Countdown with Keith Olbermann

• TRUMP WANTS TO CHARGE HIS AMERICAN CRITICS WITH TERRORISM - 4.24.25

  SEASON 3 EPISODE 120: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: We’ve all known it would come to this; we’ve all WARNED it would come to this; we’ve all PREDICTED they’d try to ease the knife in slowly, they’d take the boiling frog route, and here it comes. It’s in every piece of political science fiction from "1984" to "Brazil" to "V For Vendetta." And it is now real: if everything Trump does deserves criticism and gets criticism there is only one thing for Trump and his gang to do: prosecute criticism of Trump and claim those WHO criticize him are aiding and abetting terrorists. The ultimate Thought Crime was given voice by no less a figure than Trump's Counterterrorism Director, who, since Trump found the worst possible person to do each job (and bin Laden is dead) is Sebastian Gorka. The threat is connected to the push to send not just immigrants to rot in a For-Profit El Salvador Rendition Center, but American citizens too, especially those who standup to Trump's attempt to purge Hispanics from this country. Axios reports that one of the other potential new Orwellian crimes would be advising detainees of their rights. If that's not directed at AOC I don't know what could be. B-Block (25:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Derrick Van Orden attacks Wisconsin's governor because Van Orden thinks Milwaukee kids are stupid - and he misspells the word "how" in his post. Brian Kilmeade's Hegseth spoiler alert: he calls him "former secretary." And we are all very proud here that one of 'our own' has reduced Bill Maher to graffiti. Further details on "My Dinner With Adolf." C-Block (37:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I had literally forgotten - until I literally worked through the neighborhood - that I made my Broadway singing and dancing debut seven years ago. I mean literally, on stage, during an actual Broadway show. If it made that much of an impression on me, imagine how bored the audience was! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  --------  

  52:01
• MURKOWSKI COULD LEAD GOP REVOLT AGAINST TRUMP - 4.21.25

  SEASON 3 EPISODE 119: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Senator Lisa Murkowski may be the most important person in the country right now. Her public confession that she too is afraid of the Trump nightmare and her HINTS at talking to Senate colleagues ABOUT her fear – could provide just enough Republican rebellion to rein Trump in. It feels as if she just got it, as if she just understood that yes Trump is Nazi-esque and yes Trump often emulates the Soviets but the closest parallel to him is O'Brien and "The Party" in Orwell's "1984" and the simple terrifying conviction that "the object of power is power." That's why I think when Kristi Garden Noem and Secretary of Defense (and Vodka) Hegseth (if he's still on the job after ANOTHER Signal chat came to light) file their report on the border to Trump this week and tell him no, they don't need to invoke The Insurrection Act, he may do it anyway because... the object of power is power. Murkowski and thirteen other Republican Senators and at most four Republican Representatives can stop this. They can save the country. They can impeach Trump or if they still can’t get over the hump, the 18 of you can use the THREAT to impeach him, to virtually fetter him, to at least control the width and breadth of his damage, to make him know the Senate WILL vote against him. She can also talk to anybody on the Supreme Court except Alito or Thomas. The other seven, in the middle of the damn night - at 1 AM Saturday - stepped in to freeze any further disappearing Americans under the phony premise of The Alien Enemies Act. And there is reason to hope that these Murkowski-led conversations might happen before the iron curtain of dictatorship descends: Later in her confession of fear, she hinted at doing exactly what I just suggested. Meanwhile, how many times can you self-destruct on this? Gavin Newsom dismisses the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case as a "distraction" and calls Democrats sheep for defending the constitution. On the other hand, Senator Ed Markey is crafting a sense of the senate resolution stating Trump cannot again be elected, and cannot again serve, as president or vice president. Damn Straight. B-Block (40:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Musk Crappertruck Owner who claims to also be a "girl dad"; Pennsylvania congressman Dan Meuser kinda blames Governor Josh Shapiro's criticizing Trump for provoking the attempt to incinerate him and his family in the governor's mansion on Passover. And Trump DEI hire Pam Bondi lies that compulsive martyr and 85th Place Olympic Trials finisher Riley Gaines "went to the Olympics." Not unless she bought a ticket, Pam Blondie. C-Block (55:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The renewed Trump bid to ban the Associated Press got me talking to a friend: How MANY times have I been banned, as a reporter? Do you mean this century, or in total? It's... a lot. From the LA Clippers to the ESPN Campus, I've been banned... a lot. And je ne regret rien!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  --------  

