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“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.


Countdown with Keith Olbermann

COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - BULLETIN, SEPTEMBER 10 2026
 
An hour into his typical delusional speech at the Republican "Midterm Convention" in Texas last night Trump actually said something different: he offered each adult American $5,000 in a "tariff dividend" if the Republicans maintain control of the House and Senate in the midterms.
 
Without a lot of people being excluded from the bribe that would cost taxpayers $1 Trillion.
 
Bribing voters is completely illegal under a federal law passed in 1948 - although it's debatable whether or not it applies here.
 
It's also debatable about whether or not Trump would pay off on his promised palm greasing. He didn't deliver the "little tariff rebate" of "at least $2,000 each" last December, nor the "Doge Dividend" of last February.
 
Still, it indicates the desperation of Trump, underwater in all swing states with his candidates trailing Democrats in all key Senate races and the GOP privately conceded Congress.
 
And it could be a crime to offer it. Or - please note - to receive it.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

BULLETIN: TRUMP OFFERS EVERY ADULT $5,000 BRIBE IF GOP WINS MIDTERMS - 9.10.26

COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN - SEASON 5 EPISODE 3
 
A-Block (SPECIAL COMMENT) Am I the only one who noticed this? Is the news media so compliant, so dead, not to recognize Trump newly bending the knee not to America but to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin? The story was so easily told just by the sequence and yet it gave our newsmen and our supposed liberal commentators the proverbial haircut. I'll walk you through it.
 
THERE IS REASON TO HOPE we will be able to rein the monster in. Newest polling from Michigan: el-Sayed is up by three, Trump's tariffs are underwater 60-40 with non-college voters and he's only got 41% support among them. The Democrat could grow several points as the Trump haters come round to him.
 
AND WHAT IS ANTISEMITISM? Criticizing Israel? No. Criticizing Trump? Certainly not. How about coming out and saying that Jewish people are only Jewish if they look Jewish to you? And if they don't and still claim to be Jewish, you want to see a map of their DNA. Because no past dictator ever tried that formula did they, Elon Musk?
 
B-Block 40:00 (SPECIAL COMMENT: 9/11) I won't inundate you about 9/11 but one of Zohran Mamdani's critics thinks Osama bin Laden is still alive, and another one is Rudy Giuliani, of all the former mayors of New York the one whose worldview comes closest to al-Qaeda's. Anybody remember when after 9/11 Rudy tried to seize power as an unelected quasi-dictator of New York? Plus some of my reporting from that time 25 years ago.
 
C-Block 1:10:00 (SPORTSBALL CENTER TONIGHT) Can collective amnesia in baseball be cured by Performance Enhancing Drugs? A theoretical question for you fans of the diamond doings. Plus my unusual appearance in the new biography of Renee Richards, and an unexpected comp from Peter Gammons: me and...Hunter S. Thompson?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

NEWEST EVIDENCE TRUMP IS NOT LOYAL TO THE UNITED STATES - 9.10.26

BULLETIN: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN SEPTEMBER 3 2026
 
Trump's favorite Goebbels impersonator Maria Bartiromo has been fired by Fox - I believe directly by Rupert Murdoch - for telling Trump that Fox News had ordered her and others to not give credence to Trump's July speech in which he promulgated the hallucination that China had stolen the 2020 election which he lost, from him.
 
That she was fired was evident from the timing: it is the proverbial "Take Out The Trash" Day (the Thursday before the four-day Labor Day weekend); she was given no chance to say goodbye; she is not leaving for another job. Oliver Darcy of Status added the detail of Bartiromo ratting Murdoch out to Trump; he reports she even forwarded the text message from her Fox bosses telling staff not to buy into Trump's latest delusion, to the White House.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

BULLETIN: MURDOCH FIRES MARIA BARTIROMO FOR TATTLING TO TRUMP - 9.3.26

SEASON 5 EPISODE 1: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN 
 
A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Hey look, we're back. A special edition to test new equipment (both internal and mechanical), and to talk about the amazing reality that Trump has lost his war in Iran, and the only result he got has just been made permanent as Iran made a deal not with him, but with Oman, to institutionalize the Strait of Hormuz tolls. He is literally the first U.S. President to lose a war. So much winning! Plus the latest media fails (New York Times platforms that idiot David Ellison, who has been silenced by the liberal media that is owned by conservatives; more Maggie Haberman), new Michigan senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed comes out throwing figurative punches at MAGA, and the bigger picture on the through lines back of Trump's Iran Forever War: burying Epstein, monetizing war for the Trump Mafia, and trying to make you afraid that gas will cost an extra buck rather than afraid your descendants will be smothered by gas's destruction of the atmosphere.
 
