Countdown with Keith Olbermann

“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. 2 DAYS AGO

    DEFEATED BY KIMMEL AND AN ESCALATOR, TRUMP SHOULD RESIGN - 9.25.25

    A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: After perhaps the most hapless 96 hours of his presidency, the worst 96 hours of the worst presidency of ALL TIME, the most FAIL in the shortest span… the mentally-deteriorating, untethered-from-reality Trump… must RESIGN. And take his idiot sycophants with him. The last 96 hours: His U.N. speech, sounding like an escapee from a psych ward. His Tylenol news conference, sounding like an escapee from a psych ward who’s been living on the street for a month. His suggestion NATO countries shoot down Russian jets. His sudden embrace of Zelensky, either another stall or a stupid dare to Putin. MAGA’s RAGE AT his sudden embrace of Zelensky. The cover of a London right wing daily: his picture and in 72-point type, the word “DERANGED.” The ICE shooting in Dallas; his sadistic Homeland chief pretending the victims were agents when they were detainees; his idiot simpering Vice President pretending the victims were agents when they were detainees; his corrupt venal FBI director pretending the victims were agents when they were detainees. His ICE chief not denying he took $50,000 in a paper bag. His staff THEN denying he took $50,000 in a paper bag. His cancellation of a meeting with Democrats making sure if there’s a government shutdown it’s all his fault. His crackpot pal Milei crashing the Venezuelan economy and needing us to bail him out. His paranoia over the stopped teleprompter at the U-N that was his White House staff’s fault. His paranoia over the stopped escalator at the U-N that was his own vanity videographer’s fault. His desire to arrest the U.N. escalator technician or the U-N escalator button pusher. His desire to arrest the escalator AND James Comey. The election of Raul Grijalva’s daughter to Congress. The fact that Adelita Grijalva will be the last Representative needed to force a vote on releasing the Trump Epstein Files. His self-humiliation at the Kirk Memorial. ABC reinstating Jimmy Kimmel. Meaning Disney told him to eff off. Meaning the National Football League told him to eff off. Meaning they all told his propagandists at Sinclair to eff off. Kimmel then shoving him in a locker using only a monologue. Kimmel getting a record 6 million viewers and 22 more online in the first TWENTY hours. Kimmel and his show getting new life and maybe a new contract. His self-owning confession that HE and his goons used threats to get Kimmel cancelled. The fact that Kimmel, and ABC, and Bob Iger, and Disney, and America told Trump to SHOVE HIS THREATS. And that’s just since Sunday night. You lost to an escalator. Resign. Take Vance with you. Take Noem with you. Take Ho-man with you. Take Milei with you. LEAVE the Epstein Files. B-Block (32:53) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jason Whitlock says eff everybody, this is Christ-land and he won't be brainwashed any more (no brain, no pain). Derrick Van Orden says Kirk was Jesus and you don't F with the Jesus so defund The Mayo Clinic (he should go there and get CT scanned) and Kristi Noem says a tweet saying she'd have a bad day was terrifying for her. This is a piece of crap who in her spare time murders puppies. C-Block (42:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The New York Post BS firehose points at a couple of liberals at a time, then it rotates away, but eventually it makes a full circle and comes back to you. For me this has been going on since the mid-1990's and it's just started again. If you'll permit, here's a brief history. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1 hr
  2. 5 DAYS AGO

