Countdown with Keith Olbermann

• A REPORTER MUST STAND UP TO TRUMP. NOW, NOW, NOW! - 12.11.25

  SEASON 4 EPISODE 39: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: As Trump threatens the New York Times with sedition and treason charges and tells finance clowns and his government goons that he gets to choose who gets to be on CNN and what they get to say, we are at the tipping point. The first news reporter who stands up to his insults and calls him out to his face in public will get fired - and within 48 hours get a new job paying twice as much or more, and will become a national hero. America is crying out for somebody to take the risk that isn’t really a risk and tell him to shut the hell up and to EFF off and to SHOVE his A++++ economy and his threats and stochastic calls for destruction and violence. It is time. NOW NOW NOW. The tragedy here of course is that it is accepted, inside the news business, without a second thought, that there is nothing reporters – even bad ones – can do about this without risking their careers and lives. Bull. The first one who gets told “You are the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place. Let me just tell you -- you are an obnoxious -- a terrible reporter” and replies “So what? What does that have to do with my question? Nothing. And, with all due respect SIR, the majority of this nation considers you a failure as a president. And what does THAT have to do with your answer? The one you DIDN’T just give? NOTHING. The majority of this nation thinks you are vindictive, stupid, hypocritical, hateful, destructive, soul-less, and quite probably losing your sanity. I’M a terrible reporter? You’re the worst government leader in the history of the western hemisphere.” B-Block (32:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Sean Duffy wants you to wear a suit to the airport and...work out in it before you get on the plane? Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale calls for public hangings and says without irony or self-satire "If I'm in charge later..." OK, you first. And Missouri congresswoman Ann Wagner, in the middle of redistricting gerrymandering, turns out to not know the name of the third largest city in the state capitol district and thinks that city is in California. C-Block (42:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Somebody asked me how I felt about Chris Matthews being back on MSNBCNOWWHATEVER with Joe Scarborough and I actually said I felt sorry for Scarborough. Then I told them the saga of Chris, co-anchoring a funeral with me, drooling over Jennifer Granholm. On the air. So I'll tell you.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• TRUMP DEMENTIA: 14TH TIME HE'S CLAIMED GAS PRICES "JUST HIT $1.98" - 12.8.25

  SEASON 4 EPISODE 38: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: It’s not simple gaslighting about the price of gas: It’s neurological disintegration; obsessive repetition of the same lie. He has now - for the 14th time in 28 weeks - announced with shock and excited surprise that gas has "just hit" $1.98 a gallon (or "$1.99" or "under $2.00"). It's not just a lie; it's something he heard, could not understand in the first place, and is repeating at regular intervals as if he just heard it moments earlier. It is a classic sign of neurological crisis. And it is proof that invoking the 25th Amendment is imperative. And won’t happen. Any more than Trump realizing he already TOLD that lie. ALSO: Jack Smith still has a way to make the second half of his report convicting Trump public, while it turns out he tried to get rid of Aileen Cannon a year ago. It is also becoming increasingly apparent that ESPN's Stephen A. Smith may be the Jill Stein of 2028 - a stalking horse pretending to be a Democrat while being pushed by fascists. We know this much: he's mailing it in. He thinks the name of the governor of Florida is named "Ron Santis." AND TRUMP AND MELANIA talking about "Pile Driving" at night in the White House? That must be the first time in eighteen years. B-Block (35:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Shamwow guy is back and, what else, running for Congress as a MAGA because he can't keep this up all day. Bari Weiss obviously never saw the Mary Tyler Moore Show: she's fired her old CBS News Anchors before she's fired her NEW CBS News Anchors. And Jake Tapper really does it: after he put his thumb on the scale for Trump in the Biden debate and wrote a book and sold it on CNN about Biden's acuity, he's defending Trump's mental instability. C-Block (42:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Hal Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees whose franchise has increased in value by three billion in just the last four years, is trying to convince people that maybe the Yankees aren't profitable. This is clownage as old as sports itself: the saga of the year the owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers insisted "we lost two million last year!"See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• TRUMP, A WHITE SUPREMACIST, IS SICK THE WAY WOODROW WILSON WAS - 12.4.25

  SEASON 4 EPISODE 37: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: There are three critical headlines: Trump has now convinced me he is sick, the way President Woodrow Wilson was sick. Once again it looks like Tuesday's cabinet meeting attendees were warned: praise him today because he may not recognize you tomorrow. It's Anosognosia and it's why Trump can convince himself that of course nobody knows what body part the MRI they just got was for. They never tell anybody what the MRI is for. What are you, an idiot? Secondly, with his nauseating attack on Somali-Americans of Minnesota yesterday and Tuesday, we will no longer accept any debate on this point: Donald Trump is a full-on White Supremacist, a racist who is no longer hiding it, who cannot continue as president. The hood is OFF. And thirdly, it is increasingly obvious that the Democrats must have put out that Do-Not-Obey-Illegal-Orders video when they did because there a chain of evidence has come to light suggesting the September 2 kill-the-boat-survivors order from the Secretary of War Crimes…was an illegal order, right? Plus, the racist reaction to the DC shootings will remind anybody in the next Afghanistan whose help we need that any promise we make to them, we will break. Thank you John Ratcliffe and Trump. B-Block (35:45) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Department of Labor couldn't decide which would best enhance its Lincoln meme: the stars from the Confederate flag, or the font the Nazis used. So they chose both! Bari Weiss wants more main stream charismatic figures for CBS News. You know, like Alan Dershowitz. And not to say Larry David destroyed Bill Maher's life with his article about Bill breaking bread with Trump ("My Dinner With Adolf") but Maher is complaining about it again. The article was in APRIL. C-Block (56:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The passing of the greatest Production Assistant in SportsCenter history, future stand-up comic Steve "Sarge" Pickman. And that little Nuzzi-Lizza story now extends to illegal taping, erasure of evidence, what might be the worst reviews for a political book this century ("Olivia Nuzzi's Tell-Nothing Memoir"), a series of rebuttals so long that it could become the basis for a Ken Burns Documentary series - and the under-reported news that Nuzzi's contract with Vanity Fair expires in four weeks. There's no need to fire her, she'll just fade away over the holidays.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• NOW IT'S MAGA THAT CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHAT'S WRONG WITH TRUMP - 11.24.25

