Countdown with Keith Olbermann

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. -12 H

    IDIOT PRESS SECRETARY MAY HAVE SENT TRUMP LAWYERS TO JAIL - 1.30.25

    SEASON 3 EPISODE 91: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: While any culpability for the DC air disaster is still to be established and the dead are still in the water I want to withhold implying political or governmental meaning to it and focus instead on events we already can see with relative clarity. Karoline Leavitt was already so stupid that she once on-air insisted there was a word pronounced "damaning" (as in 'the evidence is damaning') and pronounced the Nazi monster's name as "Hilter." Now with one tweet she may have topped herself. How do you publicly announce that the spending freeze struck down by a federal judge wasn't withdrawn, only its ANNOUNCEMENT was withdrawn, and only in response to the judge's ruling, and the freeze is going on as planned? That's called contempt of court. Trump's lawyers will literally have to talk their way out of spending a day behind bars. Besides which, another judge has said the conflicting statements about the freeze pause are irrelevant: it cannot proceed. This all underscores what has been evident since Trump again seized power. He is burning through the relative approval and patience of an exhausted America far more quickly this time than last, and there is a reckoning coming. His disapproval number jumped SEVEN points from last Tuesday to this past Sunday. The judges are fighting back. His hirelings are idiots. The public doesn't want this. Hopefully what follows is not unprecedented. B-Block (28:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Washington Post continues to trivialize and normalize the Madness of King Trump. Lauren Boebert is an actual expert on laboring with your hands, so I guess her opinion on how the minimum wage is too HIGH matters. And it's Anna Paulina Luna who finally gives in and proposes a bill to put Trump's head on Mt. Rushmore. Unfortunately she's phrased it in such a way that it could mean LITERALLY: put Trump's head ON Mt. Rushmore. C-Block (36:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Nothing like the stream of consciousness that comes as you awake from the stream of UNconsciousness. On the way back from the endoscopy I saw the building in which I met Jim Thorpe's Olympic roommate from 1912, and I rediscovered the game "Midpoint" and I remembered the Twitter game from two years ago: "Hitler Handshakes." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    53 min
  2. -3 J

    IMPEACH TRUMP! FAILED IMPEACHMENTS ARE UNDEFEATED! - 1.27.25

    SEASON 3 EPISODE 90: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: To repeat myself - because I’m RIGHT - File motions to impeach Trump NOW. Move to impeach Trump today, AND KEEP MOVING to impeach Trump every day through next year’s midterms. Impeachment is UNDEFEATED. UNDEFEATED in American history. House Democrats: he handed you TWELVE, maybe FIFTEEN new counts on Friday night alone. Blatantly, brazenly illegal dismissals of Departmental Inspector Generals, just as Project 2025 promised, and the School Safety Board. Elimination of oversight. Elimination of legal protections against the mass murder of children. In the old days you might’ve arrested Trump. Now you are limited to impeachment bills that will all fail EXCEPT THEY WILL ULTIMATELY SUCCEED. Impeach him for the Friday Night massacre. Impeach him for circumventing the 14th Amendment. He just ramped up the migrant arrest quota to 1500 a day and started raids in Chicago yesterday: Impeach him for violating the 4th Amendment. And if I hear one more piece of blowback to my PREVIOUS call to impeach him no matter the outcome, one more head-shake from a cowardly Democrat, and especially one more factually inaccurate claim that it doesn’t work, one more self-absorbed loser saying ‘Impeach? Yeah, sounds good. How did it work out for us last time? Pretty effing well, actually. The mere TALK of impeaching Trump helped the Democrats win the House in 2018 and break Trump tri-partite control of government. The FIRST impeachment was followed by keeping the house in 2020 and after the Georgia election, taking the senate in 2020, and oh by the way the White House in 2020. The SECOND impeachment crushed any lingering attempt by Trump to overthrow the Biden Government-In-Waiting in 2021 and provided the impetus for the January 6th prosecutions.  In fact, since Nixon, every party that impeached or TRIED to impeach a president won the next elections. House, Senate, White House. Thirteen straight. IMPEACHMENT – EVEN FAILED IMPEACHMENT - IS UNDEFEATED. ALSO: The Media capitulation continues. Acosta's show cancelled by the latest CNN job who hasn't been able to keep a job since 2000. And how did appeasing Trump work out for you ABC, CBS, and NBC? Trump's FCC reinstated license challenges against your stations, Trump wants Maddow jailed, and at Disney: ESPN's Stephen A. Smith just made a Trumpist idiot out of himself.  B-Block (35:12) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Trump has too many Bennies to keep them all straight: can't remember the Chairman of the January 6th Committee he wants to jail. Even the NFL is sucking up to Elon "It Only LOOKED Like A Nazi Salute" Trump. And the first baseball player since like 1877 to get the mouth sores and skin rashes of Hand, Foot and Mouth disease just endorsed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. C-Block (46:25) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: You know what it's like in this country right now? It's like we all just woke up from the anesthesia in the MIDDLE of a medical procedure. You know how I know this? Because I'm one of those people who actually DID wake up in the middle of a medical procedure - and I'm having the same procedure TOMORROW. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1 h 1 min
  3. 22 JANV.

