TRUMP CRAPS PANTS AS JACK SMITH BEGINS END GAME - 5.24.23

Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called Inner Cosmos on iHeart. I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions, like, can we create new senses for humans? So join me weekly to uncover how your brain steers your behavior, your perception, and your reality. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Last season, millions tuned into the betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning, and now we're sharing an all-new story of betrayal. Ashley Litten was helping her husband set up a business Venmo account when she discovered a terrible secret. I saw a hidden folder, and I opened it. What the hell did I just see? Listen to season two of betrayal on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Queen Charlotte, the official podcast, we're stepping behind the scenes and the drawing boards of this team to experience the life breathed into the Bridgerton prequel. Listen to the leaps executive producer and series director Tom Barrica took to capture the feeling that puts that lump in your throat, and you've got to catch creator Shonda Rhimes. She's dropping gems, diamonds, and mics. You can listen to Queen Charlotte, the official podcast, every Thursday, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. Countdown with Keith Olmerman is a production of iHeart Radio. The special counsel is at the end game. Trump's Liberty may be at the end game as well. Quote, some of Trump's close associates are bracing for his indictment, and anticipate being able to fundraise off a prosecution. People in the former president circle said unquote Jack Smith has all but finished obtaining testimony and other evidence unquote evidence about the classified documents Trump stole. Not a thing in there about Saudi Arabia or China or even Oman or coups or January 6 or 50 pages of Evan Corcoran's handwritten Dear Diary, Trump said another really illegal thing today notes or even two pages of those notes. That is hardly breathless composition right there by the Wall Street Journal. It also reminds us that nearly three weeks ago, the same paper seemed to write the same thing. The steps prosecutors are taking suggest Mr. Smith is in the late stages of his inquiry. Only that was about not the Marilago documents, but about Trump's extralegal cynical attempt to manipulate the electoral college system. And still I am hopeful. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. There is no such thing as Trump derangement syndrome. But they're sure as hell is a Mueller derangement syndrome. And we all have it. But perversely, I am encouraged more by the Journal's board robotic voice, redolent of Alan Rickman and the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy that I was by some of the hyperventilation over Monday's revelations about the Corcoran revelations were the stitching together of the theory that Trump actually stole nuclear secrets so he could get a better deal on goddamn golf course naming rights from the Saudis. Hyperventilation that included my own. But I mean, how would you expect the Wall Street Journal, which starts by sucking the life out of everything its reporters touch? And when it's something that hurts conservatives, then runs it all through the deflaborizing machine a second time just to make sure how would you expect the journal to present a genuinely shocking detail such as the one they did in paragraph three. In recent weeks, prosecutors working for Smith have completed interviews with nearly every employee at Trump's Florida home from top political aides to maids and maintenance staff. Unquote. Wait, nearly every employee? When the pandemic hit, Trump furloughed 153 merilago employees saying you couldn't have hundreds of people standing around doing nothing. Each year he applies to hire nearly 100 foreign workers there. Presumably Jack Smith didn't interview everybody at the golf course, Caddy Shack. But who knows how many people he did interview. Two months ago, Rolling Stone and CNN reported about two dozen Trump Florida employees had been interviewed, including the unfortunately named press aide, Margot Martin. And that's Margot Martin and not beloved character actress Margot Martindale from Bojack Horseman. I'm sorry. I wandered off there. Prosecutors have pressed witnesses, some in multiple rounds of testimony to resume the journal story on questions that appeared to home in on specific elements. Smith's teams would need to show to prove a crime, including those that speak to Trump's intentions and questions aimed at undermining potential defenses Trump could raise. So what they're doing in part is curating a forensic minute by minute breakdown of a couple of days or even weeks in question with an eye towards being able to prove where Trump was during every moment of Evan Corcoran's search for documents in June of last year. And where the guys running the security video were at those moments and where his valet and box mover Walt Nauta was and where the other as yet unnamed employee who helped Nauta move the boxes to and from Trump's office. So Trump could pull the documents he needed for whatever trading to the UAE or just framing for future memories. Why he did it almost doesn't matter. As the old saw goes, it's never the crime. It's the cover up back to the Wall Street matter fact journal. Quote Smith's team, which has been examining whether anyone tried to obstruct the criminal inquiry has obtained