

Countdown with Keith Olbermann
iHeartPodcasts
“Countdown With Keith Olbermann,” the landmark news and commentary program that reordered the world of cable news, returns as a daily podcast. Olbermann’s daily news-driven mix will include his trademark “Special Comment” political analysis, the tongue-in-cheek “Worst Persons In The World” segment, and his timeless readings from the works of the immortal James Thurber. The man who turned SportsCenter into a cultural phenomenon will broaden the content to include a daily sports segment, a daily call for help for a suffering dog, and a remarkable series of anecdotes covering a career that stretched from covering the 1980 Olympic Miracle on Ice a month after his 21st birthday, to anchoring the 2009 Presidential Inauguration and the 2009 Super Bowl pre-game show in a span of just twelve days, to rejoining ESPN as a “rookie” baseball play-by-play man at the age of 59.
Episodes
Mentioned books

May 29, 2023 • 52min
BIDEN WINS DEBT DEAL; McCARTHY WRITES CAMPAIGN AD FOR HIM - 5.29.23
EPISODE 212: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: I’d like to congratulate Joe Biden on kicking the asses of Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump in the debt ceiling deal. More over, I'd like to thank Speaker McCarthy for writing President Biden’s first re-election campaign ad for him. Reporter: “Mr. Speaker, How would you describe your interactions with Biden during negotiations?” McCarthy: “Very professional, very smart. Very tough at the same time.” Voice Over (Announcer): “President Biden. Even the Republicans think he’s very professional, very smart, very tough at the same time!” Voice Over (Biden): “I’m Joe Biden and I approve this message because you heard him: I’m very professional, very smart, very tough at the same time.” Voice Over (Announcer): “Paid For By Biden-Harris 2024 and the Committee to Make Trump Eat Spit.” B-Block (11:52) Hey, it's Memorial Day. I'm OFF. Can't you TELL? Rather than re-purpose previous podcast components, here's stuff you'll either want to listen to, or not want any part of. Cool. It's your day off too. These are old newscasts and sportscasts and we start with one I had completely forgotten: a commentary for the United States Radio Network in 1985 in which I bash a football team owner named Donald Trump. And then three newscasts when New York radio station WNEW ran out of newscasters and had to have their 21-year old backup sports guy do drive time! C-Block (27:53) An assortment, beginning fittingly with Memorial Day 1987 when I filled in for Brent Musburger on CBS Radio. Also in here, the day George Steinbrenner fired managers for the second time in the same year in 1982 (on WNEW) and a series of college broadcasts from WVBR at Cornell from 1979.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

May 26, 2023 • 47min
"MORE THAN ONE WITNESS" SAW TRUMP COMMIT ESPIONAGE - 5.26.23
EPISODE 211: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Washington Post's choice of its headline was the Mar-a-Lago workers moving boxes full of classified documents the day before the Justice Department stopped by to pick up what they’d subpoenaed, but that’s not THE headline in the story. THE headline in the story is really startling and could be the biggest in this week-long festival of leaks, this waterfall of sources-saying because this leak the Post DIDN’T think was the headline suggests Jack Smith has witnesses who saw Donald Trump commit not just obstruction of justice but espionage. “Prosecutors…have gathered evidence indicating that Trump at times kept classified documents in his office in a place where they were visible and sometimes showed them to others… (they) have been told by more than one witness that Trump at times kept classified documents out in the open in his Florida office, where others could see them… and sometimes showed them to people, including aides and visitors,” unquote. So that’s literally espionage. Ten years or a fine or both. Per count. 18 USS Code 793 “Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information”paragraph “E.” Keeping classified documents is one thing. But having “unauthorized possession” of any document relating to the national defense and then being that guy who “willfully communicates, delivers, transmits, or causes to be communicated… to any person not entitled to receive it” is the point at which the option to not prosecute for espionage has typically ended. Also: the Ron DeSantis Twitter disaster has been explained by tech experts. It's not tech, it's - what else - the cheapness of Elon Musk. Plus the judge not only throws the book at Oathkeepers culprit Stewart Rhodes but tells him to his face that he's not a "political prisoner" and most importantly of all, warns the courtroom and the nation that we could have another January 6th. And the TPM website decided to work backwards in its files on Rhodes and find where he made his national TV debut. You may not be that surprised by the answer. Lastly just for laughs: Trump gets the year wrong and Junior tries to insult DeSantis but winds up saying "Trump" instead. B-Block (15:28) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: I lament what my invention, MSNBC, has become. Once we were liberal skeptics, calling out lies and pressing Democrats to earn our support and do what's right. Now it is a place where if NBC decided tomorrow to go right wing, all most of the hosts would need to do would be change names or dye hair and they'd get away with it. Because it's now about them. Happily, seven years ago this week Lawrence O'Donnell confessed he and the current crowd had "broken" my invention. C-Block (35:05) Sam, the two-year old female in NYC (36:05) FRIDAYS WITH JAMES THURBER: My father's favorite Thurber story, the amazing saga of Thurber's 4th Grade Class and the other students who had been in it for decades: "I Went To Sullivant."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