    IMPEACH TRUMP. IT WON'T WORK NOW. IT WILL WIN THE MIDTERMS LATER - 1.22.25

    SEASON 3 EPISODE 89: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Impeach Trump. Now. Again. No, it won’t pass, it won’t work now. But it will pass, and it will work, next year, and it win the Democrats the midterms and the year after that it will brand Trump yet again as the most treacherous garbage in our history. Because lost in the avalanche of evil he has perpetrated since beginning his dictatorship, lost in the astonishment and even the despair of true Americans, lost in the numbed terrified capitulatory media coverage is the reality that his pardoning of the January 6th Traitors is amazingly unpopular, literally unpopular enough to cost him at least 43 house seats, right now, BEFORE he mindlessly signs more red meat Steven Miller slides under his piggish face. And the second part of this is: he has also already violated the Constitution of the United States. Already. Not 48 hours on the job and he is already guilty of impeachable offenses. Already. There is almost nothing to do to stop Trump NOW. The Democrats are minorities in both houses, the courts are crooked, the SUPREME court is just another Trump Scam, the billionaires like Musk and Bezos and Zuckerberg and the other tech scum have lined up beside him just as Krupp and IG Farben and Opel stood next to and behind Hitler. There is nothing to do TODAY except (to borrow from the musicals of the fascists) to make sure Tomorrow Belongs To Us. Introduce a bill, or even multiple bills, to impeach Trump. Keep the crimes he has already committed, including the ones he has been convicted of, and the ones he wriggled out of with dubious legality and non-existant morality, front-of-mind. Fight back, thwart him, anger him, waste his time, make him play defense, enrage his base, and terrify the billionaires because you could see on that mouse Zuckerberg’s face at the inauguration that he wasn’t so sure any more he picked the right side, and fight back. Moreover – give the opposition – not the resistance this time but the DEFIANCE – something to DO with this time other than just sit here and replay November 5th and all the days leading up to it in some P-T-S-D doom loop. Nothing that is wrong in the history of the world has ever been stopped without the same first step: people standing up and SAYING this is wrong, this must BE stopped. 76 and a half million people voted against Trump – 49 and two fifths percent - and we are all just sitting here saying nothing, doing nothing, watching Trump wreck train after train. B-Block (28:03) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Twitter-X user so stupid she thinks Biden "parted" more people than Trump. That he "partied" his whole family. Much worse, CNN's Jake Tapper thinks Trump ran a disciplined campaign that "depicted (him) as someone who was within the realm of normalcy." When was that, Jake? When he insisted Immigrants were eating pets in Ohio? No wonder CNN is on the verge of disappearance. And lastly: $MELIANA. You'll figure it out. C-Block (38:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: When Trumpists say I should shut up because I don't know him and I have "TDS" (what's that, I ask. Trump's Deranged Syndrome?) I like to mention that I met him in December 1983 and he wrote me a fan letter once and I've ALWAYS thought he was off his rocker. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    40 min
  4. 20 JANV.