evidence that appears to show Trump held on to sensitive documents after being asked to relinquish them. The report then blandly restates the significance of last week's reports that the National Archives turned over all its correspondence with Trump and his advisors about the process of declassifying materials and his apparent acknowledgement that he understood what that process was. But the conclusion from those countless interviews at the residence at Marilago has to be one of two completely opposite things. Namely that the act of stealing the classified documents is either such a slam dunk conviction that it doesn't need a minute by minute. It was the colonel with the Iranian nukes docs in the pantry timeline or more likely. The question of secret classification is way too vague and way too complicated, especially when compared with obstructing justice and lying to your own attorney and lying to the FBI and DOJ and ordering your lawyers to lie to the FBI and the DOJ and hiding documents you have been ordered by the government to return in undeniable violation of the Espionage Act that all that is far less nuanced and far less likely to be fuzzed up by Trump's only real skill throwing obfuscation against the wall and seeing if it will stick like it was a plate of burgers and fries during a bill bar interview. And lastly in parsing the journal's fantastic success in turning the worst political scandal in the history of all of the Western democracies into the equivalent of ambient, I must credit the paper for making something stand out. In April, Trump attorney Tim Parlator and colleagues wrote to lawmakers in Washington trying to get them to force the Department of Justice to drop all the inquiries into all the classified documents found at Trump's home or Biden's property or Pence's property or the astonishing number of congressmen's and senators homes. I didn't see the Parlator letter as quite the big tell that the journal characterizes it as. Deficient document handling and storage procedures, it says in that letter, are not limited to any individual administration or political party, the letter read in part. Parlator wanted to call off quote, ham-handed criminal investigations of matters that are inherently not criminal. Next thing we knew, Tim Parlator was off the Trump legal team and he was blaming Boris Epstein for making it much more difficult to defend Trump. And now the journal says the letter quote and particularly a push by its authors to publicize it triggered upheaval within the Trump legal team. In other words, Epstein got Parlator fired over that letter. Why? It's so obvious you probably didn't see it. I didn't. In the letter, Parlator admits that Trump did something wrong. You can't admit Trump did something wrong. That destroys the entire bubble inside of which Trump has always lived and lives his genuine belief that he is infallible, his belief that he is indestructible, and for all we know his belief that he is immortal. Parlator confessed in writing that Trump had the same kinds of documents that were found in Biden's properties and in penses. And what kind of documents were those? Classified documents. Parlator in that letter is confessing in writing that Trump had classified documents and he shouldn't have. Oops. Fired. I'm surprised Trump didn't respond to the Parlator letter by throwing a plate of ketchup at him. And then there was the other letter. Trump's attorneys, John Roly and Jim Trusty last night wrote a dear attorney general Garland letter that Trump clearly composed himself. I don't know exactly where this lands on the scale from panic to desperately trying to gain public pity to lawyers desperately trying to please their crazy client. I'll read it in full. It doesn't take that long. Dear Attorney General Garland, we represent Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the United States. He owns a mansion and a yacht in the investigation currently being conducted by the special counsel's office. Unlike President Biden, his son Hunter and the Biden family, President Trump is being treated unfairly. Reads like it was written by a third grader. No president of the United States has ever in the history of our country been baselessly investigated in such an outrageous and unlawful fashion. We request a meeting at your earliest convenience to discuss the ongoing injustice that is being perpetrated by your special counsel at his prosecutors. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I understand Garland has already composed his reply. Dear Mr. Roly and Mr. Trusty, happy to meet you and your client. Please come to my office at 123 Trump pooped his pants. Didn't he avenue Washington DC or maybe Trump is sitting there silently making mean faces at a picture of Garland. That's what he did yesterday while he attended only virtually your welcome New York courtroom crowd. The hearing at which his buddy Judge Juan Mershan set the trial date for the 34 felony charges in the Stormy Daniels payoff for Monday, March 25, 2024, three weeks after Super Tuesday. Got to reserve those trial dates early. There are going to be a lot of Trump trials next year. Seems extremely unlikely that Fannie Willis would notify law enforcement months in advance if she was not going to indict him in July. It seems extremely unlikely that the special counsel would present just one all encompassing case against Trump rather than breaking it up into a series of trials, bettering the odds of getting at least one