0:04

Countdown with Keith Olderman is a

0:06

production of iHeartRadio.

0:20

Well Trump didn't

0:23

sleep through any of that, did

0:25

he. There are a couple of

0:27

big picture headlines from day one of Stormy

0:30

Daniel's testimony that I have not seen mentioned

0:32

anywhere else. First of all, Trump's

0:34

lawyer Ms Necklace, everybody reports,

0:37

seems to have made inroads in her effort

0:39

to convince the jury that miss Daniels

0:42

would say or do almost

0:44

anything for money. She's

0:48

a pornographic actress.

0:52

Whether you approve of that profession

0:55

or abhorred, or like me, you're agnostic.

0:58

I mean there are a lot of other lines of work

1:00

that are way less defensible, like

1:02

foreclosing on mortgages or working

1:05

for Fox News. Whatever your

1:07

reaction towards people in the adult entertainment

1:09

industry, one statement should

1:12

never be among those you express in

1:14

shock or dismay or surprise.

1:17

Oh no, she's a portographic

1:19

actress. She will do or say

1:22

almost anything for money if

1:25

her profession and the requisite

1:27

flexibility her experience with a sleezebag

1:30

like Trump demands of her A

1:32

I did sleep with him. B Oh no, he's

1:34

suing me. I'm changing my story. I didn't

1:37

sleep with him. See, they're willing to pay

1:39

me a lot of money for my story and bury it. So

1:41

yes, I did sleep with him. D he

1:43

sued me again, so I hate

1:46

him. If that surprises

1:49

you, have

1:51

I got bad news for you about Santa,

1:55

which leads to the second meta headline,

1:58

My god, the media, especially

2:00

the television networks, treated her testimony

2:02

like they were cicadas, and

2:04

Stormy Daniels was the ring girl

2:07

who stepped between the ropes to announce the

2:09

start of the thirteenth year.

2:12

My god, they all awoke

2:14

from somnambulance about bank

2:16

records and cell phone extractions

2:19

and the testimony of comptrollers

2:23

and people named Rona,

2:25

and they were able to say, at least to

2:27

themselves, good grief. Get a load

2:30

of those rebuttals. The

2:33

two most sex obsessed

2:36

groups of people in the world, to

2:38

my experience in sixty five years

2:40

on this planet, are eighth

2:42

grade boys and reporters,

2:46

and I am not sure which one

2:48

wins.

2:50

But as I read and watched the coverage, it

2:52

was clear yesterday

2:54

was their day, and today

2:57

will be the day they get to relive their

3:00

day. And tomorrow, when she goes back

3:02

on the stands, that could be an even better

3:04

day for them. It was

3:06

so obvious that

3:09

when participants in media insist it's not

3:11

about sex, what they actually mean is it's

3:13

only about sex. So obvious

3:15

that I swear I saw Wolf Blitzer's

3:18

face move. Speaking

3:21

of CNN, if for those of us old

3:23

enough to have been forced to cover it, forced

3:25

to wade through it, forced to anchor

3:28

it, forced to treat it as if it had not

3:30

been about sex and only about sex,

3:32

yesterday it was a one hundred percent

3:34

flashback to the Monica Lewinsky

3:37

story. And to tie it all together,

3:40

who was there anchoring for CNN?

3:43

Jake Tapper. Jake

3:46

Tapper who first bobbed

3:48

up out of the primordial ocean

3:51

of non entities in local

3:53

Washington twentieth century media, because

3:56

nine days after the Clinton Lewinsky

3:59

scandal broke, he wrote

4:01

an article for Washington City Paper

4:03

called I dated Monica

4:05

Lewinsky and got a career out of

4:07

it. Anyway, more

4:10

on that momentarily, especially why I

4:12

say anyway, the

4:15

coverage yesterday was sex,

4:17

cross examination, sex. There were

4:19

contradictions, sex tough,

4:22

cross sexeminar, I'm sorry,

4:24

examination sex and sex and sex

4:26

and sex, which leads

4:28

into the fourth meta headline, Stormy

4:31

Daniels is not on trial here. Stormy

4:34

Daniels is incidental to this case. That

4:37

is not what you would have thought if you watched

4:40

coverage of it yesterday. But

4:42

the sex isn't illegal, the money

4:45

isn't illegal. Trump isn't

4:47

illegal. Daniels

4:49

changing her story isn't illegal.

