump terrorists and allies to save the nation; Critique of columnist misquoting Biden; Humorous anecdotes of historical inaccuracies and job listings; Reflection on past lunch meeting with Senator Biden and call for a rapid response director for his campaign

SERIES 2 EPISODE 208: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) COUNTDOWN BULLETIN: In a disturbing end to an otherwise low-news interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, President Biden was asked how he will feel if he stays in the race and loses to Trump. "As long as I gave it my all and I did as good a job as I know I could do, that's what this is all about." I'm not sure how that question could be answered, but that answer is terrifying. As Mr. Biden undertakes his second rehab tour this year, with the interview and a rally in Madison, Wisconsin, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia is reportedly convening a meeting among his Democratic colleagues to urge them to join him in a trip to the White House to burst what they see as an informational bubble around the president. In the meantime, Governor Maura Healey of Massachusetts, who just six weeks ago led a big-money fundraiser for the president, issued an on-the-record statement urging Biden to carefully reassess whether he's the right candidate to defeat Trump. And House Minority leader Jeffries will convene his committee ranking members on Sunday to discuss the situation. While a groundswell seems to be forming for a consensus Kamala Harris candidacy, there seem to be two questions to ask yourself in formulating your own opinion as to what to do next: 1) the debate is two months from next Tuesday. Do you want JOE Biden participating in it? And 2) Do you want a story, the lead story, or the only story every day between now and the debate to be some form of: How does the president seem?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 207: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: “No one’s pushing me out. I’m not leaving.” The President yesterday on a conference call with his campaign staff, and notably ALSO with Vice President Harris. “Let me say this as clearly and simply as I can: I’m running. I’m the Democratic Party’s nominee. No one is pushing me out. I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end…” the President’s fundraising email last night. “I had a bad night… I screwed up,” he told a radio interviewer. I understand why the president said what he said, and I understand why the email reads as it does, and I understand he may fully or almost fully believe all that and I do NOT understand WHAT they are doing at The White House. The New York Times led a succession of reports that President Biden had told an ally “that he is weighing whether to continue in the race” although, perhaps crucially, after the White House issued a flat denial the Times ALTERED the hook and the story to focus on the idea that “he may not be able to salvage his candidacy if he cannot convince voters that he is up to the job." I do NOT understand the litmus test the President and his advisers have apparently convinced themselves will be the magic wand. I’ll quote The Times: “Mr. Biden’s allies said that the president had privately acknowledged that his next few appearances heading into the July 4 holiday weekend must go well, particularly an interview scheduled for Friday with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News and campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.” The interview with Stephanopoulos is not live. It is taped. The campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are presumably going to follow all the other campaign stops with teleprompters. If someone is telling the President that doing well in more totally controlled, utterly contained, hothouse environments, is going to quell in the slightest the impact that continues to resonate from a week ago in Atlanta, THEY are crazy. And if the PRESIDENT thinks doing what amount to canned events will quell the impact, he is DOOMED. And between them, if he gets through a pre-recorded sitdown interview, and he gets through two speeches and there AREN’T questions from reporters or at minimum questions from THE CROWD, and he and the campaign boast about these events as some kind of TRIUMPH, then the outcome will be this: he will have forced HIMSELF off the ticket, NOT because of the debate, but because of the week AFTER the debate. The way to steer out of the skid, the way to find the magic wand, the way to “salvage his candidacy” as the Times put it and “save his reelection bid” as CNN put it and “stay in the race” as ABC put it, was – maybe still IS – to hold a news conference, and I mean call a news conference on 20 minutes’ notice – not one next week at the NATO summit in DC, but NOW, and take whatever they’ve got for you; and it’s to do a town hall somewhere (or as Jim Clyburn says, a series of them), and if you want some comparatively comfortable exercise, that Stephanopoulos interview has got to be LIVE. And it would be best to do these things on consecutive days. B-Block (19:49) JULY 4TH AND THE BAD PRESS LOU GEHRIG GOT FOR DYING: It's a remarkable reflection on media then and now. We think of the tragedy of the New York Yankees star as having moved 85 years of fans and writers