May 25, 2023 • 46min
DID MEADOWS FLIP ON TRUMP? DID DESANTIS'S TWITTER THING START YET? - 5.25.23
EPISODE 210: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:41) SPECIAL COMMENT: Though they've paid him $900,000 for lawyers and another $500,000 from their "think tank," Trump's team has not heard from his former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and does not know if he has stayed silent, is a target of Special Counsel Jack Smith, or has FLIPPED ON TRUMP AND IS SMITH'S PRIMARY WITNESS. Even Jim Jordan, conspiracist-in-chief, says he talks to Meadows weekly but never brings up, you know, conspiracies. This could be why the Special Counsel's office is wrapping up - and leaking - everything. Plus: Ron DeSantis should have used Fax, not Twitter. That unparalleled disaster is all he'll be remembered for, firmly eliminates Musk and Twitter as threats to Fox and others, and may make even Tucker Carlson think twice. CNN does schedule another Town Hall, because the first one went so well. And to Marjorie Taylor Greene's credit at least she knew which end of the gavel to bang against the table. Humiliation in the House. B-Block (17:16) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Briefly it looked like Tom Hanks had gotten into a fight on the Red Carpet at the Cannes Film Festival. I immediately flashed back to the day in 1999 when it briefly looked like Tom Hanks had gotten into a fight on the Red Carpet at the Oscars... with ME. C-Block (36:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Poor Chelsea, on death row AGAIN in New York (37:05) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: In an LA-nostalgic mood, I must recount the day I got the scoop of the year in LA sports - maybe in all of sports - and then the cameraman said "wait - I may not have recorded that."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

May 24, 2023 • 36min
TRUMP CRAPS PANTS AS JACK SMITH BEGINS END GAME - 5.24.23
EPISODE 209: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Special Counsel is at the End Game. From The Wall Street Journal: “Some of Trump’s close associates are bracing for his indictment and anticipate being able to fundraise off a prosecution, people in the former president’s circle said...Jack Smith has all but finished obtaining testimony and other evidence” (about the classified documents Trump stole and stashed). What's more: Trump knows this is it. His attorneys John Rowley and Jim Trusty last night wrote a “Dear Attorney General Garland” letter that Trump clearly composed. I don’t know exactly where this lands on the scale from Panic, to Desperately Trying To Gain Public Pity, to Lawyers Desperately Trying To Please Their Crazy Client. But it's desperate and childish and revelatory: “Dear Attorney General Garland: "We represent Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, in the investigation currently being conducted by the Special Counsel’s Office. Unlike President Biden, his son Hunter, and the Biden family, President Trump is being treated unfairly. No President of the United States has ever, in the history of our country, been baselessly investigated in such an outrageous and unlawful fashion. We request a meeting at your earliest convenience to discuss the ongoing injustice that is being perpetrated by your Special Counsel and his prosecutors. "Thank you for your attention to this matter." I understand Garland has composed his reply “Dear Mr. Rowley and Mr. Trusty, happy to meet you and your client, please come to my office at 123 Trump Pooped His Pants Didn’t He? Avenue, Washington D.C." I know we all have Mueller Derangement Syndrome. But when the WSJ says it's over - it's over. B-Block (15:19) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Ron DeSantis will announce something everybody already knows. He'll announce it on Twitter, which will make all the Trump cultists hate Musk. And he'll announce it instead of something he just mentioned in passing the other day which is the first good reason he's given for supporting him over Trump. How would Trumpy try for a 3rd Term? And just when the CNN Town Hall thing seemed to be dying, its PR person sets it ablaze anew. (21:25) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Martin Shrkeli is back and weirder than ever; the Youth Poet Laureate's poem is banned in Florida because of one crazy parent; Matt Gaetz confesses the Republicans think of the Democrats as their "hostages" in the debt discussion. C-Block (27:45) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Layla's Heart and Rescue in Texas needs your help (28:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos are reportedly engaged. Engaged in WHAT?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