    TRUMP SAID HE'D BE A DICTATOR ONLY ON DAY ONE. IT'S DAY ONE - 1.20.25

    SERIES 3 EPISODE 88: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Which one of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow? Remember when he said he’d be a dictator but only on day one? It’s day one. BEST JOKE OF THE YEAR: “The great thing about moving Trump’s inauguration to the rotunda,” writes Biden-Harris advance man Doug Landry, “is that all of his supporters already know how to get there.” CAPITULATION NATION: CBS is discussing settling the most nonsensical lawsuit Trump has ever filed because the settlement would be a wonderfully legal bribe. IT'S NOT A SURPRISE IMMIGRATION RAID if you tell everybody. These fascist morons couldn't stop boasting about their move against Chicago. Now it's almost off. RAMASWAMY GONE! Or as we called him, The Schwam: GONE! Hey, whaddya know, the Department of Government Efficient actually HAS cut waste!  B-Block (32:39) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Rand Paul is so stupid he thinks running hoses out of the Pacific Ocean could've stopped the Firestorm. An actual major brand is introducing a new product and the catch phrase is "It's soup you can suck!" And Trump finds a new way to spray paint something that cheap flat gold color he loves while getting the name of one of his education employees wrong. C-Block (42:00) IN MEMORY OF BOB UECKER: The second worst thing about getting old – not VERY old, just old-old – is having to watch nearly all those older than you who, accepted in what was their field and then became theirs and yours – pass on. Especially when they are the widely beloved standard-setters of those fields  like Bob Uecker. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1 h 2 min
  5. 16 JANV.

    HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND! BECAUSE MONDAY IS DOOMSDAY - 1.16.25

    SEASON 3 EPISODE 87: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: A reminder that what would become the Confederate states thought that secession was constitutional. A reminder that three and a half years earlier the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had no right to ban slavery and slaves had no rights at all. I was thinking of that as President Biden gave his farewell speech last night. Where in the constitution does it say that the nation must commit suicide because a slim majority of its voters have been fooled into believing it ISN’T? Where in the law does it say that a criminal has to be protected from all laws by judges he corruptly appointed? Where in the law does it say that one man is above it? Where in our agency over our own lives does it say that we must defer to a traitor who has corrupted politics, voting, the judiciary, everything that we must defer to him just because he’s good at being evil? And where does a President's loyalty to his people rest? In protecting the forms and rules of a broken system, or protecting those people from the greatest threat they have ever faced – the threat of his successor who has perverted that broken system to serve himself and a few cronies and whores, and condemn the rest of us? Is it Joe Biden's constitutional and moral responsibility to declare a state of insurrection and put them all behind bars… or NOT to do so? As I’ve said before, I do not have either enough words nor enough time to tell you how much this ISN’T going to happen – Doomsday, and national suicide, will continue as scheduled. Have fun! ALSO: The good news is: Pete Hegseth was interrupted three times by hecklers at the hearing for his nomination as Secretary of Brylcreem… the bad news is: it wasn’t three HUNDRED times. He might be the SMARTEST. Pam Bondi apparently didn’t hear a single threat Trump made during his campaign and Tulsi Gabbard doesn’t know what her new job is. Trump goes full Reagan: tries to grab credit for Biden and Blinken’s Hostage Deal and Cease fire. Times, Running Out: is the New York Times actually INTENTIONALLY following the self-destructive path of The Washington Post and CNN. This is not a boat accident. You don’t know Jack-Smith: going out with a whimper not a bang. Love him, but what the hell was that. And how much fun was it to hear Elon Musk make a fool of himself as LA firefighters doused his conspiracy theories with reality? B-Block (29:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The final shoe has dropped in the saga of my ex, and it has knocked Ryan Lizza out cold. Someone named Dakota Lee Dilley has completely personified the Trump (lack of) mentality: sure they were traitors but they were GIFTED traitors. And if you hate Dan Abrams or Chuck Todd, wait'll you hear Dan Abrams DEFENDING Chuck Todd. C-Block 49:30 THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Lawrence O'Donnell's last interview? My heart raced with excitement. Then it turned out it was Joe Biden's last interview. Lawrence was just doing it and he, who correctly predicted years ago he could never host a cable news show with any skill for any considerable span, is staying. A terrible human who tried to take Countdown away from me while he was filling in for me while my dad was dying. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    57 min
  6. 13 JANV.