conviction that way. Yesterday in New York and by virtual Judge Mershan warned Trump about not disseminating evidence discovered free trial and not being able to make public appearances during a trial, but continued to reassure him that nobody was going to restrict his first amendment rights. I guess all of that was greeted with pantomime Trump fury, his usual petulance and childishness. But amen. While his microphone was muted, I like the way the New York Times put it quote when Justice Mershan mentioned the trial date, Trump immediately grew agitated, chattering at his attorney Todd Blanche with his microphone muted, waving his hands and shaking his head. Put that out on a disc. I'd watch that on a loop. Is it too much to hope Trump was also demanding a plate of ketchup? Also of note here, Florida man runs for Republican nomination and never mind the Twitter thing. DeSantis has done something that I have not seen mentioned very much if at all, even though once you'll hear it, you will say so obvious, so so obvious, which I think is going to be huge in the primary and if DeSantis is the nominee will be huge in the general election. That's next. This is Countdown. Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called Inner Cosmos on iHeart. I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford University and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads. On my new podcast, I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions so we can better understand our lives and our realities. Like, does time really run in slow motion when you're in a car accident? Or can we create new senses for humans? Or what does dreaming have to do with the rotation of the planet? So join me weekly to uncover how your brain steers your behavior, your perception and your reality. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last season, millions tuned into the betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning and now we're sharing an all new story of betrayal. Ashley Litten was helping her husband set up a business Venmo account when she discovered a terrible secret. I scrolled down and that's when I saw a hidden folder and I opened it. What the hell did I just see? I was scared that he was coming home. What Ashley discovered that day was a secret so dark, she feared for her life. She was like, oh my god, I gotta get out of the house. He's gonna find out that I've seen this, he's gonna come kill me. Listen to season two of Betrayal on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're looking for someone to help you unpack Queen Charlotte, a Bridgerton story, you're in the right place. It's me, Gabby Collins. Come with me because I'm Queen Charlotte, the official podcast, we're stepping behind the scenes and the drawing boards of this team to experience the life breathed into the Bridgerton prequel. Listen to the leaps executive producer and series director Tom Barrica took to capture the feeling that's put that lump in your throat and you've got to catch creator Shonda Rhimes. She's dropping gems, diamonds, and mics. On this podcast, we're going beyond the basic line of questioning and getting to the heart of the show, all while appreciating the contributions of the show's creative teams and remarkable cast. Go inside each episode of Queen Charlotte, a Bridgerton story with the creatives, the cast, and creator Shonda Rhimes leading the way. Listen to Queen Charlotte, the official podcast, Thursdays on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman. Post scripts to the news, some headlines, some updates, some snark, some predictions, Dateline, Tallahassee. How can you announce something that everybody already knows about? I mean, you can make that announcement on Twitter or you can make it on the moon. It's just not a thing if everybody already knows. Yet Ron DeSantis, the short man in high heels, will be announcing he is running for president, which he has been doing for two years, on Twitter, with Elon Musk. Now, obviously, Musk has not thought this through, that's a surprise, as he turned Twitter into a right-wing cesspool, Musk probably noticed through his ego that most of its denizens were Trump cultists. So now, in their mind, as of today, Twitter will be anti-Trump. Nice work, Elmo. And DeSantis, of course, has buried his own lead. Monday, he mentioned, on the record, in a trivial venue, a Christian media conference in Orlando. That's three boring things combined into one, a Christian media conference in Orlando. DeSantis announced something that will presumably be the backbone of his campaign against Trump, or if it isn't, it should be. And if DeSantis somehow gets the nomination, it should be the backbone of his campaign against Biden. DeSantis casually mentioned that he believes four or five current Supreme Court justices will retire by the year 2033. That's actually kind of irrelevant to this, but he expects to be president for eight years, so he'd get to replace all the liberals and the non-Clarence Thomas style conservatives with four or five new Clarence Thomas's. And he just sort of glossed over the fact that if elected he, DeSantis, could run for reelection in 2028 and Trump, if elected next year, could not run for reelection in 2028. That seems like the first decent selling point for the Republicans from Ronda against Trump. But no, he doesn't seem to think so. He seems to think the real key is going on Twitter because my space isn't available. If you're on the