EPISODE 125: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Do 15 words in The New York Times' infamous Halloween clearing of Trump on Russia identify one of the anonymous governmental sources of the lie as the just-arrested ex-FBI agent Charles McGonigal? Does the timeline of what the FBI New York office did with the Anthony Weiner laptop also suggest that the man who helped force the Comey Letter is...Charles McGonigal? Did the DOJ just arrest someone on lesser charges in hopes of getting him to flip on Trump, or the FBI New York leakers, or others in the Trump-Russia Conspiracy? Someone named...Charles McGonigal? The analysis by author Greg Olean finds potential smoking guns everywhere. And did FBI interference on Trump's behalf ever stop? A new Congressman presses the DOJ to investigate William Barr and John Durham, and - another election, another laptop - Hunter Biden goes on offense and demands the DOJ and the state of Delaware investigate Trumpland figures including Rudy Giuliani for stealing the contents of his laptop, and trafficking in them.

B-Block (19:25) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Melody in Arkansas (20:38) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Tom Brady retired. Again. SURRRRRE he did. The College Board caves to Ron DeSantis - time to put them out of business. And a nitwitted Freshman Congressman from Missouri named Burlison not only compares DirecTV refusing to pay to carry NewsMax to the holocaust, but tries to ad lib Pastor Niemoller's "First, they came for the Socialists." Too bad about DirecTV being "de-platformed" and Burlison now having absolutely no place left in Right Wing Media to go to whine about being silenced.

C-Block (34:49) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Sure the FBI New York bureau may have fixed the 2016 election to Trump, but literally they're not all bad. In fact, I'm a satisfied customer. They did a helluva job each time some guy mailed me what he claimed was Anthrax in 2006.

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EPISODE 124: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:41) SPECIAL COMMENT: At a time when the all the forces that can be brought to bear against democracy, against diversity, against more voters more often in more convenient ways, are being brought; when the liberal viewpoint on cable news has never more important, has never been under greater threat from both market-forces and more transparent fascism; when the premise of such 24/7 coverage has never been closer to extinction, the people running the last surviving liberal and moderate outlets have the solution to the crisis: MSNBC will give you more Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert guest hits, and CNN is going to bring you, in prime time, once a week... Gayle King! 

B-Block (22:37) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Akira in New York (23:36) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Oh, NOW CBS reports that days after Biden's lawyers first found documents, they invited the FBI to search the Think Tank; Santos recusing from committees; McCarthy thinks this'll give him time to "clear things up" LOL; Military Coup in Moscow? And self-referential news: a million downloads in one month! (26:56) IN SPORTS: When you're turning to Hope Hicks to help your image, your image is in baaaaad shape. And that 13-year old Women's Basketball JV player? She was just a little old (30:16) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jesse Watters accidentally speaks the truth, the Schlapp victim sues again, and actress Andrea Riseborough gets away with it.

C-Block (34:48) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: 16 years ago, then Senator Joe Biden invited me to lunch to ask my advice. About what? What did I care? He asked for my ADVICE! Actually it was about converting anger into righteous indignation and I take no credit for this but I will ask you: when was the last time you heard somebody throw the old charge at him that he's a "hot head?"

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EPISODE 123: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: "You have a lot of folks who are just waiting for his mortal demise," says former Michigan Republican Congressman Peter Meijer. "I've heard from a lot of people who will go onstage and put on the red hat and then give me a call the next day and say 'I can't wait until this guy dies.'" It's an amazing strategy but a passive one. And it ignores the various walls closing in on Trump: two District Attorneys, three Grand Juries, one Judiciary Chairman annoyed at John Durham and William Barr, one Judiciary Chairman rebuffed by Merrick Garland, one porn star, and one guy named Pecker.

Still, potentially the most extraordinary story about Trump: the clouds gathering around the arrest of Charlie McGonigal, who was a 24/7, 365 days a year, hot and cold running blackmail-victim-FBI-Agent-waiting-to-happen. And now two analysts look at his arrest and suggest: this may evolve into a) a spy scandal in which the national security was utterly breached and b) a journalistic disaster in which Trump, Russia, and the FBI managed to manipulate The New York Times into pushing Trump across the finish line in 2016.

B-Block (18:53) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Memphis, in Texas (20:06) IN SPORTS: The passing of hockey's Bobby Hull and Cleveland's John Adams; Why was the 52nd best player in baseball chosen to adorn the cover of its top video game? And happy 206th birthday, J. Shorthouse, Esq. (24:07) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: More George Santos stupidity, a Florida Climate Caucus Congresswoman who owns up to $195k in oil stocks, and Megyn Kelly slams Jill Biden for something her own father did.

C-Block (29:56) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: CNN has gone and done it: addressing its cratering ratings by adding a regular Friday segment from Bill Maher's HBO panel. Time again to go back to 2009 when Bill and I nearly brawled at his HBO after-party because he insisted we never met in college (spoiler alert: Oh yeah we did).

