SEASON 4 EPISODE 66: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: It's literally a disaster of BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS.

Some of Trump’s Troops are being told that it isn't 'war with Iran' - it's a war to start a Biblical Armageddon: “Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to earth” says one whistle-blower NCO about his commanding officer.

You heard it: a non-zero number of Trump Commanders aren't just fighting an illegal, ill-prepared, ill-fated war against an Iran that posed no realistic threat. To them it's a literal Holy War, start the apocalypse, end times, and then they all get raptured. More than 200 reports of such religious insanity, to a group called MRFF (Military Religious Freedom Foundation) and reported by one of my former MSNBC Coordinating Producers, Jonathan Larsen. MRRF is pushing back against us doing the whole Book of Revelations Crusades thing - and the newest development: the religious nuts in the military are holding emergency bible classes for those who may be deployed.

Maybe not Apocalypse Now but Apocalypse SOON. The religious nut jobs are in charge, Hegseth may be in on the delusion, and so: no sign of bad luck in Rapture.

B-Block (35:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The right wing allegation that MAGA Twitter twerp "Gunther Eagleman" only retweets if you pay him; Markwayne Mullin mistakes the smell of plumbing for the smell of war and keeps referring to "President Hegseth", and Weijia Jiang, CBS News reporter and president of the White House Correspondents Association. She and they not only actually insulted every journalist ever by inviting Trump to the Correspondents' Dinner - but he accepted and thinks he's getting an award. Trump is a man who has literally tried to get reporters killed for a decade, and they're going to sit in the same room with him. I guess because Goebbels is dead and is unavailable. I don't usually say 'I really went off on these idiots' but - I really went off on these WHCA idiots.

C-Block (50:00) THURBER'S VERSION OF THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: His magazine-length version of his only non-fiction book, "The Years With Ross" about the founding of "The New Yorker" magazine (and its legendary, almost mythical founder, Harold Ross). It is as hysterical - and sometimes nearly as impossible to believe - as the best of his fiction.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.