and just humans. Not so. One columnist insisted Gehrig was faking it. Another insisted he had infected his teammates. Funny you don't hear those articles read often. I'm going to do it for you. C-Block (47:00) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCKSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 206: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: “I wasn’t very smart. I decided to travel around the world shortly before the debate,” the President has now said at a fundraiser in Virginia. He then described his arduous travel through 15 Time Zone changes for the G7 and D-Day, and how it affected him at the debate: “I didn’t listen to my staff and then I came home and nearly fell asleep on stage.” The debate was June 27. He returned from his travels on June SIXTEENTH. This followed by only a few hours a suggestion from Nancy Pelosi that Biden (and Trump) takes an acuity test: "Both candidates owe whatever test you want to put them to, in terms of their mental acuity and their health — both of them. I think it's a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition? When people ask that question, it's completely legitimate — of both candidates." Pelosi thinks Biden has an episode? Or a condition?  If there were anything Pelosi could have said that would do LESS to contain all of this, I am hard pressed to guess what it could have been. And there are disastrous new internal polling numbers leaked from Democratic pollsters OpenLabs to Puck News. Since the debate, New Hampshire has now become Trump by three, Virginia is Trump by one and a half; that the president now has leads of half a point or less in New Mexico, Maine, and Minnesota; that Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, George, North Carolina and the Nebraska Second are all Trump by four or more and it’s seven in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Biden’s support dropped by roughly two percentage points in all twelve of these states and in Colorado and Minnesota. If he cannot recover all of this, the Democrats are looking at a loss of at least 100 electoral votes. The profound moments of American political history – secession, Watergate, Teapot Dome, the retirement of Lyndon Johnson, all the rest – share one commonality. These stories have each taken on a momentum of their own; they have each reached a tipping point when – whether quickly or imperceptibly – the other option began to disappear. The momentum in the Biden Re-Election story changed yesterday. And the tipping point may have been reached. The good news could be that suddenly the only candidate with the age problem, would be Trump. The only candidate with the uncertain grip on reality, would be Trump. The only candidate to be called feeble or gaffe-prone or lost, would be Trump. And if Biden really were convinced to retire from the ticket and the office in order to send Kamala Harris into the campaign with the incumbency, she would be the first woman president of the United States asking the voters to validate her with a full term of office – and doing so when a primary plank of the Democratic campaign is the Republicans’ assault on the rights of every woman in this country.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speculation on President Biden possibly resigning before the election, Kamala Harris potentially replacing him, and internal swing state polls indicating a shift in support. Nancy Pelosi's comments adding to the speculation. Analysis of the impact of a Biden withdrawal on the Democratic Party and potential outcomes. Reflective discussion on Biden's decision and the evolving political landscape.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 204: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: If Joe Biden had been pulling his punches in fighting back against the Trump/Supreme Court conspiracy to subvert democracy, he stopped doing so last night. To my mind he should take the Court's unprecedented decision to transform our form of government into a monarchy by the fabrication of something called 'presidential immunity' by showing how it works, announcing he was adding six seats to the Court by Executive Order, and daring SCOTUS to stop him. But as a start, Biden took off the gloves, insisting the American people should join him and Justice Sotomayor in dissenting from the Court immunity decision. Biden attacked Trump by name, said that because the Supreme Court had done “a terrible disservice to this nation” by preventing a Trump trial on January 6th before the election, that therefore the people “must decide” on Trump, and acknowledged “there are virtually no limits to what a president can do." It was a clear declaration of war on the Supreme Court; it was a clear re-positioning of Trump from an unprincipled political opponent to a menace to our form of government. “Any president will be free to ignore the law.”He closed with “may god help preserve our democracy.” The Supreme Court has thrown out 248 years of American history – more really – at the start of the week in which we CELEBRATE that 248thbirthday. As Sotomayor also noted, Alexander Hamilton was specific about the necessity to have a FORMER president be subject to possible prosecution for any crimes he committed, IN OFFICE, because THAT would be one of the key