EPISODE 237: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: There arises today the distinct chance that the two Non-Trump-Employees heard on the Trump Confession Recording supplied their copy of the recording to Jack Smith, and that they will testify against him. It may be coincidence but we know this much for sure: days after they were at Bedminster in July, 2021, after a lot of publicity in newspapers and with Tucker Carlson for their new venture, the co-publishers of Mark Meadows' book all but disappeared from public view. 

The recording does not exist in a vacuum. Why is everybody looking at it that way It's a tape of FIVE PEOPLE TALKING IN A ROOM. Any of whom can be called to testify ABOUT THE TAPE. And we don’t really know, because nobody’s really focused them, who the OTHER four people are. And we don’t know what THEY think of the tape. And we don’t know whether any of them are already on that list of possible witnesses Smith may call in the documents trial. The New York Post had a throwaway reference last night: “Two of the people Trump speaks to in the audio are believed to be Kate Hartson and Louise Burke, who had started All Seasons Press, a conservative publishing company…”

You do not have to have a hyperactive imagination to wonder: if the Post is right and it was both of them that as Ms. Burke and Ms. Hartson left Bedminster that day two years ago next month one of them realized that they had just been shown top secrets and had it within their power to get Trump indicted for not keeping top secrets SECRET and it put the fear of God into them. Hell, Kid Rock says Trump did it with HIM and even HE was smart enough to get frightened.

Did they go to the FBI?

Meanwhile Trump really DID change HIS story three times yesterday. When he got burned by Bret Baier on Fox last week, Trump insisted about the document referred to in the transcript of the recording, quote “there was no document.” Yesterday he posted only that he was covered by the Presidential Records Act. Then in New Hampshire he insisted he had kind of told Baier there WAS a document. Then to reporters on his plane he said no, he never had a document, just building plans. And golf course plans. And a newspaper story about Iran. And he was showing off.

All in one day.

Plus Walt Nauta didn't testify because his lawyer decided he needed lots more money to take THIS case. But Rudy Giuliani reportedly pre-testified in an interview with the Special Counsel's staff.

B-Block (24:32) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: SCOTUS votes 6-3 in favor of keeping democracy after all (though it's really more like 5-4). The Senator whose state's top industry is tourism tells tourists not to go there. A Bob and Ray sketch comes to life. They once imagined Chocolate-Flavored Ketchup. The National Culinary institute is introducing COLA-Flavored Ketchup - for use on HOT DOGS. (35:01) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Elon Musk deliberately or inattentively starts punishing accounts which block RW ads on Twitter. Last week The National Hockey League betrayed Pride Night. THIS week it puts its player draft in the city whose incoming owner is a noted anti-same-sex marriage and adoption ex-Governor. And yes RFK Jr shared an online stage with an anti-vaxxer who says the Covid vaccine causes you to become magnetic. But I'm the winner because I accidentally called RFK Jr "JFK Jr" and that is utterly unfair...to JFK Jr.

C-Block (36:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Fox just changed its lineup to put its 10 PM host on at 7 because its audience is now too old to stay up to 10. This flashed me back to the day, nearly 15 years ago, when I first realized that the future of cable news was... there wasn't any. The day they let a guy who knew nothing about cable news and cared even less bully the people who ran MSNBC. His name was Tom Brokaw.

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