B-Block (50:00) SPORTSBALLCENTER TONIGHT: Did you notice baseball's celebration of its "Trade Deadline" this week? This is a relatively new phenomenon. Through most of its history baseball has tried to legislate AGAINST powerful well-heeled teams from monopolizing all the talent. In fact there was once a rule against making a trade with a defending champion! And, maybe you heard I'm selling one of my rare Honus Wagner baseball cards. The idea that the card was damaged (the background to the player's portrait was cut away, probably in 1909) and I had it restored by a master conservator, has kind of gotten warped in the hype about the auction. The point is: restoration - illicit, secret, designed to mislead and deceive - has been around for three decades and I had this already-altered card re-altered was and is an attempt to make restoration above board.
 
C-Block (1:23:14) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Well my old pal Laura Ingraham was back in the news and I'm afraid Dr. Fauci was subjected to a real-time version of one of my recurring nightmares: I'm somewhere public, trying to deal with a crisis, and I can tell somebody is sitting behind me gesticulating and contorting their visage - and it's LAURA. Or you can title this "The many faces of Laura Ingraham."

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

TRUMP BECOMES THE FIRST U.S. PRESIDENT TO LOSE A WAR! - 8.6.26

SEASON 4 EPISODE 84: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
 
A-Block (3:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: Back from a week off just in time to put the podcast on health hiatus...details within today's supersized edition. Plus, befitting the time off, some meta pictures on how Democrats should plan for what they want this country to look like on its 300th anniversary, if it lasts that long. Will we have jailed Trump and gotten back the money he took? Undone his damage? Eliminated the anachronistic idea that Wyoming should have as many senators as California? Let the Supreme Court continue to lie, cheat and steal the democracy from under us? As John Candy said in "Splash": Think big, be big, my friend.
 
MORE IMMEDIATELY: Whaddya mean the Governor of Virginia hasn't been BRIEFED on the way to overturn her state's Supreme Court's usurpation of redistricting? Why the hell not Hakeem Jeffries? Anybody notice Trump is simply rotating the same three lies about Iran? Why are only independent journalists like Garrett Graff still covering the WHCD non-shooting when the New York Times is doing 31 paragraphs on the future of the dinner like anybody gave a crap?
 
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY: stop saying Trump is painting everything GOLD. That color is not GOLD. It is the color of WEE WEE. Say it. Use the clinical terms, use the gutter terms. The gutter terms define this idiot president. Stop saying gold when you mean whizzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
 
B-Block (56:00) ON THE PASSING OF TED TURNER: Hard to believe few of the obituaries mentioned how he also invented 7-day-a-week sports on national television. Or how Jane Fonda kept him from destroying himself in, like, 1982. One particularly harrowing saga had him telling the lowest ranking staffer at CNN's Washington Bureau which way, when he finally decided he'd do it, he'd do it. And this is said with admiration and affection for the man who created the place where I and so many of the figures of the last 45 years began our TV careers.
 
C-Block (1:30:00) ALL TED ALL THE TIME: I was holding back until I was certain I wouldn't jinx him. My beloved first rescue dog, Ted, was up against it last fall. I took him to the University of Florida for life-saving open heart surgery and boy, did they! Eight hours on the table, eight hours of SICU, all for an eight pound dog and now - he's not even on any medications! It's a long story and I would insist it's worth hearing it. And if you have a dog (or know of one) moving from Mitral Valve Disease to Heart Failure, maybe this will provide you with hope - and an option.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

THINK BIG, BE BIG, DEMOCRATS! THIS IS NOT THE FINAL COUNTDOWN - 5.11.26

SEASON 4 EPISODE 83: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
 
A-Block (3:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump has given away his labyrinthine plot to stay in office past 2028 in one social media post and he’s just crazy enough to think it will work. It is in his rant claiming the indictment of a political opponent means "The 2020 Presidential Election Should Be Permanently Wiped From The Books And Be Of No Further Force or Effect…”
 
He is not going to try a new Constitutional Amendment or say the limit is two CONSECUTIVE terms. He's not going another coup (at least not initially). He is going to try to nullify the 2020 Election - and hold that vote again. ANOTHER 2020 Election. In 2028.
 