4:52

Buying her story to keep it from becoming public

4:55

in the weeks before an election for president, and

4:57

then hiding those payoffs to prevent them

4:59

from becoming public in the weeks before a presidential

5:01

election, that's illegal. And

5:05

all those boring receipts and records

5:07

and notations written by hand

5:10

by a guy named Alan Alan

5:13

with two l's, that

5:18

is the case for the prosecution, my

5:20

lord, and denying

5:23

that there was sex as Trump passed, lying

5:25

about that, as Trump has That is

5:27

why Stormy Daniels is there to

5:30

testify that he's lying.

5:34

And she's also there, so wolf Blitzer's face

5:36

moves, which

5:39

brings me lastly to the fifth Big Picture

5:41

headline. And I have to admit I was a little surprised

5:44

by this one. If the Monday juxtaposition

5:46

of Trump may be going to jail over

5:48

the gag order and Christy Nome

5:50

quintuples down on the idea that shooting puppies

5:52

in the face is a good thing. If that

5:55

underscored how MAGA believes

5:57

it has the right to kill, then

5:59

yesterday's juxtaposition of Nome's

6:01

disastrous media tour more

6:04

on that debris shortly and

6:07

Trump on trial. This underscores

6:10

that these really deeply disturbed

6:13

borderline personalities like Trump

6:15

and Gnome and all the other MAGA frauds,

6:18

they do not do well when

6:20

confronted with reality from which they

6:22

cannot run and they cannot hide.

6:26

It is sadly, absolutely

6:28

possible that Trump does not get convicted.

6:30

I mean, it's a trial. OJ

6:33

Simpson did not get convicted at trial.

6:37

But at about the same percentage likelihood

6:39

is the chance that Trump will stroke

6:41

out from embarrassment. First, I

6:44

know, he does not seem capable of embarrassment.

6:47

I mean, he goes out in public

6:49

with hair like that every day and

6:51

bronzer on it more makeup

6:54

than Christynome wears. Then

6:57

again, I don't think he's ever been metaphorically

6:59

tied to a chair this way and

7:02

been forced to suffer through harassment

7:05

for at least two days. While the fate of

7:07

the nation rests in part on the shoulders

7:09

of a woman who chooses to be called Stormy.

7:13

The creepiness of him telling her just

7:15

before sex that she reminded

7:18

him of his daughter, That doesn't

7:20

surprise anybody. The fact that it was

7:22

said under oath and probably

7:24

made his own lawyers lean slightly

7:27

further away from him at the table,

7:29

that probably does surprise people.

7:32

He showed her a picture of his wife,

7:34

also a totally natural bit

7:37

of foreplay, then said,

7:39

don't worry about her. They don't even

7:41

sleep in the same room. And that's

7:43

the least shocking shock of all time. That

7:46

she said he was so rude she should

7:48

spank him, and he acquiesced, all

7:51

right, judge him if you want to, But the rest of us

7:53

are trying to put him in jail for life. We get

7:55

the idea. But

7:58

the ultimate moment of reality spanking

8:01

Trump yesterday was when Stormy

8:03

Daniels explained but he asked her questions

8:06

about the adult entertainment industry.

8:09

Is their condom use? Are

8:11

you tested for STDs? Is

8:14

there a physician on staff?

8:17

These are questions about the adult entertainment

8:20

industry and film industry that may have had

8:22

an ulterior motive When you stop to think

8:24

about them. But the one line that will

8:26

stick to me always is

8:28

Stormy Daniels, then insisting that just

8:30

before they had sex, Trump asked

8:33

her do you get

8:35

health insurance? That

8:39

is the greatest awful

8:42

pickup line I have

8:44

ever heard. Hey

8:46

baby, do you get health insurance?