  1:19:26
• JAIL KRISTI NOEM AND TOM HOMAN FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT - 4.14.25

  SEASON 3 EPISODE 118: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: ICE Director Tom Homan and his boss Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem must be arrested for contempt of court. It SHOULD be President Ted Bundy Trump being arrested for contempt of court – potentially for ignoring the orders of the SUPREME COURT - but we already know how the laws of this land have been corrupted to protect the greatest criminal in our history. That it cannot be will simply hasten the latest iteration of the constitutional crisis created by a lawless chief executive who still has the military behind him. We are headed for a flashpoint, perhaps as soon as today. To summarize: Trump believes he is God. But in the interim it is time for U-S District Judge Paula Xinis to send this rogue government a message. In fact it is well past time. “Time” was two days ago, at 5 PM. Noem and Homan are now in contempt of HER order in the case of the Noem-Homan-ICE abduction, the DISAPPEARING of a Maryland man already under the PROTECTION of the government of the United States, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. They are in contempt of the orders not of some judge – as the fascist Stephen Miller and his brownshirts call any representative of law and order – they are in contempt of the LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. It is not some judge. They are in contempt of the NATION and they are on the VERGE of being in contempt of the Supreme Court. The point, of course, may be the admission that they abducted someone by "mistake." They sent a Massachusetts-born immigration lawyer a notice to leave the country by "mistake." They warned ICE will keep illegal "ideas" from entering the country, by "mistake." Maybe these are mistakes - God knows, it all involves Elon Musk - but now they see an opportunity to exploit even mistakes to deliver the message, passively but still aggressively, that even when they are wrong they are still RIGHT because even when they are wrong what do you think YOU are going to be able to DO about it? What do you think YOU are going to be able to DO about it, Mrs Abrego Garcia? What do you think YOU are going to be able to DO about it, Judge? What do you think YOU are going to be able to DO about it, AMERICA? B-Block (40:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: We have a new member of the WPITW Hall of Fame, Linda McMahon. We dedicate this episode to Stephen A. Smith, still making a fool of himself. And then the nominees: Bill Maher makes a propaganda video for Trump saying all the nice things about Trump that Maher has forgotten he already said about them in 2016 and then repudiated. Trump butt dials the wrong McMaster. And Jeanine Pirro may be the dumbest person to ever work at Fox News. Do you know what an accomplishment this would be? C-Block (1:04:05) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK: A quick announcement about the immediate future of this podcast. Sounds more ominous than it is.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  --------  

  1:04:29
• TRUMP JUST LOST THE TARIFF WAR - 4.10.25

  SEASON 3 EPISODE 117: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump has already LOST the tariff wars he finally claimed he paused yesterday (without really pausing). Already. Took him only eight days. From Liberation Day to a day when in any other war, literal or figurative, he would have been deposed - 8 days. And never mind how much YOU AND I think he’s crazy; a high-priced adviser to macro fund managers says “a few have quietly wondered if the president might be insane." And after Wall Street came off the ledge and got back to where it was Monday – only, what, seven trillion lost – he declared victory. “Up 2500 points. Nobody has ever heard of it. Gotta be a record.” Because he can’t admit he made a mistake; his head would fall off. His approval numbers have cratered. He’s underwater by an AVERAGE of six points. LAST Wednesday it was an average of TWO points. Since the election he’s lost 20 points among those over age 65; he’s lost 50 points among those under age 30. And he still raised the tariffs on the Chinese again – to 125 percent – because he’s mad at them. Because they of course are winning. Because the Chinese are not negotiating; the Chinese are as they have been for centuries, waiting for their opponents to DIE. The Chinese are apparently dumping our 10-Year Treasuries, driving up our debt. And they’ve opened trading partnership negotiations with the head of the European Union. And for all the claims about pausing the tariffs, a universal TEN percent tariff will be maintained. He didn't pause anything. He simply lost everything. B-Block (27:10) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Joe Manchin writes a book celebrating his middle of the road bona fides. The cover photo shows only the right half of his face, naturally. Marjorie Stupid Greene reveals she does not know what the word "Merch" means. And the president of the hockey writers' association, a bonehead named Frank Seravalli, not only defends Wayne Gretzky's attacks on Canada but his bringing FBI Director and Election Denier Kash Patel to the Ovechkin game - and calls CRITICISM of those decisions "political BS." Instead of, maybe, calling out Gretzky for BRINGING political BS into a moment of sports history. C-Block (49:15) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: She's still at it. Even as Trump's boasts of pausing the tariffs while INCREASING them on China and maintaining them on everybody else, Laura Ingraham is still carrying his water for him. It's time for me to review my dates with her last century, and the extraordinary revelation she made during the first of them about the then-nascent Republican-Media Industrial Complex.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  --------  