    THE MAGA PLAN TO KILL AND EAT ELON MUSK - 1.13.25

    SEASON 3 EPISODE 86: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: MAGA in disarray. While the mass deportation scheme becomes the latest casualty of having elected a bunch of incompetent egomaniacs, Steve Bannon has declared war on Elon Musk. AND Elon Musk’s toady David Sachs. AND Peter Thiel. Bannon no longer will stop at getting Musk exiled from the White House because Bannon and the rest of the nativist lunatics hate all foreigners but Musk wants to not hate foreigners who can make him more rich via the H1B Visas. Bannon now wants Musk and the others to be the first immigrants thrown out of the country. He actually told this to Italy’s most-read newspaper, Corriere della Sala: "He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down... he should go back to South Africa. Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth...making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States." The point isn't whether Musk actually does kill and eat Musk. It's that they fight. Because at the same time Musk is admitting he can only cut half of the "government inefficiency" he promised to, and "Border Czar" Tom Homan is warning Republicans that Trump won't be deporting millions immediately. More like 60,000. And the Trump junta has admitted it can't unilaterally lower grocery prices, or install universal tariffs, and he's not going to dig up the Panama Canal and move it to Mar-a-Lago on Inauguration Day, he ain’t buying Greenland and coercing Canada and guess what, he didn’t “settle” Russia’s war on Ukraine in 24 hours, and his minions are hinting his attempts to turn the LA fires into an exploitable political event are going to crash. And even before re-gaining power, Trump has pre-failed. B-Block (34:55) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Joe Scarborough doubles down on his role as Marshal Petain-In-The-Ass at MSNVIchy. Politico dubs him "Elon Mush" then deletes it. And Naomi Wolf thinks victims of the Southern California firestorm aren't panicking enough. C-Block (45:20) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It's bleak and the forecast for next week is Trump. So I need a laugh and maybe you do too. And this we bring you back to 1994 and the greatest off-air laugh in ESPN's history: Soccer Breakdown. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    59 min
  7. 9 JANV.

    SLEAZE: ALITO, TRUMP TALK, BEFORE ALITO RULES ON TRUMP CASES - 1.9.25

    SEASON 3 EPISODE 85: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Justice Samuel Alito must be off from the Supreme Court of the United States. Immediately. Today. He is without any morals, ethics, judicial standards, and if he is aware of the CONCEPT of the appearance of the conflict he no longer gives a damn. ABC News reports – and Alito confirms – that on TUESDAY he SPOKE to Trump – the day before Trump’s lawyers filed an emergency request demanding Alito and the other justices BLOCK New York Judge Juan Merchan from sentencing Trump tomorrow for his 34 convictions in the Election Interference/Stormy Daniels case here. Even though there is 0% chance of jail time, and probably not much more of one of probation or a fine. The convicted felon constitutionally ineligible president-elect is also has the TikTok case in front of the Supreme Court AND will probably take the release of either or both of the two halves of the Jack Smith report on Trump – Espionage and the Coup Attempt – to the Supreme Court to try to keep those reports from ever seeing the light of a day and this human embodiment of sleaze Sam Alito TALKED TO HIM BY PHONE less than 48 hours ago.And what is Alito’s excuse for this complete breach of judicial etiquette? Alito told ABC the conversation WAS not about the cases, it was about… a job reference he wanted to personally given to get his law clerk a job in Trump's administration - even if it's true, ALSO a conflict of interest. Sam Alito to ABC News: "We did not discuss the emergency application he filed today, and indeed, I was not even aware at the time of our conversation that such an application would be filed. We also did not discuss any other matter that is pending or might in the future come before the Supreme Court or any past Supreme Court decisions involving the President-elect."  Nonsense. Sam Alito lied in the case of the political flags flown over his homes and his conflicts with neighbors. He has publicly complained that the American public has had the nerve to disagree with him. He has imposed his religious nut job views on cases at the Court. How could you be so dense, so unaware of the hatred you personally have brought down upon this once most respected of American governmental institutions, as to conduct that call, NOW? I mean this would be cheap and petty and obvious and a conflict of interest even by Trumpian standards. Just recusing is insufficient. He must be off the court. In point of fact, Alito should recuse, resign… and go to hell. SOLUTION TO AILEEN CANNON? Ignore her. Solution to Mark Zuckerberg: Wonder with what Trump has threatened him. Solution to a tough Fox News town hall: Give Trump the questions secretly beforehand. Solution to invading Greenland, Canada, and Panama when we are by treaty required to protect Greenland, Canada and Panama? You got me. B-Block (46:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jen Psaki does a lengthy commentary wondering, four years too late, if Merrick Garland was the wrong choice to be Attorney General and she was wrong to promote him. Ultimately she decides she didn't screw up because "nobody can predict the future" even though the rest of us did. Like even Erick Erickson, whose J6 tweet resurfaces in which he called for barring Trump for office for life. And the suicide bomber Bezos brought in to destroy the Washington Post actually asked how to attract Trump supporters. C-Block (58:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The mandatory evacuation line in Santa Monica is three blocks north of the home I used to own when I worked there. It's amazing how a trivial detail like that can clarify a disaster like the L.A. fires - and how millions of us Angelenos (me included) managed to live in denial about the risks of living and building and expanding there. This is not criticism - it's confession. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1 h 22 min
  8. 6 JANV.