8:52

Some other lesser headlines. No,

8:55

I want to believe it too, But no, it's not

8:57

true. Trump is not skipping his son's

9:00

high school graduation, after all that nine

9:02

days from now to instead go campaign

9:05

in Minnesota, rendering the entire self

9:07

martyrdom of the judge. Won't let me

9:09

go into just another confidence

9:12

trick. The graduation is at

9:14

ten am Eastern. The campaign

9:16

event in Minnesota is at five Central,

9:19

sixth Eastern. The flight is three

9:21

hours and he has his own plane.

9:24

Sorry, this is actually this

9:27

is actually me defending Trump that

9:29

day. But yes, his concierge

9:32

judge, the former chief hot

9:34

yoga correspondent of the Miami Nuevo

9:36

Herald, Eileen Cannon, she

9:39

has delayed the start of the espionage

9:41

trial in Florida indefinitely.

9:43

Because I'm translating this

9:45

from legal ease, there's too much

9:47

stuff for her to think about before

9:49

she schedules a start date. Canon

9:53

has been in the bag for Trump since

9:55

before this case began, and

9:57

if he has not yet decided to do it, now

9:59

is time for Jack Smith to go to

10:01

the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and

10:04

ask if there might be any other ex

10:06

Chief Hot Yoga correspondence

10:08

of the Miami Nuevo Herald now serving

10:11

as judges who have not violated all

10:13

legal ethics and exhausted all possible

10:15

justifications for running out the clock on behalf

10:18

of the creature who appointed her, and also to

10:20

start an investigation of this woman Cannon,

10:22

because at this rate the question is no longer

10:24

and if the Trump documents trial in Florida

10:27

will end before the twenty twenty four election,

10:29

it's whether or not it will end before the election

10:32

in twenty twenty eight. Lastly,

10:36

on Trump on Legal I

10:39

promised more of Jake Tapper

10:42

exploiting his date with Monica s

10:44

Lewinsky while pretending he

10:46

wasn't exploiting his date with Monica s

10:48

Lewinsky nine days

10:51

after the scandal broke in nineteen ninety

10:53

eight. My hands are not clean

10:56

on this. I did eventually try to get

10:58

out of the show I was doing that was basically all

11:00

about Lewinsky and Clinton. But

11:03

for the first couple of weeks, I enjoyed

11:05

suddenly having an audience of more than a million

11:07

every night when we've been going along with like

11:09

ten thousand viewers. My hands are

11:11

not clean. On the other hand, they

11:14

are not this dirty. Let me quote

11:16

Jake Tapper's article I Dated Monica

11:18

Lewinsky January thirtieth, nineteen

11:21

ninety eight. I hesitate

11:23

here because I have no desire to appear

11:25

on hard copy or banter

11:28

with msnbcb's

11:32

and essentially I feel bad for poor

11:34

Monica and feel unclean, adding

11:36

my feeble barnacle to her

11:39

ship of fame. Although

11:41

I will admit to an odd weave of

11:43

loathing and envy when I watch

11:45

the blabocracy breathlessly weighing

11:47

in, Hey, I think

11:50

they don't even know this chick. But

11:53

I am not jumping in because one dinner

11:55

with Monica enabled me to read her

11:57

mind as she sits with friends and family

11:59

at the Watergate hondering her

12:02

fate. I write clearly

12:04

because I want a piece of this story,

12:07

just like everybody else. Later

12:11

quote, Am I drunk? Or

12:13

is she cute? I asked maloney,

12:16

which one, he said, Monica,

12:19

I said the one in the black. You're

12:22

drunk, said Maloney. A rugby

12:24

pretty boy. I overruled

12:26

him. She was cute, if

12:29

a little zoftig, and friendly

12:32

and nice. Later

12:35

physically she was pleasant without being

12:37

overwhelming. She's a little chubby,

12:41

but she's leaps and bounds prettier

12:43

than that vacuous mugshot beamed

12:45

all over the world. You know how some

12:47

photos of yourself can make you cringe. Imagine

12:50

if one of those became a new international icon.