head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, me, run, get Trump out of jail. Thank you, Nancy Faust, a caveat here. This all presumes Trump does not intend to try to change the Constitution or terminate it in his words so he can seek a third term. Somebody ought to ask him about that. If elected, do you intend to try to change the laws so you can be reelected in 2028? Maybe they could ask Trump bad at a town hall for, never mind. Speaking of which, Dateline Hudson Yards, New York. Oh, there are some tense crew members aboard RMS Titanic. Washington Post columnist and MSNBC contributor Jennifer Rubin wrote a rather textbook piece kind of a ways after the fact suggesting that after the CNN town hall disaster and Christiana Amunpur's diplomatic vivisection of Chris Licht, maybe CNN should get rid of Chris Licht and put Christiana Amunpur in charge. The piece suggested CNN had become a laughing stock, which it is, except when college grads are booing the boss's boss. Well, he gives a commencement speech. That's not a laughing stock. It's a booing stock. This did not sit well with Matt Dornick, CNN senior vice president in charge of communications. Wait, let me check. Is he he's still on that job. Dornick fired back against Jennifer Rubin on Twitter, complaining about two old articles she had linked to and then throwing meaningless stats at her like we are airing 30% more traditional news packages from our correspondence today than a year ago, and then saying she was throwing stones about the hiring of former White House aides, considering she is paid by MSNBC and calling her reckless and offensive because she said CNN was a laughing stock, which it is. And he added, quote, because you disagree with the merits of a single event or a few high profile decisions made by leadership. That's not championing journalism. It's shameful. Dornick then added, what about all the times Titanic didn't hit an iceberg and sink? Huh? Why didn't you write about that? Huh? Huh? Huh? I made the last part up. Having been in this business full time for one month shy of 44 years now, when management like Chris Licht and his bosses screw up like this, and the world's media comes down on them personally, like has been happening now for two weeks. And by the way, congrats Matt Dornick on giving this story at least another day in the hot file. When guys like Licht get criticized, the first person they yell at is the PR guy. In this case, this Matt Dornick. So to borrow Anderson Cooper's last words, when he was still relatively popular, I get it. But honestly, just let it die, bro. You need to save your strength. I mean, Cooper avoided last place Monday by just 11,000 viewers. And think what your job is going to be like when Chris Licht starts blaming his own bosses for making him do all this stuff that destroyed CNN, which will start in about, well, what time was it last week? What time is it now? Is it blame your boss's time yet? Coming up, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez are engaged. I bet they are. Once again, because it is all about me, I used to work with her at Fox. How did I not see this coming? You should excuse the expression. First, the daily round up of the miscreants morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world. Ron's Martin Schrele. Remember Martin Schrele? The pharmacy bro who cornered the market in an anti-parasitic medication that cost $13.50 a pill, but he had a genius idea. He raised it to $750 a pill. And then they caught him for securities fraud and he went to prison. He has now claimed on a podcast the other day that this latest greed bro running as a long shot for the Republican nomination, Vivek Ramaswami, was once his Schrele's lead investor. So a political reporter named Daniel Lipman called Schrele to ask him about this rather remarkable claim. Now the last psych report on Schrele mentioned delusions of grandeur and such, Lipman reports their conversation began with Schrele demanding to be paid for the interview and then it got worse. The Schrele parts are quotes. I will tell you everything I know and in exchange I suppose your company would do something for me. The really juicy stuff I know is something that I could potentially sell to the national enquirer or to monetize that myself. Lipman, we don't pay for interviews. Schrele, I'm just struggling. What's in it for me? I'm going to need a sweeter deal than that. I have this new software. If you plug that maybe we got a deal then. Lipman, we don't barter for interviews. Schrele, if I bless your cash app like five bands, that my fellow non-hipsters means $5,000. If I bless your cash app like five bands, will you say some nice blank about me? The runner is up the Bob Graham Education Center in Miami Lakes, Florida. It's always Florida. This place banned five books from its K through five library because many parents complained. Well some parents complained. Well one parent complained. Daily Salinas who has two kids at that school. She says the books contain references to critical race theory and quote indirect hate messages so they banned them. Just on her word, her complaint. This Daily Salinas would know critical race theory if it came up and bitter in her panhandle. The unfortunate punchline, remember when I mentioned the other day that a Texas school had banned a book of poems by the state poet laureate of Texas? The Bob Graham Center just banned the poem written by and read by National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman