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🗓️ 6 November 2025
⏱️ 63 minutes
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SEASON 4 EPISODE 31: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Do you want to hear the real lesson of this week’s Democratic landslide?
Mamdani ran on your money issues and that Trump equals death. Sherrill ran on your money issues and that Trump equals death. Spanberger ran on your money issues and that Trump equals death. Prop 50 won on your money issues and that Trump equals death. Hey, you can do both at the same time! Who knew?
Not difficult. Easy to remember. Useful on all occasions.
Worked in New York, where they elected a socialist when only a quarter of the voters say they are socialists. Worked in Virginia, where they elected as governor an ex-congresswoman born in Jersey. Worked in Jersey, where they elected as a governor an ex-congresswoman born in Virginia. Money Issues, and Trump Equals Death. Useful on all occasions. It’s a floor wax AND a dessert topping.
Of course the context is just as much fun as the lesson. That's becauseTrump not only doesn’t realize he got the S kicked out of him, but he doesn’t realize he’s already forced himself to both end the government shutdown and lose the government shutdown. “Trump wasn’t on the ballot,” Trump screamed. “And ‘Shutdown’… were the two reasons that Republicans lost elections...”
Ah, poor Trump. Metaphorically, Trump not only was on the ballot - every ballot but he was on the ballot in the worst possible way. Everybody could vote no on him, but it was almost impossible to vote YES. The lame duck politician’s worst nightmare.
And right now no duck is lamer than Trump.
Democrats: run on your money issues and that Trump equals death. It’s a floor wax and a dessert topping!
ALSO: No, I am not going to sanewash Dick Cheney, even after his passing. Yes, at the end, when it was loyalty to the country or Trump he chose the country and it's good to finish strong. But I will still remember him for that 9/11-Iraq exploitation thing. And I am still proud that - as you'll hear - I pissed him off enough as Vice President for him to publicly clap back.
B-Block (30:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Roger Stone, who helped advance the deplorable Laura Loomer, is now shocked she's deplorable. Similarly Ben Shapiro, who helped sell Tucker Carlson's evil to the far right, is now shocked he's evil. And I-Never-Winsome Earle-Sears and scabby Fox host Charlie Hurt think Barack Obama not voting for her when he voted for Kamala Harris is hypocritical (so...Earle-Sears voted for Kamala, and Hurt voted for Spanberger?)
C-Block (40:30) SPORTSBALLCENTER: You probably aren't interested in my thoughts on the latest new selection committee and the latest eight nominees for baseball's Hall of Fame (though I have many of them). But you may be entertained by the sagas of the previous selection committees and the legend of how the ex-players on them used to cast "courtesy votes" for their old buddies and one year Ted Williams and the others screwed up and accidentally cast way too many of them for a not-so-Hall-of-Famish catcher named Rick Ferrell and he actually got elected.
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:04.2 | Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of IHeart Radio. |
| 0:28.9 | First full night of sleep in more than one year. |
| 0:32.2 | Not an analogy, literally. |
| 0:39.6 | Tuesday night, first full uninterrupted, boring night of sleep in more than a year. |
| 0:41.8 | And what was my reward? |
| 0:48.0 | To wake up to Trump beginning a climb down from the shutdown to wake up to mayor-elect Mamdani and governor-elect Cheryl and governor-elect Spanberger and Prop 50 passing. |
| 0:53.8 | And every one of Virginia's 95 |
| 0:56.5 | counties getting more blue to wake up to the reality that Trump has absolutely no idea. |
| 1:04.2 | He got the shit kicked out of him. |
| 1:07.0 | And that Trump is deranged syndrome is fatal, not fixable, to wake up to the reality that the real outcome of the elections in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, California, and everywhere else was Trump's sense of permanence, his own sense that the murder he's been getting away with, he'll continue to get away with, |
| 1:27.9 | and the sense of his supporters, and the sense of the moronic political media, and even the |
| 1:33.1 | sense of some of us resisting him. There, our sense, that he will continue to get away with it. |
| 1:41.8 | Gone. Permanence is the default position of almost all politicians, and especially the |
| 1:48.5 | corrupt and stupid ones. Permanence is the default position of all mainstream political reporters and |
| 1:54.4 | analysts, and the higher up the food chain they are, the more they cling to permanence, because |
| 2:00.1 | mortgages. I have long thought that the most |
| 2:05.7 | perceptive analysis of politicians ever, anywhere, was unintentional, and it is in the last place |
| 2:13.3 | you would look for it, the Beatles movie Help, from the Leo McCurn character, the hazily defined Eastern religious sacrificial cult leader, |
| 2:23.6 | Clang. |
| 2:24.9 | The sacrificial ring is missing. |
| 2:27.6 | Clang says, something must be done. |
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