    THE LEFT WINS. SOURCES: KIMMEL COULD BE BACK ON ABC THIS MONTH - 9.22.25

    SEASON 4 EPISODE 17: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: How about this for a plot twist? I'll believe it when I see it - it still depends on television executives doing the moral, right, professional thing AND tacitly admitting they are correcting a mistake, but multiple sources insist that at least at this moment the ABC people expect Jimmy Kimmel to not only not be fired but to return, on the air, in late night, probably before the end of the month. Maybe even this week. Yep. The fascist FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr may have delivered Liberals the biggest gift of the year. The blowback towards ABC is untenable (even polling: the Carr threat was "unacceptable" is above water by 17%; the Kimmel monologue was acceptable, 43%-36%) and the desire to keep Kimmel and maybe now even extend his contract has only grown since last week. And that's in large part because so many key right wingers from Ted Cruz and Rand Paul to Scott Dilbert Adams and Ben Shapiro are enraged by Carr's bullying and rightly recognize that if Trump can do this to ABC, what could a Democratic president do to Murdoch and NewsMax and... THEM. I mean, two out of three MAGAs have podcasts, right? My sources pointed to seven landmarks. First: they HAVEN’T fired him. Second: they actually haven’t said ANYTHING about him since the one sentence announcement about taking him off. Third: HE hasn’t said ANYTHING about ABC, good bad or indifferent. Fourth: remember the Sinclair owned local stations that started all the trouble? The ones who were bribing Trump and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr by DEMANDING Kimmel be sidelined, so Trump and Carr would waive the rules and let Sinclair buy more than the legal limit OF local stations? Remember their plan to run a Charlie Kirk tribute last Friday night in Kimmel’s time slot? They didn’t run it. They put it on YouTube. No other explanation. Fifth: what happened to the Sinclair demand that Kimmel apologize and pay a bribe, uh, make a donation to Kirk’s scam Turning Point Company? Sixth: how much grief did ABC take for folding to Trump AND for not defending Kimmel as the entire right wing misquoted him? So much that no human can estimate it. And Seventh: how could you possibly put all the Kimmel and Kirk toothpaste back in the tube? As Eric Idle said: All You Need Is Cash. ALSO: Grandpa posts a self-incriminating note to Pam Bondi that he must have thought was being printed or emailed or lord knows what. He is running out of prosecutors who'll prosecute innocent opponents about whom there's no evidence. The Tom Homan $50,000 scandal also involves Emil Bove (and how in the hell did we not see that coming? He literally has the word "HO" in his name). And a self-proclaimed prophetess says she saw Charlie Kirk get his reward in Heaven: a large ice cream cone. B-Block (40:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Congressman Randy Fine sets a new high in low. Stephen A. Smith thinks the Kimmel-Kirk controversy is over a joke. And Vanity Fair's hiring of Olivia Nuzzi is not sitting well with journalists (as one put it, all of them who DON'T sext their sources). C-Block (52:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Hard to understand anything she says or writes but I'm pretty sure Nancy Mace threatened to end my career over Charlie Kirk. Thus I need to review the efforts to end my career, which professionally date back only to 1984 but if you count my semi-pro days in college actually stretch back to late 1977. Virtually everybody who declared me done is out of the business, or deceased. Take a number, Nance. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1h 10m
  3. 19 SEPT

    TRUMP DECLARES CRITICISM OF HIMSELF "REALLY ILLEGAL" - BULLETIN 9.19.25

    BULLETIN: SEASON 4 EPISODE 16, COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN In an Oval Office news briefing crazy even by his standards, Trump answered a question about the FCC blackmailing of ABC over Charlie Kirk by changing the topic to himself, making up a statistic that "94, 95, 96, or 97 percent" of all network television stories about him are critical of him, and declaring of such criticism: "That's really illegal, in my opinion." In Trump's damaged condition he could forget this by morning. But after this week's mafioso style shakedown of ABC by the FCC and the owners of Sinclair to force Jimmy Kimmel off the air by FCC Commissioner, Brendan Carr, the real question is - what if he doesn't? What if somebody like Carr in his administration decides to curry favor with Trump by trying to enforce an "it's illegal to criticize Trump" declaration"? Taking the two stories together, and perhaps adding in Trump's threat to declare something that doesn't really exist (Antifa) a "terrorist organization" (which could just as easily lead to him declaring you a member of Antifa and thus a "terrorist") the FCC's action is so bad that it provoked serious, well-thought-out, sober yet angry condemnation Friday afternoon from the unlikeliest of sources: Senator Ted Cruz, who warned Republicans that the government needed to stay out of the bullying media business. Whether that will register with Trump remains to be seen. For now the gist is: Trump says criticizing him (or in the best possible interpretation, criticizing him a LOT) is illegal. He cannot remain president under such circumstances. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    14 min
  4. 18 SEPT

