Countdown with Keith Olbermann

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“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.

  1. 12 HR AGO

    TRUMP'S TERRORISM KILLS MINNEAPOLIS POET RENEE GOOD - 1.8.26

    SEASON 4 EPISODE 48: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: This is Trump’s terrorism; this is the Kent State of our time. A peaceful, unarmed protestor, murdered by Trump’s ICE, while Trump’s Lie Factory and Trump personally smeared her, blamed her, made up a story of threat where there was no threat, altered images, lied about her, lied about what the Gestapo they sent to kill Americans in American cities did to her. Two weeks from Saturday, it will be ten years since he said it. January 24, 2016: I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” And once again his stochastic terrorist murderous wish has come true. Only it was on East 34th Street in Minneapolis. One of his Border-Patrol-ICE militia shot and killed Renee Macklin Good. ICE killed her, and then they slandered her. Trump has his wish. The Trump Administration has begun its shooting war, its reign of terror, against the peaceful and unarmed citizens of the United States. It can be disputed whether Renee Macklin Good was the first. It cannot be disputed that unless Trump is legally restrained, she will not be the last. And later, the ICE/Border Control militia attacked a Minneapolis high school. And Trump chose the day of his crime-by-proxy, after the murder, to insist that he has quote “determined” that the military budget for 2027 needs to be increased from the obscene level of one trillion dollars… by FIFTY PERCENT to a trillion and a half. That is the military he wants to use against American civilians on American streets. That is the military he JUST used against American civilians on American streets in Minneapolis. ALSO: I DON'T MAKE THE RULES. Trump's renditioning of Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela means, simply, that any country that would like to send a squad to this country to abduct one of our leaders needs only to have first indicted Trump in their own country - and cut a deal with JD Vance to take over as presidency and swear fealty to their country. B-Block (29:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Earlier this week seemed to have been dedicated to Trump's most concentrated revelation of his insanity. Tuesday, at a Republican retreat, he hit all the notes, and pretty much cemented the idea that he indeed suffers from anosognosia (an inability to perceive an illness, especially a dementia-related one). C-Block (37:00) DEATH BY MEDIA: This is just day six of the Tony Dokoupil debacle but if you don't think CBS could bail out of this fast, I was a witness when they took their third most profitable news property - the local CBS News in Los Angeles - and invented a new format called "The News Wheel." It went over so poorly it was cancelled after a month and a day. And since Bari Weiss skipped right past trying to emulate Fox News and went directly to Alex Jones News, they may have to bail out. But there's a whole back story you may not know about. WHY Weiss personally selected Dokoupil to helm this disaster, and why Katy Tur married him. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    57 min

  2. 20 HR AGO

    BULLETIN: OUR KENT STATE - ICE KILLS PROTESTOR - 1.7.25

    BULLETIN PODCAST: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN The Trump Administration has begun its shooting war, its reign of terror, against the peaceful and unarmed citizens of the United States. A woman is dead in Minneapolis, killed by ICE, reportedly a legal observer during a raid in a local neighborhood.  In one statement, ICE claimed the victim was trying to run over an agent; in another it claimed an agent HAD been run over. Neither claim is true. Multiple videos show without a shadow of a doubt that this is a lie. As a car – which was not even blocking a street - moves out of the way of an ICE vehicle, a militia member exits HIS car, approaches the victim’s car from the back and the side, and shoots the driver three times through the driver's window. Reportedly in the face. The shooter is clear of the vehicle.  Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis has told ICE to "get the f***" out of Minneapolis. Minnesota governor Tim Walz has taken a preliminary step towards mobilizing his national guard, issued a so-called “warning order” to the Minnesota National Guard – as he termed it, a “heads up” to its members that he may call up the Guard. A full Countdown podcast will follow at Midnight. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    7 min