May 23, 2023 • 39min
TRUMP MAY HAVE SOLD CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS IN BUSINESS DEALS - 5.23.23
EPISODE 208: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Special Counsel Jack Smith is clearly pursuing a theory of Donald Trump’s stolen classified documents conspiracy in which Trump ignored a subpoena to return every classified document, committed Obstruction of Justice and violated the Espionage Act by hiding them from his own attorney’s search in order to retain them, and then somehow utilized them in post-presidency business deals with one of seven countries, including China and Saudi Arabia. AND as evidence: Jack Smith has nothing less than the real time hand-written notes from Trump’s own attorney. The real-time record (one analyst describes it as “Special Counsel Smith strikes gold”) could be enough to put Trump in prison for ten years PER COUNT for not just willfully retaining classified documents, but deliberately HIDING THEM to keep his own lawyer from finding them and giving them back to the authorities – a brazen violation of a key part of the Espionage Act. And from a separate sourced story and even more astonishingly, it’s clear the Special Counsel is ALSO pursuing evidence that Trump may have given, or traded, or SOLD classified documents to China, France, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and/or the United Arab Emitates. Whether the evidence can be obtained – whether it even exists – isn’t clear. On the other hand, Jack Smith didn’t pick the names of seven countries out of a hat. B-Block (19:23) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Congratulations, Anderson Cooper, you've escaped 4th Place! Chris Wallace? Not so much. SOMETHING good came from that network-ending Trump Town Hall: E. Jean Carroll IS suing Trump again. And the real nightmare of the fake AI of the "explosions" that never happened at the Pentagon and White House? The AI will only get more convincing (22:40) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend claims Brittney Griner is a "man;" the GOP wants a NATIONAL stand-your-ground right to murder law; and what does it profit a man to run for president if he loses his face? C-Block (27:50) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: My God, it's 23 years since I quit SportsCenter to go try my hand at news at NBC. The story's been told a dozen times in a dozen ways, none of them accurately. Especially the part of how an unexpected development after I quit - the arrival of a letter from the father of an autistic boy - caused me to go back to my bosses and say I was willing to stay, at least for one show a week.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