    KIRK DIED BECAUSE OF TRUMP'S RHETORIC; KIMMEL CANCELLED AS DISNEY FOLDS - 9.18.25

    SEASON 4 EPISODE 15: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Charlie Kirk died because he lived amid the violent madness of Donald Trump's America. Now that we can say with some certainty that if Tyler Robinson indeed shot Charlie Kirk, he shot him for personal reasons, that he saw Kirk as a direct threat to someone he loved, that Robinson was NOT a stochastic proxy murderer from Antifa or the Groypers or the Right Wingers who had so recently called Kirk a fraud like Laura Loomer, it is also clear that there is truly only ONE person whose WORDS created, amplified, mainstreamed, and manufactured the nightmarish environment that led to Charlie Kirk’s indefensible death. The leading threat in this country in this moment, to the safety and the lives of Conservatives and Republicans and MAGA commentators and politicians and citizens - the leading threat to ALL of us - is Trump. The America in which Charlie Kirk was murdered… the America in which Melissa and Mark Hortman were murdered… the America in which Paul Pelosi was beaten… the America in which Donald Trump was shot is DONALD TRUMP’s America. THIS is Donald Trump’s America and ALL THOSE who are endangered by it, and all those who fall dead at its feet, are the victims of one man and one man alone: Donald Trump. The institutionalization of vengeance is Trump. The introduction of political persecution is Trump. The inspiration for the only attempted VIOLENT OVERTHROW AND COUP against the government of the United States is Trump. The weaponization of the mob and the government against individuals he names and hopes somebody else hurts is Trump. The TERROR is Trump. B-Block (29:20) BREAKING NEWS: And the transformation of flawed democracy into lethal autocracy… is Donald Trump. After the FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr took a page from the Goebbels playbook in 1930's Germany and threatened to revoke ABC's ownership of local stations because Jimmy Kimmel dared to tell the truth about Charlie Kirk's hate speech and the MAGA exploitation of his death, Bob Iger - the Disney chairman desperate to hold on to his job and his money and his only purpose in a failed life - folded to the fascists. Kimmel is off the air, indefinitely, probably for good, and has no legal recourse to be reinstated. All he can get is the money. C-Block (49:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Robert Redford, RIP. I interviewed him once and he and it were great. And then the booking producer who was trying to get promoted to segment producer got into his ear and told him "Wrap!" See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1h 3m
  5. 18 SEPT

    BULLETIN: BOB IGER, ABC AND DISNEY FOLD TO FASCISTS, SUSPEND KIMMEL - 9.17.25

    BULLETIN, SEASON 4 EPISODE 14, COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN BULLETIN (2:55): ABC announced late this afternoon that it had taken "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" off the network's air effective immediately, because Kimmel had the nerve to tell the truth about how Trump and the MAGA terrorists have exploited the indefensible assassination of Charlie Kirk, how they have tried to blame the left without evidence and with increasing evidence that this was an instance of a man who feared Kirk was a direct threat to a person he loved, and how they have ruthlessly tried to suppress all public comment that contradicts their narrative, or the nonsensical whitewashing of Kirk's violent, ultra-right platform that once included him publicly calling for the execution of President Biden. “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said Monday. By this afternoon FCC chairman Brendan Carr dipped into the Goebbels playbook and threatened ABC's station licenses if it did not take Kimmel off the air, and the Nexstar stations that own many ABC affiliates, said they would not broadcast any more of Kimmel's shows. At that point ABC simply said the show was off the air "for the foreseeable future." Fascism can truly overtake this country's democracy only with the collaboration of Disney and ABC and people they run them - desperate people like Bob Iger, who reclaimed the chairmanship of the company and will do anything he can to maintain it - including selling this country out to the fascists. I'll also discuss why Kimmel has no recourse against the action and will most likely not appear again, and why ABC's only contractual obligation to him is to pay him the remaining year of his salary. This part of it I've personally been through - though under far less dire circumstances.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    17 min
  6. 15 SEPT