12:53

We should be allowed to pick our own pictures

12:55

at times like these. A great

12:57

dresser. She wore some black seventies

13:00

number kind of but not in the slightest bit

13:02

revealing or inappropriate. The reason

13:04

and DC quizzlings are hissing about

13:06

her wacky dresses because she has

13:09

a sense of style and this city simply does

13:11

not. So a sweet

13:14

girl nice. Maybe

13:16

we'll go out again, I thought,

13:20

Jake Tapper, I've

13:25

written cringe worthy stuff in my

13:27

life. I've written cringe worthy

13:29

stuff from nineteen ninety eight. I've

13:31

written cringe worthy stuff about Monica

13:34

Lewinsky, but nothing that

13:37

could compete with Jake Tapper,

13:40

and just the parts of that article I just read

13:42

you, Jake, you win

13:45

by shutout in all

13:48

three categories. Yeah,

14:01

and then there's Christinome.

14:05

Three sound bites. First

14:08

with the X Fox anchor

14:10

Eric Bowling on Newsmax. This

14:13

he actually said out loud and

14:16

the studio did not erupt in laughter.

14:19

I've also written a couple of books, and I know how

14:21

the process works. You write some chapters. You don't

14:23

write the whole book at once. You write a chapter or two, You

14:25

send it to the editors and they edit,

14:27

They read it, they add, they subtract.

14:30

And here's my question the editor, the

14:32

editor, was she possibly a

14:34

plant? A liberal plant, because I'm

14:36

not sure either one of these stories, the dog

14:38

story of the North Korea story seems

14:41

like the Christinome. I know.

14:45

Now the book always stops with me. I

14:47

take my own full responsibility. I wrote

14:49

this book, and I take the responsibility

14:51

for what's in it.

14:52

It's a great book.

14:53

No, Eric Bowling, Christy Nomes

14:55

editor was not a plant. Eric

14:57

Bowling. However, Eric Bowling is

15:00

a plant, a fern, I

15:02

think, And it just went

15:04

downhill from there. This, believe

15:06

it or not, is Christy Nooam yesterday on Newsmax

15:10

Newsmax the

15:13

anchor is named Rob Finnerty And I'll

15:15

just let you enjoy this, then I'll burst your balloon

15:18

about Rob Finderdy.

15:19

Governor.

15:19

If you asked me a month ago who's at

15:21

the top of the list to run with Donald Trump, I would

15:23

have said your name. If you asked me that same

15:26

question this morning, I don't even think you're on the list.

15:28

Really, So my question for you, yes, really.

15:30

And it's because of things that have come out in this book, like

15:32

your claims that you met Kim Jong un.

15:34

And then over the last week i've

15:37

been.

15:37

To the DMZ, I've been t every one I said stared.

15:39

On Kim Jong Let me, Governor, one second.

15:41

I will give you an opportunity to respond. I just want to get

15:43

this out there. So here's the quote from the book.

15:47

You say that I remember when I met North Korean

15:49

dictator Kim Jong un. I'm sure he underestimated

15:52

me, having no clue about my experience

15:54

staring down little tyrants.

15:56

Governor, that never happened.

15:57

But I have said in the book is that when

15:59

I became aware of the content that we had, it changed,

16:02

and that's the way that it is. So I should

16:04

to put that anode in the book that

16:06

I'm not going to.

16:07

Talk about any case that it happened.

16:09

I'm not going to talk about my conversations

16:12

with world leaders. I've been involved in policy for

16:14

thirty years. For thirty years,

16:16

I've been traveling the world talking

16:18

to world leaders, and that is a conversation

16:21

that I'm not going to.

16:22

Have in this book.

16:24

So I've answered that in other in

16:26

interviews already. I've been very forthright,

16:28

and I think that a typical politician wouldn't

16:30

be that honest. As soon as it became

16:33

my attention, I asked for the content to

16:35

be changed, and it has been.

16:35

Governor.

16:36

I'm not asking you about the details of this

16:38

alleged meeting.

16:39

I'm asking if the meeting actually happened.