If you think that's too crazy easy for him - is it crazier than Trump insisting yesterday that we are in a war against UKRAINE? Crazier than indicting the former FBI Director on a threat to kill Trump with a seashell meme? Crazier than trying to get a comedian fired for a joke about Trump’s death and his wife when TRUMP then goes out and makes a joke about his death and his wife and all America is talking about is the dreaded D-word? Crazier than indicting a man for trying to shoot him at the Correspondents’ Dinner when it is now unmistakably clear that the suspect never fired a shot and was never on the same floor as Trump was? Crazier than Trump's insistence that we should pay for this damn ballroom because it'll protect presidents? What - are they sealing themselves in like Saddam Hussein in his Hidey Hole?
 
And then I'll detail Trump’s bid to MATA: Make America 2020 Again.
 
B-Block (36:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Two competing Bari Weiss entries because while nobody's watching her version of the CBS Evening News, everybody seems to have seen her prized reporter Olivia Reingold making a fool of herself on video from the Correspondents' Dinner. And speaking of that, Stephen A. Smith came out of that experience knowing who is to blame for all America's problems: those evil liberals! Whose presidential nomination he expects to win. ESPN has a choice: platform a political idiot and Conservative tool and destroy your franchise, or get rid of him and keep it.
 
C-Block (55:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I often wonder WHY I ever became a political commentator. It wasn't planned and it wasn't supposed to be permanent. And the story of HOW I became a political commentator is even crazier.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

TRUMP'S PLAN TO STEAL A THIRD TERM: THE 2020 ELECTION OF 2028 - 4.30.26

SEASON 4 EPISODE 82: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
 
A-Block (3:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: Call me a cynic but I am beginning to get a sense that you may have some doubts about this Not-An-Assassination Attempt at The White House Correspondents Dinner.
 
Well - that's what it was. Or in this case, what it wasn't. The acting attorney general says the alleged perp quote “was stopped before he got anywhere near the President.” So, NOT an assassination attempt, per the attorney general. But of course the White House is still trying to sell it as one (its 'protocol director' insists it was "the hand of God" again; its deputy chief of staff tried to start another 'USA!' chant after the incident). Even though proximity is the definition of such a nightmare scenario. Saturday Night? Obama had 15 of those.
 
Still, among my fellow Americans who are NOT in the Trump Mass Hypnosis Cult, I may be in the minority because I DON’T think it was staged. Why are you so cynical? Just because an hour beforehand Karoline Leavitt told Fox quote “There will be some shots fired tonight!” That’s a coincidence. Just because Trump has gone insane about his quote “militarily top secret ballroom” and the next thing you know he’s GOING to a ballroom and after that the Secret Service screws up security AT the ballroom and after THAT he’s holding a press conference saying this is WHY he needs that ballroom and all his sock puppets are tweeting about the ballroom. Coincidence!
 
Just because Trump and his filth have lied to you about every THING, every DAY, for 11 years… that’s no reason for you to think that was STAGED. It’s a coincidence! It’s all a coincidence.
 
ALSO: for God's sake stop saying there's no room for violence in American politics and we don't resolve our differences this way! Certainly we all wish that were true. But in point of fact there's room for almost nothing BUT violence in American politics! Ask JFK, Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Garfield, Lincoln, McKinley, dozens of others! What was the Civil War if not political violence?
 
B-Block (28:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Staten Island cop who has reportedly amassed more than 500 speeding tickets, and last year averaged one every other day. Jeff Bezos' Washington Post will only print a letter to the editor responding to its editorial if the authors take out the references TO Jeff Bezos. And Tom Cotton makes a hilarious mistake: Iran will meet its match not on the battlefield but at the bargaining table because it's never faced the author of "Art Of The Deal." Who's gonna tell him?
 
C-Block (41:00) MONDAYS WITH THURBER: We need a break from media people talking about themselves so let's drop "Things I Promised Not To Tell" and instead read you his wonderful, weird, slightly spooky "The Black Magic Of Barney Haller."
 
 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'M NOT SAYING IT WAS STAGED! YOU'RRRE SAYING IT WAS STAGED - 4.27.26

SEASON 4 EPISODE 81: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
 
A-Block (3:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: "Donald Trump Is Losing His Mind."
 