May 22, 2023 • 42min
BIDEN MUST INVOKE THE 14TH, AND KNEE McCARTHY - 5.22,23
EPISODE 207: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: If we do not harden our stances and fight now and convince our less adamantine cohorts to do the same, we are going to lose this democracy. “Should the Democrats hold fast (on the debt ceiling) and not negotiate, or should they negotiate spending constraints with the Republicans,” reads the question in the new Harvard Harris Poll. 82 percent of Republicans say the Democrats should negotiate with Republicans. AND 41 PERCENT OF DEMOCRATS SAY DEMOCRATS SHOULD NEGOTIATE WITH THE REPUBLICANS. Are you KIDDING? Are you INSANE? Are you SUICIDAL? NEGOTIATE. You do not negotiate with terrorists. You metaphorically shoot terrorists in the head. “I’m looking at the 14th Amendment. I think we have the authority. The question is, could it be done in time,” said the President from Hiroshima. “We have not come up with unilateral action that could succeed in a matter of two weeks or three weeks. That’s the issue. So it’s up to lawmakers.” With respect, Mr. President, it is NOT. Stop caving in to these fascists. They are NOT negotiating. They are NOT operating from any position of good faith or coherent philosophy except to try to destroy the economy and blame you and run against you on it and you have stated as much and you are still standing there with another metaphorical gun pointed against YOUR head hoping that you will find some middle road with the people who have spent the last 30 years dynamiting and jack-hammering all the middle roads. I mean this is so obvious even POLITICO noticed it. POLITICO. Official stenographers of the 17th Century. Its LEAD story summarized where the quote “negotiations” unquote are, how Democrats have already caved and Republicans have gotten more intransigent. And even AXIOS noticed how determined Trump is to be elected Dictator, and how he is openly campaigning on eliminating democracy. We need no more negotiations with Republicans. We need leaders who will fight and defeat them. COMIC RELIEF: The boss of CNN's Chris Licht got one of the great thrills of life: the opportunity to give the commencement address at his alma mater. And he was booed and interrupted throughout by Boston University students angry over his Hollywood Studio's stance in the Writers' Strike. Or maybe they weren't booing and were just chanting "Zaz." Back at the ranch, a Trump social post over the weekend confirms my reporting from last week: that CNN is at minimum discussing a 2nd Trump Town Hall. And Anderson Cooper's viewers have left the silo and his show has now settled into 4th Place behind NewsMax - because obviously CNN is tanking to get the first draft choice. B-Block (20:20) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: It is the greatest bad political soundbite of all time: greater than Herschel Walker's "erection," greater than Adlai Stevenson, greater than Sarah Palin's 117 entries. Also: never endorse somebody you can't be certain won't vote to overturn Roe v Wade later. And the Mississippi school forcing a trans girl to dress as a boy for graduation. (25:46) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Texas book banning affects Texas's poet laureate, Marge Greene denies she's a white supremacist so that must be somebody else's Confederate Flag. And George W. Bush makes a comeback. C-Block (31:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: One By One Animal Advocates, a group which has saved about 30,000 animals in West Virginia in a decade, itself needs our rescue help (32:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: As we move towards the two-week mark of the CNN crisis, a look back at the worst management decision in TV history, so bad that after a week they told the poor guy he still had the title but he wasn't permitted to actually DO anything.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

May 19, 2023 • 34min
ZASLAV DOUBLES DOWN ON CHRIS LICHT CNN 'SUICIDE PACT' - 5.19.23
EPISODE 206: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44): SPECIAL COMMENT: “Republicans are back on the air,” Chris Licht’s boss said yesterday, 24 hours after Christiane Amanpour had politely vivisected Licht in front of all those new Columbia J-School grads.”Republicans weren’t on the air. During the McCarthy hearings, for those four days, we had 75 Republicans on the air. 41 went on us before they went on Fox. And the reason is…they are not going to get one more vote on Fox." And Trump is quote “the front-runner. He has to be on our network. We’re happy he’s coming on our network.” And after spelling out CNN's new role as an advocacy network Republicans can use to find new votes, David Zaslav then says "advertisers...don't want to be part of an advocacy network,." Zaslav doubles down on his metaphorical suicide pact with Licht as their CNN strategy becomes clear: Increase advertising by decreasing viewership! Plus the latest from inside the network on CNN In Crisis: Day 10. No retribution planned against Amanpour (yet); talks ongoing with Trump for a second event, maybe a second Town Hall; Erin Burnett and Anderson Cooper have officially fallen into fourth place behind NewsMax; and a new factor in this disaster. A week ago nearly 50% of stockholders voted AGAINST Zaslav's CEO compensation. B-Block (21:41) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The Republican plan to...defund the Air Force? Dianne Feinstein's health, and the urgency for her to resign, both grow. And Wednesday Marjorie Taylor Scumbag Greene was joking in public with Jamaal Bowman and yesterday she was claiming his body language threatened her and she fell right into the "That Black Man was looking at me." (26:15) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: As we commemorate the anniversary of the Mt. St. Helens volcano, a tribute to the fill-in newscaster who insisted it killed a former president. Elon Musk makes an offer we can't refuse. And Ron DeSantis sure showed Disney! He owned the libs, and the libs now own $1,000,000,000. C-Block (31:30) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Back to the first story of James Thurber I ever read aloud in front of people. Hilarious and deeply disturbing at the same time: "A Box To Hide In."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