differences between the new United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain, from which we had to stage a revolution to free ourselves. THEIR king was “sacred and inviolable.” OUR president would be subject to “personal punishment and disgrace.” As to the nomination uncertainty: the polls continue to be inconclusive and the tightrope just gets longer. I remain agnostic on the outcome (I want whatever wins). But I want to suggest that the logical extension of calling for Biden to drop off the ticket because you don't think he's sharp enough to win re-election and/or serve another term, is to say he's not sharp enough to be president NOW - and should resign. If you're going to be cynical enough to force him out of office later, why not now, when you could still offer new president Kamala Harris as the incumbent on Election Day? B-Block (31:40) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Ken Dilanian of NBC, Matthew Belloni of Puck, and Ben Smith of Semafor all miss the point of the Biden candidacy story. Ralph Nader blames Hillary for the Chief Justice appointed the president who is Nader's fault. Worst Persons Hall of Famer Bill O'Reilly makes up a story about Biden quitting (but it must be true! It's from the Bill-O'Reilly-Dot-Com-News-Headquarters!) C-Block (42:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Another 4th of July falling in the middle of another week, just like it did the year I started my professional career in network radio simply because... the 4th of July was falling in the middle of another week and they needed somebody unemployed, cheap, and immediately.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 203: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:40) BULLETIN: The New York Times has called for a candidate to drop out of the presidential race after his performance in a debate - a debate which has IMPROVED his standing against his opponent in several polls. No, President Biden is not dropping out. And that wasn't a family oligarchy intervention Sunday at Camp David to tell him to. It was an offing photo shoot. There are no indications (and let's not fully exhale; we don't know if the impacts might appear long-term) that the debate had any significant impact on the presidential race. CBS-YouGov polling released Sunday says even in the wake of the understandable blunt-force trauma we all went through as we watched, 55% of the Democrats have NO interest in changing horses while after the same debate 54% percent of EVERYBODY says TRUMP should drop out. “I am finishing my second battleground state poll post-debate,” writes the Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, “and both surveys show the same thing: the debate had no effect on the vote choice. The election was extremely close and competitive before the debate, and it is still extremely close and competitive today.” Morning Consult and Data For Progress polled right after the debate, the percentages of those who think Biden should drop out went up like four points, but the Biden-versus-Trump match-up… Biden went UP a point. In Survey USA he went UP THREE points. Translation: yeah, maybe he should drop out but if he doesn’t, I’m still voting for him. The almost negligible impact on Biden’s poll numbers may be as transitory as whatever it was that impaired the president during the debate, because his health and age is baked-in to the voters’ perception of him. There was nothing before the debate, nothing in his grueling international travels to the G7 and Normandy and elsewhere that was as bad as what he did during the debate. He was clear the day before and the next morning. And there is a plausible and intuitively satisfactory possible explanation for what CAUSES something like that in an 81-year old man. If the President had a cold – and I don’t know about you, but I’ll admit it: I’VE had colds in my life, and his hoarseness, it sounded to me like a cold – if he had a cold, did he take cold medicine? You know, like just Tylenol. Cold medicine. The Yale School of medicine professor, cardiologist and head of outcomes evaluation at Yale New Haven Hospital Center Dr. Harlan Krumholz wrote a piece for Newsweek: “Biden's symptoms are consistent with someone suffering from temporary drug-induced cognitive impairment. Most people believe common over-the-counter cold medications such as Dayquil, Tylenol, or Advil to be harmless. While generally well tolerated, these medications have well-documented side effects and can cause reduced alertness, diminished attention, poor memory, and reduced reaction time, especially in older individuals. These impairments are transitory but can appear consequential and alarming. Every experienced clinician has seen this effect thousands of times…" The real illness right now may be in our media. NBC News got the Camp David thing utterly wrong. The Times made fools of its editorial board and top columnists and based on something a staffer wrote there is every reason to suspect that it acted as it did because if Biden were to drop out it would prove the Times wasn't a fatally broken organization that put its thumb on the scale because he wouldn't give them a one-on-one interview. Regardless: the breaking news is - nothing's broken.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.