It's the headline on a column in perhaps the most prominent MAGA magazine headline. It's not me saying it this time. Not Jimmy Kimmel. Not George Conway. Not a psychiatrist. The Washington Examiner: “Donald Trump Is Losing His Mind.”
 
Why? Just because he’s also losing IRAN? Just because he’s COMPARING Iran to Vietnam (which he dodged)? Just because he threatened to go General Sherman on Teheran? Just because he's just announced you are no longer ALLOWED to CRITICIZE him ABOUT Iran?
 
“Donald Trump Is Losing His Mind” writes The Washington Examiner - guess that makes it unanimous (and there is now polling on this!)
 
ALSO: House Democrats want Kash Patel to take an alcoholism screening test. His choices amount to: a) ARE you an alcoholic? b) Are you so FULL of alcohol you’re at risk of bursting into flames, or c) are you J. Edgar Boozer.
 
AND about the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday. The Correspondents Association is obeying in advance to Trump, calling him an "honoree" and welcoming his rats like Brendan Carr and Stephen Miller. If you’re attending this dinner, and you are not planning to storm out or otherwise using this rare opportunity to protest Trump’s presence, you’re not only a traitor to JOURNALISM, you’re a traitor to America. 
 
B-Block (36:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Trump's "National Garden Of Heroes" with 250 statues of everybody from Elvis to Whittaker Chambers is dumb enough. What happens when they forget to order the statues? Interior Secretary Burgum wants Theodore Roosevelt in the pro football Hall of Fame even though there wasn't pro football while T.R. was alive. And new Congressman Clay Fuller says he was only joking when he said Georgia was named after George Washington.
 
C-Block (45:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Talking about dinner in DC Saturday (The White House Correspondents) led me to mention my disastrous dates last century with Laura Ingraham on social media and there was considerable disbelief so it's time to tell that story.
 
 
 
 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

TOP MAGA MAGAZINE HEADLINE: "TRUMP IS LOSING HIS MIND" - 4.23.26

SEASON 4 EPISODE 80: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
 
A-Block (3:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: Nobody is at the wheel of Trump's war in Iran.
 
Is the Strait of Hormuz open or is it closed? Are there peace talks with Iran in Pakistan TOMORROW… or nah? Is Jayvee Vance going? Is Iran going? Has Trump scheduled peace talks where we’re the only ones there? Will it make any difference if we’re the only ones there? Doesn’t “blowing a hole in the engine room” of an Iranian cargo ship yesterday mean we aren’t honoring Trump’s own ceasefire he boasted about? Are we paying 20 billion dollars for the Iranian uranium and hostages? The same uranium and hostages Obama bought for 400 million and Trump called him a traitor? Or is that a no?
 
Don’t ask Trump – he doesn’t know. But that won’t stop him from answering anyway. Yes. Then Nope. Then Yes again. Then: All of the Above. in 48 hours he went from 13 posts congratulating himself on winning, to insisting he would stop being “Mr. Nice Guy” and blow up all of Iran. By the way, eactly when was he “Mr. Nice Guy”?
 
We are LOSING the war in Iran and as of today a total idiot is still president and commander-in-chief. He gets questions about the pointless war he started to divert attention from Epstein and the economy he crashed, so he orders the reporters out of the Oval Office, and sits there with hapless munchkin Little Joe Rogan standing behind him, the shine off his cueball noggin blinding cameras and journalists alike. Trump has set off a chain of events over which he no longer has any control – except to withdraw and flee – and to withdraw and flee is to acknowledge he screwed up. And this man would jump off the roof of the White House before admitting he screwed up.
 
The Trump “Administration” has so UTTERLY jumped the shark, that the truthers are coming out from inside MAGA: Alex Jones now insists Trump has done all this DELIBERATELY, because he has made a “deal with the deep state to throw the election to the Democrats." Marjorie Taylor Greene has joined the Trump Assassination Truthers and Trump himself has floated a kind of conspiracy theory ABOUT himself… he wrote ‘Praise Be To Allah’ on Easter morning to “seem as unstable and insulting as possible.”
 
He wanted to seem as unstable as possible? MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, Trump! You’ve finally done something you promised!
 
B-Block (28:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Before the year is out, Major League Baseball will threaten to lock the players out and cancel the season in 2027 because the smaller market teams can't make enough money to compete. One of those teams just sold for $3.1 billion more than it did in 2012. New York's hockey teams support a) Trump putting his name on public buildings or b) legal funds for cops convicted of killing unarmed civilians. Vivek Ramaswamy dismisses his opponent talking about being raped as a child as her "complaining." And Lauren Boebert thinks Congress is too horny and she won't remain, uh, hands off.
 