at Joe Biden's inauguration. The hills we climb. Banned it. Once again the solution to this is simple. It was used a hundred years ago as various states in the South tried to ban the teaching of evolution. You want to ban these books? Cool. Knock yourselves out. Degrees issued by schools in your state will no longer be considered sufficient for acceptance in any institution of higher learning outside your state and no home schooling degree will be either. And our winner in too bad we didn't have these rules for him, Matt Gaetz, congressman from the Florida county of Infected Growing. One assumes what he said to the semaphore website was just saying the quiet part out loud but I don't think he cares. I don't think he's saying. I don't think he's sober on the debt limit and the prospects that you know whatever whatever they're saying today. Quote, I think my conservative colleagues for the most part support limits save grow and they don't feel like we should negotiate with our hostage unquote. It's on audio negotiate with our hostage and on the audio Gaetz sounds totally unbothered by the term. Congressman Matt sure sounded like a man who has in his time taken plenty of hostages, Gaetz, today's worst person in the world hostageness. Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called Inner Cosmos on iHeart. I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford University and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads. On my new podcast, I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions so we can better understand our lives and our realities like does time really run in slow motion when you're in a car accident or can we create new senses for humans or what does dreaming have to do with the rotation of the planet? So join me weekly to uncover how your brain steers your behavior, your perception and your reality. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Last season, millions tuned into the betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning and now we're sharing an all-new story of betrayal. Ashley Litten was helping her husband set up a business fan mail account when she discovered a terrible secret. I scrolled down and that's when I saw a hidden folder and I opened it. What the hell did I just see? I was scared that he was coming home. What Ashley discovered that day was a secret so dark, she feared for her life. She was like, oh my god, I gotta get out of the house. He's gonna find out that I've seen this, he's gonna come kill me. Listen to season two of betrayal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're looking for someone to help you unpack Queen Charlotte, a Bridgerton story, you're in the right place. It's me, Gabby Collins. Come with me because I'm Queen Charlotte, the official podcast, we're stepping behind the scenes and the drawing boards of this team. To experience the life breathed into the Bridgerton prequel, listen to the leaps executive producer and series director Tom Barrica took to capture the feeling that's put that lump in your throat. And you've got to catch creator Shonda Rhimes. She's dropping gems, diamonds and mics. On this podcast, we're going beyond the basic line of questioning and getting to the heart of the show, all while appreciating the contributions of the show's creative teams and remarkable cast. Go inside each episode of Queen Charlotte, a Bridgerton story with the creatives, the cast, and creator Shonda Rhimes leading the way. Listen to Queen Charlotte, the official podcast, Thursdays on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or anywhere you get your podcasts. Still ahead on Countdown, People Magazine reporting that Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez are now engaged. Engaged in what? So I got to go through this again, don't I? I mean, what are the odds that not only did I used to work with the woman Sanchez, who was used to try to blackmail Bezos into supporting Trump, but that I also used to work with the guy who later tried to blackmail David Letterman. Next. First, in each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need you can help every dog has its day, and again it's time to help people who help dogs. Another great rescue is in deep financial trouble. The rescues are dropping like flies. Layla's heart and rescue in Cedar Creek, Texas. They never let geography constrain their generosity. They've helped pull numerous dogs from the New York pound, so they have a special place in my heart. They need simply more money. LHRR has a tweet out with a Venmo QR code, or you can go to their site. If you're going by a Twitter lookout, there's a fake account trying to scam their money. Look for them at Layla's heart R R, or the details will be on my Twitter feeds. I thank you and Layla's heart and rescue. Thanks, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post, was being blackmailed by allies of crazy Trump who expected to get positive coverage for their leader of their cult. What they had on Bezos was he had a girlfriend. They had pictures. It would cost him hundreds of millions of dollars were his wife to find out. He said, that'll happen. In February 2019, Jeff Bezos went public, said his marriage was ending anyway. He was sorry about the pain this caused his wife, but he would now give her all she wanted, and the national inquirer blackmailers could shove it. Amid everything else, it suggested to me that when you cannot figure out what happened to the people who once