May 18, 2023 • 51min
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR CRITICIZES CNN TRUMP TOWN HALL - 5.18.23
EPISODE 205: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) CNN's Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour has become the first on-air CNN journalist to openly criticize CNN's televising of last week's Trump Town Hall - and she did it in no less a venue than the Commencement Speech at Columbia's Journalism School. She was polite and diplomatic but still left little pieces of CEO Chris Licht spread all over the campus as she stealthily apologized for CNN, and one casual remark about how she "would have dropped the mike at 'nasty person'" completely erased the hapless moderator Kaitlan Collins Full coverage and recorded excerpts of Amanpour's speech to Columbia J-School grads. B-Block (17:20) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Jamaal Bowman, evokers of the 14th Amendment, the National Archives and the DA in NY are among those who are reminding Democrats: THROW THE FIRST PUNCH. C-Block (31:12) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Venice - who you helped save when he was still named "Venom" again pleads for your help (32:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The day I fell off a cliff making a Boston Market TV commercial: Eat Something! Well, I sure did.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

May 17, 2023 • 40min
CNN CONSIDERING A SECOND TRUMP TOWN HALL? - 5.17.23
EPISODE 204: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Chris Licht or somebody close to him has inadvertently confessed that the network did, as accused, illicitly pack the live crowd at the Trump Town Hall with Trump Supporters, and lied to the public when it insisted the crowd would represent the entire voting mix for the New Hampshire GOP Primary. A CNBC story (and it has all the ear-marks of a cable network public relations department clean-up operation) says Licht has defended the concept of the Town Hall ad insisted "history will look kindly" on his decisions but that CNN could've done some things better, including introducing the live crowd to the TV audience so viewers would know WHY THE LIVE CROWD SUPPORTED TRUMP. Licht or the Licht-adjacent leaker never stopped to think that they were admitting that the audience WAS stacked, hat the crowd was full of Trump plants. Furthermore they never stopped to think that saying that in retrospect they should have talked to some of the room full of Trump cultists before they started booing Kaitlan Collins and before Trump started to egg them on, supports the accusations by the Republican Governor OF New Hampsher Chris Sununu, and the former Republican Governor OF New Jersey Chris Christie, that virtually everybody they saw in that studio at St. Anselm’s College was a Trump supporter they recognized by sight. It also supports the accusation by Chris Christie that CNN let Trump choose who would be in the crowd. In one fell swoop, CNN has just admitted it was an almost-entirely pro-Trump crowd, and they shouldn’t have deceived the viewers into thinking anything else, but that they DID, and Licht wishes they hadn’t done that. Lie. To the viewers. To the nation. This elevates this disaster from mere television and journalistic malfeasance, into a literal kind of deception, a three-card Monte game, in which a bluntly, nakedly, unforgivably biased, slanted, fully-loaded fascist political rally was televised by a network whose executives and announcers lied that it was some kind of news or public events broadcast. Lastly, and maybe worst of all, the CNBC piece hints that a network may be considering another Trump Town Hall. Read the tea leaves in the article and it's pretty clear that the network thinking about a Trump Town Hall 2 - that's leaking what it would do to improve on the first one...is CNN. B-Block (19:54) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Yesterday's lead? About the shocker inside the Rudy Giuliani sex story? That he was offering pardons for $2,000,000 apiece and splitting the money with Trump? Turns out the exact same story - Giuliani offering pardons for $2M/per - was reported in real time; The bid to expel George Santos and why a vote is imminent; and the good news is, Dianne Feinstein talked to a couple of reporters yesterday. The bad news is, she doesn't know where she's been the last three months. (25:13) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: DeSantis joins the chorus of people who never read the Bible but are still calling NYC's alleged Subway Strangler "A Good Samaritan;" a Trump shill Congresswoman insists she's NOT a Trump shill; and Lauren Boebert is divorcing her husband and he is reportedly furious. God! Why? C-Block (30:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Shiloh, thrown from a car in Atlanta (30:50) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: This scenario playing out at CNN? Turning it into a right-wing propaganda network while pretending you're just making sure "all voices are heard?" The reason I keep talking about it, and feel so strongly about it, is that 20 years ago this spring MSNBC tried the exact same thing. Even put on a fascist commentator - literally wearing a Brownshirt on the air - named Michael Savage. And not only did ratings vanish but Savage embarrassed the company so badly he had to be fired. Then went all the producers. Then the executives. Finally the president of MSNBC, and the head of NBC News. It does not end well - as it won't end well for Licht and CNN.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