    KILMEADE: KILL THE HOMELESS. AND THE WORST ATTACKS ON KIRK? BY FUENTES AND LOOMER - 9.15.25

    SEASON 4 EPISODE 13: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN Fraud News Channel morning anchor Brian Kilmeade "apologizes" FOUR DAYS LATER for saying America’s 771,000 homeless (that'd include 33,000 Homeless Veterans and 140,000 Homeless Kids should be killed. By “involuntary lethal injection. Or something. Just kill them.” His co-host Lawrence Jones agreed with him. Fox did nothing about it. They planned to get away with it, and would have, but for Media Matters saving the original clip from last Wednesday and Aaron Rupar re-posting it Saturday morning. I had seen the clip and thought it was fake. It's that bad. And finally Sunday Kilmeade issued a wallet-felt apology. We are in such a place in this country – thanks to Trump, thanks to MAGA, thanks to the late Charlie Kirk, thanks to the Tea Party, thanks to Bush, thanks to… the list continues backwards almost indefinitely and infinitely – that this horrific vision, which in its essence is mass murder of the homeless (the most widely accepted high-end estimate of homelessness in this country is 771-thousand) – and no Kilmeade didn’t say let’s submit 771-thousand people to quote “involuntary lethal injection” – he didn’t have to. Is 771 people somehow less horrific? 77? What’s your threshold to be enraged at the prospect of simply pulling SOME homeless people off the street and lethally injecting them? Seven? One? We know what you are Kilmeade. We are just arguing about the price...to be spent on lethal injections. Fire him now. SHOCK: TRUMP HELPS PUTIN AGAIN as he escalates his attempt to rebuild the Soviet Union. Now it's test drones at the Poland border (again) and the Romanian border (new). Waiting to see if Trump blinked. He blinked so much he could've been sending Morse Code. St. CHARLIE OF KIRK: So, as Andrew Lawrence of Media Matters summarized it: Kirk "was a champion of free speech and if you disagree youre under arrest” The Trojan Horse phony bi-partisan governor of Utah is now down to insisting the family says the shooter had been indoctrinated with left wing ideology. What kind of left wing ideology? That he said he was "not a fan" of Kirk. Funny, the most venomous, most threatening criticism of Kirk in the last 60 days was Nick Fuentes saying Kirk could no longer call himself a Christian and his college events should be interrupted and he should be shouted down, and Laura Loomer insist Kirk "stabs Trump in the back." Hmmm. If harsh words killed Charlie Kirk, is that leftist ideology Fuentes and Loomer were spouting, or right wing guilt? B-Block (37:04) MORE ON CHARLIE KIRK: There are bigger issues in play. It is clear now that there were two different public Charlie Kirks. On the left we saw a slick but rather run-of-the-mill hate monger who mocked Democratic victims of political violence and wanted to see public executions. On the right, they literally never saw those videos. They only saw a "beautiful man, armed only with a bible" preaching family values. How? Different social media feeds. The other big issue with the right's collective mania and desire to punish the left for Kirk's death when it still looks like the far right did as much or more? All of those right wing influencers just assumed God was on their side and was protecting them like he "protected" Trump last year. Oops. C-Block (1:00:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: This is the longest all-new episode ever but always time for worsts. Ezra Klein last week? "Charlie Kirk Practiced Politics The Right Way." So, Ezra Klein next week? "Brian Kilmeade Practiced Television The Right Way?" Ken Paxton is screwing around again? Does he have a wandering eye oh right. And when MSNBC fired Matt Dowd for, you know, telling the truth about the death of Kirk, where were Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, and Lawrence O'Donnell, risking a dollar or two to defend accurate commentary? I mean they whiffed so badly that they made the anchor who was on with Dowd look perfect by contrast: Katy Tur. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1h 15m
  7. 11 SEPT

    TRUMP DOESN'T REALIZE RUSSIA HAS ATTACKED POLAND - 9.11.25

    SEASON 4 EPISODE 12: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: I suppose it could've been worse. Rather than reacting to Russia’s drone attack on Poland the way he did (“What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!”) Trump could’ve done the Martin Sheen bit from “Dead Zone” where as the messianic psychopath president Greg Stillson he starts World War 3 and announces “The missiles are flying hallelujah, hallelujah.” "What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace…?” Seriously, jackass? That’s your JOB, you great decaying pile of burger grease. YOU are supposed to KNOW “what’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace?” and if you DON’T, get out, turn the government over to a general or an ex-general or somebody who understands that your owner Putin PLAYED YOU AGAIN, and that when everybody, everybody in this country with an IQ greater than 47 said that we have to support Ukraine because if we do not stop Putin in Ukraine his next stop was Poland and you twisted your bulbous face into that stupid 45-degree angled smirk, you were WRONG and everybody else in AMERICA – all 340,111,000 of us – WE were RIGHT. There are 10,000 American troops IN Poland. What would have happened if mere DEBRIS from one of the drones destroyed in the air hit a U-S base, or ONE U-S soldier? Would Trump have tweeted out a shrug emoji? Does it even register any more that even in the narrowest of views of this disaster – Trump IS the commander-in-chief and he is RESPONSIBLE for keeping American soldiers safe. ANYBODY NOTICE THAT GHISLAINE MAXWELL'S OLD LAWYER went on CNN and admitted that there was a quid pro quo that got her moved from a high-octane Florida prison to Club Fed in Texas? Now there’s ANOTHER Trumpstein cover-up? AND LASTLY, No I’m not in favor of shooting commentators. Or politicians. Or anybody. But my god, this is America. All we have done for virtually all our history is shoot political opponents. Add to it THIS America that MAGA wanted, where the military is politicized, and politics are militarized, and Trump has spent a decade stochastically encouraging terrorism against, and assassination of, his opponents, where conservatives REPEATEDLY call for the killing of Trump’s opponents. Trump was shot a year ago and not one of his supporters was willing to support meaningful gun restrictions. You can have many reactions to the death of Charlie Kirk and I hope sorrow and disgust are among them for you as they are for me - but surprise shouldn’t be one of them. Kirk himself said in April 2023: "You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won't have a single gun death. That is nonsense. It's drivel. But I am -- I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal." B-Block (30:13) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The online poster who says it's ok for JD Vance to boast about war crimes because his mother was an addict. We started, writes an Andrew Klavan, to lose our civil rights as a result of the civil war. And to prostitute yourself as Jeff Shell has: from liberal anti-Trump head of NBC to installing a political officer inside CBS News to rat on journalism and anti-Trump facts. What a waste of life. C-Block (42:07) 24 YEARS SINCE 9/11: Apart from applying the "midpoint" rule to really sense how long ago something was (9/11 was the "midpoint" between September 1977 and today) there is one story that has stayed with me permanently. The man's name was Tomas Reyes, he wasn't anywhere near the World Trade Center - but he was supposed to be. How I came to meet him as part of my reporting on that horrible day. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1 hr
  8. 8 SEPT