  3. 3 DAYS AGO

    TRUMP MAKES HIMSELF MILITARY DICTATOR OF VENEZUELA - 1.5.26

    SEASON 4 EPISODE 46: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Well, that's it in sum, isn't it? He's "El Presidente" now, isn't he? Military Dictator. Succeeding Maduro. Until he finds somebody else to “run” it. Not the elected Vice President. Not the actual winner of the last election. Not the U-N. Maybe somebody he, in his dysfunctional haze, somebody he can trust. Maybe an oil executive. Or Elon Musk. Or Catturd.  The invasion was illegal there, and illegal here. The kidnapping was illegal. Declaring we would run it is illegal. Naming a proxy dictator is illegal. As was his threat yesterday to the acting president that quote “if she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro” and calling for her belief that her country shouldn’t be invaded by another country breaking its own laws is quote “defiant rejection.” THAT’S illegal. It’s all illegal. That’s a lot of illegal – even for Trump. And I say this, hating Maduro completely. So he needs to be impeached, if not now then a year from now. Rubio can be impeached now for deceiving Congress about its approval. And both of them turned over to the World Court. And the ramifications are almost uncountable, including emboldening them to consider this in Cuba, Greenland, Iran. The poll numbers are terrible, and the risk to Americans of terrorism and violence are just as terrible. And maybe worst of all the evidence of linkage between Putin's strange silence about his ally Maduro, and Trump's dithering about Ukraine, is terrible too.  But at least it produced a pretty good Olivia Nuzzi joke. ALSO: WHY DID THEY CHANGE THE TRUMP HEALTH COVER-UP STORY AGAIN? Five significant changes, about his MRI/CT, his cardiovascular health, and now the total of Cognitive tests he's gotten in just the last nine months. Three? Not two? He's really needed three tests in nine months? To repeat the insightful question from his niece Mary Trump: Why do they have to keep giving him cognitive tests? B-Block (40:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: There's begging the new boss to let you keep your current job, then there's what CBS Legal Analyst Jan Crawford is doing for Bari Weiss to try to keep hers. Chuck Schumer comes out firing on Venezuela: with one-millionth of one barrel blazing. And just when you think Cheryl Hines can't get any dumber, Tucker Carlson tries to talk to her about vaccines. C-Block (50:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Will Ferrell did a great comedy bit at the L.A. Kings hockey game on New Year's Day and he did it for the pure joy of it. Which reminded me of the difference between amateurs and pros, and of the days when "Anchorman" was new and Will and I ad libbed a pretty good comedy bit that he said he really loved doing.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    57 min

  4. 5 DAYS AGO

    BULLETIN: TRUMP UNCONSTITUTIONALLY INVADES VENEZUELA, FOR OIL - 1.3.26

    BULLETIN: TRUMP'S ILLEGAL WAR WITH VENEZUELA Two months ago, in an interview, Trump's Chief of Staff Susie Wiles "conceded that attacking targets on Venezuela’s mainland would force Trump to get congressional approval. Quote: "If he were to authorize some activity on land, then it’s war, then [we’d need] Congress.'" She was entirely right. Yet overnight Trump invaded Venezuela and seized its leader Nicolas Maduro. To paraphrase his own chief of staff he DID authorize some activity on land, then it’s war, then [we’d need] Congress.'" AND TRUMP BROKE THE LAW AND BREACHED THE CONSTITUTION.  And this morning he and his hapless Vice President JD Vance confirmed this is as much about seizing oil - as much about increasing the profits of American corporations - as any supposed "narco-terrorism." Without any Congressional consent, Trump did this - anyway - from inside his madness, from within his monomaniacal delusional fog - without any legal right to do so - without any legal right THERE and without any legal right HERE. On his own. Without congressional approval. Without the nation's approval. Without even the flimsiest of the fig leaves of democracy. Without any international consensus. Without any concern for the consequences. Without any consideration of the precedent he provides China in Taiwan and Russia in Poland and any other tyrannical bandit nation anywhere in this world.And we, thanks to Trump, we - the United States of America - are now that tyrannical bandit nation. It is important to note that on the simple, theoretical scale of who should remain as the leader of a failed rogue state, there is no defense for Nicolas Maduro. There is overwhelming evidence that he fabricated his latest quote “re-election” after first denuding the opposition and the law within his country. Again, by those tokens Trump has just put us on that identical path. And the idea that a country is suffering under a dictator who has no moral right to continue can be said even more easily of Putin. And of Xi in China. And dozens of others, many of whom Trump considers friends, about whom he makes no distinction. Maduro has no moral right to continue as president of Venezuela, and Trump has no moral right to act upon that by himself.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    17 min