seemed to have principles, or at least seemed to have enmity towards crazy Trump, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, others. Remember that the odds were amazingly small, that the first time Trump's allies tried to blackmail somebody on his behalf, that they would find in Jeff Bezos, the one guy who would say no. On the first try, I don't think so. I have assumed ever since that this process has been utilized for years on Trump's behalf in business, inside politics, and at its fringes, and that Bezos was not the first victim of this, just the first victim who said, F you, this is why we have F you money. But beneath all that important stuff was yet another occasion where my jaw dropped to the floor and I had to reattach it with Elmer's glue. The woman at the center of the blackmail, the woman for whom Jeff Bezos was going to leave his wife was named Lauren Sanchez. And like everybody else in this 21st century America, I used to work with her. Lauren was a reporter and sometimes anchor at Fox Sports Net when I got there in 1998 only sometimes. They wrote her a script once that actually read Roger Clemens ERA is one of the greatest in his era. And she of course read Roger Clemens era is one of the greatest in his ERA. She was much better at interviewing Lakers players after games, particularly Shaquille O'Neal, even though he was more than two feet taller than she was and she used to insist on interviewing him standing up. These little visits looked so odd on camera that I remember seeing one of her stories being fed in from the LA Forum and I asked the producer, are we actually putting that on the air or just onto the gag reel for Christmas? We did not overlap long there after she gave birth to the child of NFL tight end Tony Gonzalez long after she had ended her relationship with him. Lauren Sanchez was hired to anchor the news on Channel 13, which is a station that was apparently created because somebody would always have to be in last place in the news ratings. And it might as well be them. I was back visiting in LA in the spring of 2002 and dived in and out of as many newscasts as I could so I could see what my two ex-employers there and so many of my old colleagues and rivals were doing. That's when I saw it. The worst, or perhaps the best commercial for a local television news sweeps series in human history, in any language. Sweeps series used to be local TVs bread and butter during the weeks when the local ratings were tabulated and used to establish who was number one and thus how much everybody's commercials would cost each station would do a series of special reports within each newscast. They were designed solely to be advertised, to be sponsored and to be as salacious or silly or unbelievable or titillating or just as memorable as possible. When I was in local news in LA in the 80s and 90s, we had a series at Channel 2 with a very good reporter named Dorothy Lucy and the series was called the Search for Sleeze. The commercials for the Search for Sleeze showed her riding around in a jacuzzi built in the back of a stretch limo with an old guy with a beard and a couple of bikini models in there too. That had been, to my knowledge, the low point of the Sweeps series. But now, as I watched in my hotel room in Santa Monica in the spring of 2002, this is more or less what I heard the voiceover announcer say. This week, a special report, KCOP 13 News anchor Lauren Sanchez brings you how to meet a baller. Ladies, find out where to meet the athlete of your dreams. Lakers, Clippers, Kings, Dodgers, Angels, do you want to? Meet him? Do you want to get to know him? Do you want to date him? How to meet a baller this week on the KCOP 13 News at 10 with Lauren Sanchez? How to meet a baller? I'm not certain how they restored me to human form from the puddle into which I had dissolved. I do remember calling the desk to ask if it was still Tuesday. It felt like I'd been out cold for several weeks. I was appalled, shocked, chagrined, nauseated, mortified, embarrassed, humiliated. And then I stopped. And as an angelic choir sang in the background, I changed my mind completely. This was not Sweeps series madness. This was not a woman debasing herself by teaching other women how to debase themselves how to meet ballers. This was for perhaps the first time in Sweeps series history, perhaps the first time in local television news history, a true expert, lending her panoramic, learned, comprehensive knowledge about one subject requiring subtlety, insight, insider information, and the selflessness to share it with mere ordinary women viewers. How do you meet a baller? I would never have known who to ask. I never would have known to whom to send my wife or daughter or friend. Not really. I knew there were experts. There were scholars. There were fonts of wisdom, but Lauren Sanchez was the Einstein of meeting ballers. And even in the glimmering light of knowledge that radiated from her that week on Channel 13 Los Angeles two decades ago, even in the blinding aura of her brilliance, could she have known that the ultimate target of the little Sweeps series should have been no mere Tony Gonzalez or do you want to meet him? Do you want to get to know him? Do you want to date him? It should have been do you want to meet him? Do you want to get to know him? Do you want to date him? How to meet a Bezos? In life, you just don't expect people you worked with for a few weeks like Lauren Sanchez to wind up as part of modern American