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EPISODE 122: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:41) SPECIAL COMMENT: Watch the video of the torture and murder of Tyre Nichols by the Memphis police, and read what they first claimed had happened to him, and the unmistakable truth is confirmed anew: We are all hostages to the police. More directly, more urgently, more fatally - for people of color. But all the rest of us, too. Police who kill other than as a last, unavoidable act to protect the community are no longer police for any of us, and if they can be trained to kill because of race, they can be trained to kill because of politics, or sexual orientation, or because of whoever those who trained them want them to kill.

B-Block (19:19) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Olive, the mini-pug, in New Jersey. (20:16) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: A motive for FBI election tamperer Charles McGonigal: he was leading a double life; Trump's domes and binoculars; the ratings of CNN and MSNBC crash and burn but thank god NBC didn't have to deal with the controversy of bringing me back! (26:00) IN SPORTS: White Sox retain Benetti, Super Bowl set on the dumbest penalty in years, Pride Night without the Pride or the explanation. (29:46) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: THE Associated Press insults THE French, General Ripper rides again, and the vapid CNN host who says the Memphis police didn't murder Tyre Nichols.

C-Block (35:26) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: On the subject of the cratering of cable news, did I ever tell you how Lawrence O'Donnell tried to take Countdown away from me while I was taking care of my dying father? Or how he stole two of my senior producers to run his new show? Or how he leaked a personal letter of mine to Ann Coulter? Or how his ratings are now down below where MSNBC's were in 2003?

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EPISODE 121: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Yesterday I proposed that to crowd this corrupt Republican farce, "The Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Government" off the stage, the Democrats needed a similar investigation in the Senate. Suddenly there are far more important reasons than politics and counter-programming. The New York Times' post-mortem on The Durham "Investigation" shows ethical corner cutting and possible criminality. And the deeper dives into the ex-FBI agent arrested Monday show the outlines of the possibility Charles McGonigal took Russian money long before 2021. What if these are just two pictures of the same conspiracy taken at different times? What if this is ALL about an effort to protect Russian Government Intelligence Agencies, and Trump? And even worse: what if The New McCarthyism of the "Weaponization" subcommittee is just the newest photo of the same cover-up?  Start that investigation now, Senators.

B-Block (14:57) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Cookie, in Ft. Lauderdale (16:07) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Sports Owner James Dolan-Moron; Fascist Congressmen threaten an investigation of one company refusing to start paying another company for a product it currently gets for free; and George "Jew-Ish" Santos turns out to have posted offensive Hitler jokes (22:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Numerology time. One birthday boy's greatest scoop, about a guy whose birthday was the day before, that aired on 8/8/88.

C-Block (28:43) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: His epic story of deception and the Brooklyn Dodgers: "The Catbird Seat."

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EPISODE 120: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: We must act now against The New McCarthyism, or lose the Republic. With Trump restored to Facebook, dispatching Coke Jr and recording a video sending KEVIN McCarthy instructions for this insidious "Weaponization Subcommittee," the Democrats must literally counter-program. The Senate must crowd the Jim Jordan Star Chamber off the public stage by holding its own hearings (the suppression of the Mueller Report; the actions of just-arrested FBI agent and now Russian oligarch advisor Charles McGonigal in the infamous Comey Letter of October 2016; anything will do). Trump smells the opportunity to turn truth into falsehood, and falsehood into truth. We must stop him and The New McCarthyism - and damn fast.

B-Block (15:25) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Huggin, in New York (16:21) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Sapphire's successor is finally on the way; the man behind audience participation at "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" has passed; and a bad day for Joe Rogan and Fred Roggin (20:14)THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: HOW many people watched baseball's Hall of Fame announcement on the network it owns? Marge can see her reflection in a mirror. And the RWNJ who thinks Damar Hamlin didn't recover from his cardiac arrest and is actually dead and the vaccine killed him - because some people are just insensitive morons.

C-Block (25:50) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: With the Republicans now offering to place one of their presidential primary debates on CNN or MSNBC, time to recall the day they starkly told Tom Brokaw what HE had to do if they really expected John McCain to show up to the debate Brokaw would moderate in his swan song for NBC News: get me fired.

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EPISODE 119: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) OF McGONIGAL, DERIPASKA, AND MANAFORT, Part 1: Even at this late date, the ex-FBI executive arrested Saturday, Charles McGonigal, could put Donald Trump in jail forever. McGonigal is not only facing prison for working for Russian oligarch and election conspiracist Oleg Deripaska, but when the FBI revived the "But Her Emails" smear against Hillary Clinton 11 days before the 2016 election and three days later leaked it had "cleared" Trump, McGonigal was the head of the FBI's 2016 Trump-Russia investigation. He's the centerpiece of TWO of the plots to install Trump, and his arrest should start the entire investigation of the Trump-Russia Conspiracy.