    THEY ARE CERTIFYING A PRESIDENT WHO IS INELIGIBLE TO SERVE - 1.6.26

    SEASON 3 EPISODE 84: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:50) SPECIAL COMMENT: Happy Insurrection Day, when Republicans will certify the election of a “president” who is constitutionally ineligible to hold the office according to the 3rd clause of the 14th Amendment and the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 and who himself fomented the assault four years ago that ended our conceit about the peaceful transfer of power. The illegitimate president’s Republican whores and servants may in fact trudge to the capitol through a blizzard to make this prostitution of democracy official The Democrats? They won’t say anything because this didn’t TEST well as a campaign ad and their flaccid willingness to risk anything in our defense is further deflated by their perception that this is a fait accompli and since it is a fait accompli ESPECIALLY because of their own cowardice they now have to do their best to compromise, and obey in advance, a group of bandits and pirates posing as a presidential administration, whose only desire TO compromise is to compromise Democrats and the Free Press and Reality and democracy itself. These are some of those Republicans: Freshman Congressman Riley Moore – “My constituents have sent me here to this town not to work with Democrats but to destroy their agenda." “We asked everyone not to leak. Please for god’s sake do not give inside information to the enemy” that's from the LEAD Republican in the House, the CREEPIEST Republican in the House since Denny Hastert, Mike Johnson and I don’t know if by “the enemy” he means the Democrats or the media or both or the temptations of his anti-porn app, and I no longer care. This is Insurrection Day and we all KNOW what the Republicans would be doing today in the mirror version of this grim reality; if they were in charge and Trump were in office and had presidential immunity and a new president was about to sign off on putting him in jail and it would be what they actually did four years ago today only they wouldn’t bother to try to be subtle or legal about it (they’d be gassing up the tanks). AND NO, JUDGE JUAN MERCHAN IS NO HERO. He too is obeying in advance. Along with the Washington Post, squeezing out cartoonist Ann Telnaes. And Brian Stelter, covering up for Fox News. And the media soft-pedaling the Vegas bomber's hopes to see all Democrats murdered, and Congressman Tom Suozzi, and soon-to-disappear Senator Kyrsten Sinema. B-Block (29:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Those memorializing Aaron Brown without including the incident about his refusal to cover The Challenger explosion; Congresswoman Nancy Mace and "Gunther Eagleman" who only read the headline; and the meticulous Oliver Darcy who only gets mentioned here because he asked a question that really traumatized me: What will Olivia Nuzzi do in 2025? (42:14) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Remember dear Flaco? The majestic owl liberated from the Central Park Zoo? There is an extraordinary new book about him. And from an old book: remember the Ash Heaps in "The Great Gatsby"? They were real and you'll never believe what was built were they used to sit. C-Block (52:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Young Tippy needs the same surgery my new pup Kitt just got, and we need your help to pay for it. (55:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It's an actors' story that invokes Trump, Orson Welles, The Odd Couple, Mike Nichols - and me?   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1 h 25 min

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À propos

“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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