history. It just seems unlikely not that they could be involved in a blackmail story like hers. And she was a victim, but that you could have known her. And yet for me, this was the second time. On October 1st, 2009, that was the anniversary that reminded me of both of these stories. My friend David Letterman came out onto the stage of the CBS late night show and revealed that he had had a series of consensual relationships with women on his staff. The studio audience laughed, assuming it was the start of some bit in which the guys at the Hello Deli would somehow have a role of some sort. But Dave went on and on and on and finally revealed he had been the victim of an extortion plot and that he and the Manhattan DA's office set up a meeting with the blackmailer who wanted $2 million with the cover story being that he had written a screenplay about Letterman that would reveal all the relationships, but he would sell the quote screen play on quote two Letterman for $2 million. Within hours, Letterman's blackmailer was identified by authorities. I saw the name pop up on my computer terminal NBC, Robert Joel Joe Halderman. And I looked at it and I said, of course, Joe Halderman, he had been the assignment editor at CNN in New York from the day I broke into television in August 1981 until he left for CBS News a year later. All television assignment editors have to deny reporters camera crews. There are invariably scheduling conflicts, and ultimately there are always two stories to shoot for every one camera crew available. But Halderman used to enjoy denying us reporters crews used to like to mock us to make us grovel. And then when you got to your story with your crew, he would page them and tell them to go cover something else and leave you stranded there. And personally, he had absolutely no redeeming qualities. If you could travel back in time to the 22 or 23 year old me and explain who David Letterman would be and what his fame would be like and how I'd be a guest on his show one night when a presidential candidate canceled at the last minute and how somebody I already knew and had worked with at age 22 or 23 would try to blackmail him over staffers he'd slept with. And could I? I would have interrupted you by that point, said matter of fact, Lee. Oh, it's Joe Halderman, right? Of course, Halderman, total creep. You say he blackmails this letterbox guy? Frankly, 40 year old me probably could have figured out the whole Lauren Sanchez thing for some time traveling quiz master as well. Although I will make no comparison between Joe Halderman and Lauren Sanchez, Lauren was very pleasant. And there is a lesson in that for you. It's not just nostalgia. It's not a brush with greatness to use a Letterman as a term. Wherever you are in life or in your career, you may have yet to meet them or you may have already met them. But this I know to be true. You have your own Lauren Sanchez and your own Joe Halderman already or already in the past and whatever your first impressions about them were or are or will be your damned right they are. And also keep in mind that thought I mentioned that I had about Bezos and the blackmail. Do you really think he could have been the first one they tried to blackmail into supporting Trump and the first one turned them down and went public? I don't think so. I've done all the damage I can do here. Here are the credits most of the music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanel. They are the Countdown musical directors, all orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanel, guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray, produced by TKO brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the older in theme from ESPN 2 written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Musical comments from Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend Kenny Maine and everything else is pretty much my fault. So that's Countdown for this the 869th day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Don't forget to keep arresting him while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Until then I'm Keith Olmerman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olmerman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called Inner Cosmos on iHeart. I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions. Like, can we create new senses for humans? So join me weekly to uncover how your brain steers your behavior, your perception and your reality. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Last season, millions tuned into the betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning and now we're sharing an all new story of betrayal. Ashley Litten was helping her husband set up a business Venmo account when she discovered a terrible secret. I saw a hidden folder and I opened it. What the hell did I just see? Listen to season two of betrayal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On Queen Charlotte, the official podcast, we're stepping behind the scenes and the drawing boards of this team to experience the life breathed into the Bridgerton Creek Wall. Listen to the leaps executive producer and series director Tom Barrica took to capture the feeling that puts that lump in your throat. And you've got to catch creator Shonda Rhimes. She's dropping gems, diamonds and mics. You can listen to Queen Charlotte the official podcast every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or any where you listen to your favorite shows.