  SEASON 4 EPISODE 35: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-BLOCK (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Well here's a switcheroo. For the first time in more than a decade, the far right and the far left and everybody in between are in full agreement: NONE OF US knows… what the hell is wrong with Trump. Trump was so smitten with Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani that by Saturday he was DRESSING like Mamdani; a neat black overcoat that fit him – and a red scarf that enveloped his neck – hair, combed with something other than a garden claw. And remember: some far right commentators had almost expected that when Mamdani arrived at the White House he would be greeted by Trump and Tom Homan and hooded ICE gestapo agents who would fabricate some story about Mamdani lying on paperwork, seize him, and expel him. They expected Mamdani to leave the Oval Office in chains; instead, Trump left the Oval Office in love. AND NOW MARGE GREENE is out, and Laura Loomer is asking 'why bother to vote next year?' and Charles Gasparino is saying the wheels are off the Trump presidency and even the MAGAs think Trump has gone nuts and it's over. It's not - but it's nice to watch them squirm. Plus the Kash Patel/Girlfriend/SWAT team fiasco and even the Ukraine proposal literally written in Russian by Russians has embarrassed them. It's fabulous. PLUS A NEW THOUGHT ON TRUMP'S INEXPLICABLE MRI. Maybe he really doesn't know what happened. Maybe he has anosognosia, the disease that makes it impossible for you to acknowledge or even remember that you have a disease. Maybe they told him why he got that MRI - and he immediately blocked it out. B-BLOCK (34:00) YOUR LATEST NUZZI DOOZY NEWS. Yes, the big screaming uh, RECYCLING headline is gross. But it's not the real story. The real story is: Ryan Lizza now claims that for a year, before the election, while she was working for New York Magazine, my ex was doing Catch and Kill operations on RFK's behalf. Very bad news for all involved. And that she told him if anybody ever found out about her and Bob, he'd kill her. She exaggerates, but he doesn't think this was one of those. Plus, Vanity Fair is about to get rid of her. Feel free to skip this update. C-BLOCK (1:02:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Rookie Chicago cop shoots himself in the silver bullets, the Ellisons are willing to fire any CNN anchor Trump doesn't want in exchange for him letting them buy CNN, and Laura Loomer and Catturd are so stupid they fell for the oldest joke in the "Arabic" book. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• TRUMP IS A LAME DUCK NOW - AND THE (LATEST) OLIVIA NUZZI STORY - 11.20.25

  SEASON 4 EPISODE 35: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-BLOCK (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is now a lame duck. A lame Donald. A lame duck Donald. A lame Donald Duck. I like it. It’s not just that MAGA stood up to him and a GOP/Democratic coalition beat him 427 to 1 on Epstein. It's that that was something even most of the Washington political media industrial complex can understand, can process, can WRITE using the cliches in which they trafficked until Trump and his unprecedented madness came along. This looked all too familiar and they jumped on it with both feet and the same cliché: LAME DUCK. Fortune used it. NBC. Semafor. The National Review. Nate Silver's site asked "Is Trump A Lame Duck?" CNN's went further: "Is Trump A Lame Duck NOW?" It's so bad there was a Politico Lame Duck Listicle! "Seven signs Trump is losing his groove." And then the final nail: “It’s Official: Donald Trump is a lame duck by President”by Chris Cillizza, part of his weekly conversation with Chuck Todd. It's never over til it's over, Yogi, but it's over. B-BLOCK (25:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: I'm the character in The (Latest) Olivia Nuzzi story who gets shot in the first scene, but I still know more about her than almost any outsider and there is a lot to correct on her epically bad book excerpt in Vanity Fair, and the riposte by the more recent ex, Ryan Lizza, who was apparently told by Olivia that I was stalking her at the same time as Olivia was telling me there was a guy in Washington stalking her, named Ryan Lizza. The Nuzzi News is a Doozy and we all lose. This was to be a comeback; now she'll need an entirely new comeback to come back from her come back. And how does Vanity Fair keep her employed after the Mark Sanford accusation made her explanation of her RFK Jr lies into a separate lie? C-BLOCK (1:00:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Trump accuses himself of rigging the 2020 census. It was in July, but Bill O'Reilly insisted that Jeffrey Epstein was prosecuted by Biden and Garland, and refused to correct himself even after he was reminded Epstein died during Trump's first presidency. And Bill Maher says he's giving up touring because people who are half as funny are selling twice as many tickets. Who does he mean? The New York Jets? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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