    VANCE MUST RESIGN. AND JOHNSON IS STILL CLAIMING TRUMP WITNESSED EPSTEIN - 9.8.25

    SEASON 4 EPISODE 11: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Jayvee Vance has got to resign as Vice President. Relax; he won't. But you cannot BE Vice President of the United States if you're crazy enough to boast about repurposing the military as a War Crime committing death squad killing probable migrants in international waters. Plus if you’re responding to tweets by the Krassensteins you’re clearly insane and unfit for office. Even under Trump.. MEANWHILE: if Trump was an FBI informant against Jeffrey Epstein that means he was a witness to everything Epstein did with those girls? And yes, Mike Johnson tried to "back off" his claim that Trump was an FBI Epstein agent late Sunday, but a) the "back off" came 72 hours after he blurted it out; b) it still implies that Trump knew about Epstein and went to the authorities about it, suggesting he had first-hand evidence like HE WAS THERE, and c) it is a cardinal tenet of QAnon that if Trump is ON the Epstein client list. "He did it for 'Merica!" might not be the flex Trump and Mike Johnson think it is ALSO: Trump was booed as he arrived at the U.S. Tennis Open yesterday. You didn’t see it because Bob Iger and ABC and Disney whored themselves out pre-censoring the truth. CBS just did that too - and worse, agreeing NOT to edit out any lies by Trump Gang members.  THE PRIMARY RESIDENCE WITCH-HUNT? The mortgage app alleged white lie with which Trump hopes to bring down a Fed governor and Letitia James and Adam Schiff? The nut job releasing the alleged evidence is Bill Pulte and guess what public records show HIS OWN PARENTS DID? They ALSO CLAIMED multiple "primary residences" - and you can only have one. Oops. THERE IS SOME GOOD NEWS: per G. Elliott Morris: mainstream Trump polling is flat, unchanged. But the INTERIOR numbers? Since January Trump’s STRONG approval number - the diehards - has dropped from 34% to 24%. That's down a third. And his STRONG disapproval number - the haters - has grown from 36% to 46%. Also a third. That is unsustainable. B-Block (41:53) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: "Gunther Eagleman" and the other similarly stupidly named Right Wing influencers now alleged to be on yet ANOTHER country's payroll. Plus the man who killed CNN John Malone may have inadvertently outed a racist: himself. And And a CBS correspondent named Robert Costa let Trump pee on his leg about Russia and all he did was report: “CBS Exclusive: Trump Exclusively Peed On MY leg!” C-Block (55:20) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: They're going to use A.I. to try to reconstruct the infamous 43 missing minutes in the classic - possible greatest film of all time - "Magnificent Ambersons." I loathe the concept. I will watch the product as many times as they let me! But of more immediate relevance, if they ever release it, I'll be able to say I knew the star of a new 2025 film who died in 1994 and I met in 1985 only I didn't realize it was him. I swear I thought she said "Carlton."   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1h 9m

Hosts & Guests

About

“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.

More From iHeartPodcasts

You Might Also Like