May 16, 2023 • 41min
GIULIANI ALLEGEDLY OFFERED PARDONS FOR $2M EACH - 5.16.23
EPISODE 203: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) FOUR DIFFERENT LEAD STORIES: FIRST LEAD STORY: Allegation from lurid sex abuse lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani: Rudy said Trump presidential pardons were available for purchase - as of February 16th, 2019 - $2,000,000 each, half to him, half to Rudy Giuliani. And on February 7th, 2019, Giuliani revealed that if Trump lost the following year’s election there was a plan in place to claim quote “voter fraud” and he repeatedly discussed the plan with his business associate Lev Parnas. Jack Smith needs to talk to this woman and get the tapes she claims she has. because if there is a CHANCE that ANY of this is true, Rudy Giuliani will flip like a cheeseburger. Paragraph 109: “Throughout the employment and attorney-client relationship, Giuliani forced Ms. Dunphy to perform oral sex on him. He often demanded oral sex while he took phone calls on speaker phone from high-profile friends and clients, including then-President Trump. Giuliani told Ms. Dunphy that he enjoyed engaging in this conduct while on the telephone because it made him quote ‘feel like Bill Clinton’ unquote.” SECOND LEAD STORY: Republicans appear to have lost or misplaced (or, hint hint, never had) the Biden "whistleblower" or "informant" they think will end a presidency. The problem is, Chairman James Comer apparently uses the terms interchangeably. He doesn't know his informing from his whistleblowing. He may need to ask Giuliani. THIRD LEAD STORY: The Durham Report is out and it consists of… nothing. No indictments, no litigation, no calls for punishments. It concludes the FBI shouldn’t have investigated any of it. Just like that. The FBI Inspector General said some of the initial evidence that jump-started the investigation was dubious, but that the investigation was ENTIRELY justified. Durham’s report consists of him basically saying: no it wasn’t. I mean, remember what right wing media, especially Fox News, ESPECIALLY Sean Hannity – remember who they told their addicts were going to be exposed and indicted and revealed by Lord God Almighty John Durham. You ready? James Baker, John Brennan, James Clapper, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Lisa Page, Samantha Power, Rod Rosenstein, Peter Struck, Sally Yale and of course, evil mastermind Barack Obama. Or as it turns out… None of the Above. The Durham Investigation indicted… none of them. The Durham Investigation blamed… none of them. B-Block (19:03) THE FOURTH LEAD STORY: What did Chris Licht get himself out of prostituting Trump for the Town Hall a week ago tomorrow? He got himself fourth place. On Friday night, Vichy CNN fell to FOURTH in a three-team league. An average of 335-thousand total viewers. That's 1.1 million behind behind Fox, three quarters of a million behind MSNBC, and 22,000 behind… NewsMax? Honest to God. NewsMax. And Anderson Cooper, after he condescendingly scolded his viewers and claimed they were living in silos? Most cable news shows drop Thursday to Friday. Cooper? He dropped 28 percent. And there is no indication that Licht and CNN have finished rock-bottom yet, neither in the ratings nor the public revulsion. The Daily Beast last night not only quoted a CNN source who called the event “our Chernobyl”but added that Licht is fawning over a reporter from the magazine The Atlantic who is writing a profile of Licht and that somehow CNN and Licht think it’s going to be “a glowing profile of the boss.” (29:22) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The unusual resume of the man who says you can't have a Congestion Pricing Scheme like London's in New York - because they drive on the other side in London. Plus Roger Ailes' widow attacks Murdoch. And his new book is out, but Josh Hawley's "Manhood" turns out to be a little short. C-Block (34:40) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Duke and Simba, on the death list at Devore, CA (35:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Well, why not? Since it's Rudy Giuliani Day, how about the story from nearly 30 years ago of when I emceed a baseball events on the steps of City Hall while he was Mayor and a) when it came time to introduce me he didn't know who the hell I was and b) more importantly all day he didn't know where the hell HE WAS.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.