  5. 29/12/2025

    WHEN DO WE START BOMBING RUSSIANS WHO ARE KILLING CHRISTIANS IN UKRAINE? - 12.29.25

    SEASON 4 EPISODE 44: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Why isn’t Trump bombing RUSSIAN terrorist scum who have been targeting and viciously killing innocent Christians in UKRAINE? I mean now that our White Supremacist Theocratic Bandit government has gone into the Crusades business; now that per Trump we’re bombing to kill ISIS terrorist scum “who have been targeting and viciously killing...innocent Christians” in NIGERIA, shouldn't yesterday's meeting with Zelensky have been about how Trump is going to protect the Christians in Ukraine - and Ukraine is an 85% Christian country - by bombing the Russian terrorist scum who have been targeting and viciously killing innocent Christians IN Ukraine? I'm not holding my breath. But since it's obvious that yesterday all Trump did was stall, just as all he's been doing since he again seized power is stalling on Putin's behalf (he even took a call from Putin 72 minutes before the Zelensky meeting began), isn't this tack supporters of Ukraine and Europe and world freedom who aren't morons like Trump or Rubio who think 'it's not our war because OCEANS' (a logical argument as long as this is the year 1909) should now take? ALSO: THE TRUMP PARDON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX? It seems brand new. In fact there was a lawsuit alleging Rudy Giuliani told his girlfriend he and Trump were selling pardons for $2,000,000 apiece as long ago as 2019. And we check in MAGA stupidity, how even Brian Krassenstein trolled them, and why on earth Stephen Miller would think the term "sexual matador" is a compliment given how much he hates Mexicans and Spanish-speaking people like, you know, Matadors. B-Block (33:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Somebody actually tries to insult the Pope by calling him "Holier Than Thou"; WSJ has a piece blasting Jack Smith written by the first lawyer Trump hired to defend himself against Jack Smith, the ironically named "James Trusty"; Trump is finally hoisted on his lawsuit petard. If we damaged you financially or emotionally, says the Pulitzer Prize Board, we're going to know by how much so we'll need all your fiancial and emotional health records. C-Block (46:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: What did you get for Christmas? I got a Baseball Cap! From Ted Turner! Of course, this is Christmas 1982 I'm talking about. The saga of Ted, my first tv job, and what might have been my last tv job after he and I argued in public. But it ended happily - with baseball caps for Christmas. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    55 min

  6. 22/12/2025

    TRUMP BLOWS UP THE EPSTEIN SCANDAL LIKE A BEACHED WHALE IN OREGON - 12.22.25

    SEASON 4 EPISODE 43: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: TRUMP BLOWS UP THE EPSTEIN DEAD WHALE - AND WHY DID HE NAME IT TRUMP MEMORIAL? Remember when they blew up the eight-ton beached whale carcass in Oregon in 1970? Tons of dynamite, they figured it would vaporize the poor dead creature and any pieces left over would be devoured by birds? And instead they sent chunks of hard blubber a hundred feet in the air and actually crushed a car and left debris everywhere? That's what Trump just did to the Epstein Scandal. Trump doxed victims. Published and then deleted photos of himself. Planted photos of Bill Clinton and got caught. It’s raining chunks of Epstein dead whale blubber on the White House AND TRUMP.  And I know this is semantics. But why did Trump re-name it ““The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy MEMORIAL Center for the Performing Arts”  That means it’s the Donald J. Trump Memorial Center. Why did he name it TRUMP MEMORIAL? Did I miss a bulletin or something? AND IN MEMORY OF PETER ARNETT: A colleague of mine the day I started full time in television at CNN in 1982 and the day I started full time in news in 2003, he was a great reporter because he could tell the truth about Vietnam, sneak into Afghanistan, cheat death, and then when nothing big was happening would go cover a snowstorm in Manhattan or counsel a rookie sportscaster who needed advice.  B-Block (28:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Mehmet Oz has an update on the great challenge of inflation in the penis market, Riley Gaines (America's favorite 85th Place Finisher) has podcast news, and Lindsey Halligan misspells "Virginia." At least we THINK she meant Virginia. C-Block (36:00) CHRISTMAS WITH THURBER: Haven't done any lately and there is a holiday coming so here goes. My favorite - and the first Thurber story I ever read aloud ("A Box To Hide In"). His best known ("The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty") and the one that inadvertently brought me into the 'official' Thurber fold ("The Peacelike Mongoose"). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    55 min