  1:01:46
• I WANT POLLING ON A PRESIDENTIAL RECALL VOTE - 4.7.25

  SEASON 3 EPISODE 116: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: I want polling on a special, emergency, extra-constitutional Presidential Recall Vote. I know there isn't going to BE a Presidential Recall Vote. I know we're not going extra-constitutional, we're not REPUBLICANS dammit. But they are always making up laws (inside the Supreme Court and outside of it) on the premise that the people really want it, so after this week of unprecedented insane unnecessary failure on the part of Trump and his Team of Imbecilic Rivals, I want to know where we stand. Because the moment we get 10 Republicans in the House and 14 in the Senate to believe that if Trump stays in office, their careers are over, he's gone. Half of them think he's nuts already and a quarter have had doubts. They need to be pushed and I don't want to wait until the mid-terms for them to get the damned message I want SOME pollster - independent, news-related, hired by the Democrats, SOMEBODY - to ask these questions: 1) if the election were re-run today would you vote for Trump or a Democrat. Or another Republican. Or a fairly intelligent farm animal. 2) would you support a special recall vote to potentially reverse the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. 3) would you describe the current financial panic and the upcoming tsunami of inflation and unemployment as a national emergency. 4) do you think Donald Trump has lost his mind. 5) do you think Donald Trump is mentally fit to run the country. 6) do you think Donald Trump is acting to destroy the United States on behalf of a foreign country. 7) do you think it is necessary to act outside the constitution if necessary to save the United States of America FROM Donald Trump. 8) if the midterm elections for the Senate and the House were tomorrow would you vote Republican or Democratic? WHATEVER the percentages are they could easily scare the crap out of 10 House Republicans and 14 Senate Republicans and the day they do, Trump vanishes. You doubt me? Ask Richard Nixon. Ask Abraham Lincoln, whom they were ready to get rid of seven months before Lee surrendered at Appomattox because they thought he wasn't going to be re-elected. Also is it possible the Democrats are listening to me? Obama emerges to spout sense, as I've asked. The DNC Chair founds "The People's Cabinet." All we need now is POLLING ON A PRESIDENTIAL RECALL VOTE. B-Block (31:28) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Pittsburgh Pirates rip a Roberto Clemente memorial off their outfield wall to make room for an ad for seltzer, a Republican influencer insists there are no tariffs on Russia because we don't import anything from Russia (we import $2.5 Billion a year from Russia), and the Secretary of the Treasury wants YOU to buy American while he buys British. (41:28) SPORTSBALLCENTER: Alexander Ovechkin DOES have more goals than Wayne Gretzky now, but no, that's still not the big league hockey record (and Gretzky managed to throw himself out another window during the celebrations) and the date of the first American, maybe the first human, to be photographed giving the finger to the cameraman has to be pushed back from 1886 to 1882 after a discovery this weekend about baseball Hall of Famer Old Hoss Radbourn. C-Block (55:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I have been asked by a listener to expand on last week's news that Chuck Todd not only does not realize that his news career is over but he thinks investors are going to give him $2,000,000,000 to go buy a news organization now. The answer to the question "Chuck Todd: Why?"See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  --------  

  1:09:34

More News podcasts

Trending News podcasts

About Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Countdown with Keith Olbermann: Podcasts in Family