B-Block (13:34) OF McGONIGAL, DERIPASKA, AND MANAFORT, Part 2: McGonigal, like Paul Manafort, became an employee of Putin crony Deripaska. It's time again to examine Manafort, in bed with Deripaska to the tune of $60,000,000 and appearing in front of Tom Barrack right after Trump lost the Iowa Caucuses saying "I've got to GET TO TRUMP." His story, and the timeline that led McGonigal to a prison cell.

C-Block (31:55) OF McGONIGAL, DERIPASKA, AND MANAFORT, Part 3: Suddenly the picture looks so familiar: emails, a computer, gaslighting. It's time to remember the horrible feeling of the morning the sun did not rise: November 9, 2016, and to launch either a Senate or Presidential investigation of the successful Trump-Russia plot to install him in the White House before they succeed again.

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EPISODE 118: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Trump-Russia story roared back from the dead yesterday and basically nobody noticed. They've arrested retired FBI agent Charles McGonigal, of the lead FBI investigators of 2016 Russian Electoral Interference by Putin-friendly Russian oligarch Oleg Derpiaska. The allegation? That McGonigal has spent the last year secretly working FOR OLEG DERIPASKA. And if that doesn't make you scratch your head, remember that one of Deripaska's employees was a consultant named Paul Manafort and by total coincidence one of Trump's campaign managers was a consultant named Paul Manafort. Plus updates on Biden's documents (we're up to EIGHT different stories now) and how the Arizona Senate race just changed, activating Kyrsten Sinema's aversion to three-ways.

B-Block (16:28) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Robin; (17:42) IN SPORTS: Angels not for sale, Hall of Fame may not get any electees; Local newscaster struggles with the hockey name "Canucks." And "Boudreau." And "Tocchet." (23:27) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Mike Pompeo smears Jamal Khashoggi, Elon Musk again, and the M&M Nonsense fight for the honors.

C-Block (29:08) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Since it's baseball Hall of Fame announcement day, the story of the time I was asked at age 20 to call Willie Mays after he was banned from the game. A woman answered. Or it sounded like a woman. But it also sounded like Willie. And that's when the fun began.

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EPISODE 117: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:41) SPECIAL COMMENT: I do not believe Joe Biden and/or his team mishandled any classified documents. Unfortunately, it’s clear Joe Biden and/or his team mishandled the messaging, the process, and the narrative. If you have to tell seven different stories in two weeks, it begins to matter less and less that you were totally cooperative and proactive and invited the feds to search, and it begins to look more and more like that oldest of presidential story templates: It no longer looks like what the president said it was. 

Happily there are several things the president can still did to regain the narrative and smash the undeserved gift his team handed the inquisition-happy Republicans and the pudding-brained American political-media complex so desperate for a Democratic scandal that Peter Baker actually wrote a piece comparing Biden's papers to Clinton-Lewinsky! And he better do them TODAY.

B-Block (16:25) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Sebastian; (17:30) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The Brett Kavanaugh Sexual Assault documentary, Revised Edition, plus George Santos, and the SCOTUS Investigation that wasn't really an investigation. (20:14) IN SPORTS: Trump praises Trump, The Golfer Of Strength And Stamina. Hockey's Vancouver Canucks screw up again. A month until Spring Training games and the chaos of the new rules. And my secret method to make sure all batting averages actually go up (24:36) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Nikki Haley doesn't know what the "P" in VP stands for, the lights are on but no one's home, and Greg Abbott's epic twitter self-own.

C-Block (29:13) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Talk about White Houses trying to control the narrative: in 2004 George W. Bush's people were a) convinced I was on their side b) knew I was only interviewing Iraq War critic Ambassador Joe Wilson in order to savage him c) decided to help me by emailing all their talking points but d) couldn't figure out how to spell my name. Hilarity ensued (and all they wound up doing was revealing to me all of "their" people at NBC News.

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EPISODE 116: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) Alina Habba! C'mon Down! You're the next contestant on YOU TRUSTED TRUMP! His lawyer sanctioned $937,989.39 for being stupid enough to file Trump's stunt-suit against Hillary Clinton. Just part of a day in which it sure sounded as if Trump has gotten a role of stamps and mailed it in for 2024, low lighted by what could be the new somnambulant campaign slogan: "TRUMP 2024! SO IT GOES." (7:45) Trump invokes the Supreme Court leak, leaving me to wonder: if there was a crime, why wasn't the FBI or the cops investigating it and not...the Court itself? (9:06) The first lie George Santos addresses is the Drag Queen story and his big flex is "I don't kill dogs"? And he manages non-denial denials on both (12:04) And there are three new January 6th Defendants, all Marines in Military Intelligence and that magic phrase offers happy memories of George Carlin.

B-Block (17:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Uptown, in New York (18:12) IN SPORTS: Time for Tony Dungy's annual humiliation of NBC Sports, and the Philadelphia Flyers double down on the Pride Night disaster that threatens to turn the NHL into the "National Homophobia League" (23:05) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The New York Times competes with two different state governors - one Democrat, one Republican.

C-Block (28:13) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Of spies, schemes, string beans, and falling asleep mid-fantasy: "The Lady on 142."

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