  7. 18/12/2025

    TRUMP IS DROWNING - 12.18.25

    SEASON 4 EPISODE 42: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is drowning. Trump’s presidency is DROWNING. Yesterday, it was Republicans forcing a vote to extend Obamacare subsidies. Yesterday, 38 PERCENT approval in the Marist poll. Monday, his Rob Reiner tweet that appalled even the worst of MAGA. Tuesday, Susie Wiles. Friday, the Epstein Files, proving: no, history doesn’t repeat itself but yes, sometimes it LITERALLY rhymes. The Venezuela Wag-The-Dog episode collapsed before it started. It's about Narco-terrorism, whatever the eff that is? Oil? Stuff they stole? Nuh uh. For the first but not the last time we turn to Susie Wiles for the, uh, well, it’s a strange word to use about the Trump administration but here it is: TRUTH. "He wants to keep on blowing boats up until [president Nicolás] Maduro cries uncle. And people way smarter than me on that say that he will." She also single-handedly ended the just-forming prosecution of Jack Smith, and the vowed prosecution of Anthony Fauci, and the already-moribund prosecutions of James Comey and Letitia James and Adam Schiff and and and…All those cases will be thrown out of court. All of them. Because Susie Wiles is on tape saying quote “I don’t think he wakes up thinking about retribution but when there’s an opportunity he will go for it.” About Comey, quote: “I mean, people could think it does look vindictive. I can’t tell you why you shouldn’t think that.” Trump’s chief of staff. Confirming it’s retribution. And retribution means selective prosecution and selective prosecution is illegal and you not only get the case thrown out, if you’ve had to defend yourself or your reputation has been hurt, you can sue the government. And it’s on TAPE. So why did she say it? Why did she think she could get away with it? Because inside the White House even the Chief of Staff knows Trump is drowning. And they are beginning to distance themselves from him. B-Block (27:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Laura Ingraham doesn't know Niagara Falls is in Ontario or Ontario is in Canada or that Premier Doug Ford isn't an American. I make bad choices in Exes. And these MAGA idiots just cannot see anything in the world any more without trying to force it into their brain-dead templates: it MUST be political and it MUST be an attack on Trump. New York City councilwoman Vickie Paladino "knows" the terrible shooting was an attack on Republicans at Brown University, and the moronic troll "Cat Turd" is sure they're wiping the shooter's social media history clean (which is an idea he should execute). C-Block (37:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I'm off by only four days from the exact anniversary, but it is now 42 years since I first met and interviewed Trump and I know most of us who knew him before knew he was nuts, but I must give myself credit. An hour after that meeting I was asking a colleague "what the eff is wrong with THAT guy?" See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    39 min

  8. 15/12/2025

    BULLETIN: TRUMP CELEBRATES THE MURDER OF ROB REINER - 12.15.25

    SEASON 4 EPISODE 41: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN The president of the United States is celebrating the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife. It is at first impossible to believe that what follows isn’t satire. Then it becomes heart-breaking that it isn’t satire. Then it becomes infuriating. Finally it becomes more evidence that every minute this man is permitted to REMAIN president – the rest of us – the rest of us in the WORLD – are in mortal danger. Trump really believes that Rob Reiner “passed away… due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with… Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Trump’s ability to make everything about HIM – his need to be, as the old dark joke goes, the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral – is not some kind of act. You will recall his reaction to 9/11 – that it made HIM the owner of the SECOND tallest building in downtown Manhattan, not just the third. It crested when he publicly speculated that a baseball player broke his ankle because he sold his apartment in a Trump building. It is called Shallow Affect and it means in essence that you do not KNOW how actual normal humans interact nor what causes the events in THEIR lives. You cannot CONCEIVE of their lives. You look at a picture of the world and you see only you. You look in a mirror and you correctly see YOU but you are firmly convinced that when OTHERS look in THEIR mirrors… they ALSO see only you. Human beings do not believe these things. Trump does. It means he can believe - and do - anything. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    9 min
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“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.

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  • Channel
    iHeartPodcasts
  • Creator
    iHeartPodcasts
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    680
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    2026 iHeartMedia, Inc. © Any use of this intellectual property for text and data mining or computational analysis including as training material for artificial intelligence systems is strictly prohibited without express written consent from iHeartMedia
  • Show Website
    Countdown with Keith Olbermann

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