C-Block (45:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Netflix stock took a huge hit, supposedly after the co-founder Reed Hastings announced he was bowing out. But I think it might've been another announcement that did it. They are going into news podcasts with - Brian Williams? The story of how he imploded at NBC, while I was literally an eyewitness to his public self-destruction, and the advice I gave his bosses that could have saved him (and them) if they hadn't ignored it.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EMPEROR TRUMP HAS NO CLOTHES - AND NO CLUE ON IRAN - 4.20.26

SEASON 4 EPISODE 79: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
 
A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump doubles down on bashing the Pope and appropriating Jesus.
 
This time it’s not him pretending to be Dr. Jesus or whoever. It's, it's, it's...well the image he posted looks like he’s about to make out with him. I mean this isn’t one of my areas of expertise but JC is fondling Trump's chest. It’s so bad even Speaker Mike Johnson noticed.
 
The Republicans aren’t mad about the other part, slamming Pope Leo, because right wing governments have been attacking the Catholic Church since King Henry the 8th. But some of the comments do underscore that if they want the Pope to "stay in his lane," the MAGA evangelical squad needs to stay in its.
 
This also underscores how MANY wars can Trump start at the same time? War against the Pope, War against European governments, War against Iran, War against Reality. He again insists he’s blockading the Strait of Hormuz when the American navy is clearly NOT blockading the Strait of Hormuz. He again insists he’s already beaten Iran, when Iran now says IT may also halt shipping in the RED SEA.
 
Does Trump even KNOW how bad it’s going for America in the Gulf? In world capitals? Or is this like Germany 1942 where citizens – and many government officials – were actually told the Luftwaffe had totally destroyed New York City. Let me tell you the story of what happened when German POW’s actually SAW New York City…
 
Plus: watch where you put your hands, J.
 
B-Block (26:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Is naming a large pothole on the Moon in honor of the late wife of one of the astronauts an "act of colonialism"? One anti-colonialism commenter thinks so. When you OD and that isn't the worst thing you did all week - the story of Clavicular. And the Swalwell Disaster prompts one Congressman (Andy Ogles) to propose hanging rapists (who's going to tell him?) and one Fox host (Jesse Watters) to pontificate on the proper time to "whip it out."
 
C-Block (39:15) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: She was a five-hour a week camerawoman who had already survived several years on Capitol Hill. He, owned the network and invited her to the best French restaurant in Georgetown. And she - as she told me back in '82 or '83 - wound up saying good night, by standing up in the middle of that restaurant and slapping him.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

TRUMP DOUBLES DOWN WITH DISTURBING MAKE-OUT IMAGE - 4.16.26

EPISODE 189: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
 
A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: No, I also don't have any idea WHAT Mike Pence told Jack Smith's Grand Jury yesterday but boy do I hope he incriminated everybody. On the other hand, I have a pretty good idea that barring the unforeseen, the terms of Tucker Carlson's contract with Fox will be such that the vague, poorly-lit, dog-whistle-filled twitter video from Wednesday night may be the last we see of him for awhile, and it may mark the beginning of his firing slipping out of our (often thankfully) breakneck news cycle. As a warning: the remainder of this episode is the reprise of five separate Carlson commentaries from the last five months, tracing his ascent to madness and his fall from employment. If you don't want to hear stuff you've already heard, you can cut out at about the nine minute mark and I won't take it personally :-) (9:20) November 22: When Tucker Carlson tried to get Trans people and drag performers and allies shot (20:51) February 21: The McCarthy-January 6th video deal is made and it is time to de-platform Tucker Carlson - and de-platform Fox "News."
 
B-Block (39:42) March 13: The Carlson gaslighting of the January 6th Capitol video was so clearly an attempt to foment obstruction of justice and rebellion that Carlson could've been indicted and arrested (58:12) But on March 14 it became clear - as Carlson re-ran several clips for the third time and obviously had nothing of interest to show anybody - that he not only wouldn't be arrested, but with THAT video, as they say, he COULDN'T get arrested.
 
C-Block (1:13:10) April 24: SCHADENFREUDE. The firing of Carlson as it happened, including me singing "Ode To Joy" with the original German lyrics.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

THE TUCKER CARLSON STORY MAY NOW BE OVER - 4.28.23

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