16:41

I don't think it did, and I think if it did, you'd

16:43

be able to confirm for me that yes, it did. And

16:46

here's when it happened. It happens,

16:48

say at such and such a date

16:50

or a month, or.

16:50

You don't have to be talk about I'm not going to talk about

16:52

my conversation.

16:53

You're going to continue to have to answer this question. Then,

16:56

I don't think.

16:56

So okay that Infinity

16:58

guy was an actual newscaster

17:00

in Bakersfield, in Kansas City and Tampa,

17:03

and I think for a second there, I

17:05

imagine he's still employed. But

17:07

in twenty twenty two on Newsmax, he told

17:10

a startled live guest that Russia

17:12

had apparently surrendered to Ukraine,

17:15

and as the guests started to turn blue,

17:18

Finnerty said, oh, you fell for it. Look at

17:20

the calendar. It's April first. Still

17:23

the stop clocked got it right. And

17:26

then there's Christy Nooam on Fox Business

17:28

with Stuart Varney yesterday. And all I'll

17:30

say is that I worked with Stuve

17:32

Varney forty three

17:34

years ago when I started at CNN,

17:38

and I cannot think of him even

17:40

through all that's happened since, without

17:43

affection. He was a great

17:45

guy. They told me one afternoon

17:47

that a piece on the seven pm sportscast

17:49

on CNN they used to have sportscast

17:51

on CNN, had fallen through, and

17:53

that I had to then write and read a

17:55

commentary about Tom sever

17:58

and New York sports writers, a thing we'd

18:00

been discussing as a possible piece, and they

18:02

wanted me to turn it into a commentary and I'd

18:04

have to do it and read it off the teleprompter. Live

18:07

on the network that night, and I mentioned

18:10

that I didn't know how to use a teleprompter,

18:12

and they said, find somebody to teach you,

18:14

and they hung up, And as I whimpered,

18:17

Stu Varney heard about it, came over and

18:19

said, what's the matter, mate, And I told

18:21

him, and he volunteered, and

18:24

he taught me how to use a teleprompter in

18:26

less than ten minutes, in a process

18:28

by which I have taught hundreds of people

18:30

since how to use a teleprompter. Great

18:34

guy. And then he got

18:36

hit in the head by religion or something.

18:38

Still, every once in a while.

18:41

Still think that you are in line to be Trump's

18:43

vice president. It's up to Donald Trump.

18:45

He's the only person who will decide this true,

18:47

He's the only person who will decide.

18:48

And I suppoke, yes, I do speak to him, I asked, Ques, I

18:51

said to you about this.

18:52

No, I never tell anybody my personal

18:54

conversations.

18:55

With the story.

18:57

I talked to President Trump all the time about the dogs,

18:59

about a lot of things. And right now I tell you what.

19:01

He is being persecuted in a political

19:03

hunt, witch hunt in this court

19:06

case. So I'm proud of him about

19:08

how tough he is and how well he is

19:10

doing.

19:10

Did you bring up yes enough for Stewart?

19:12

Did this interview is ridiculous what

19:15

you were doing right now, so you need to stop

19:17

it is okay, it is Let's talk

19:19

about some real topics that Americans care about.

19:21

I'm afraid around of time. Oh well, of course we are.

19:23

We do. Thank you for being with us.

19:25

I know I pressed hard, but that's what people

19:27

are talking about to this day now.

19:29

Gotta know, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it.

19:32

Watch out, mate, she

19:34

knows where all the gravel pits are. So

19:37

the gist of this is as

19:40

Christy Noome continues to try to sell this

19:42

bloody book and continues

19:44

to insist it was her dog and

19:46

her gravel pit and her

19:49

bullets, and just because

19:51

she made up a story about meeting

19:53

Kim Jong un, she

19:55

is under no obligation to ever

19:57

admit that, especially not since that

19:59

she has found a way to remove

20:02

the story without admitting she

20:04

made the story up. All

20:07

this makes it clear that no may Or may

20:09

not still think she could be Trump's VP

20:11

pick, but she definitely thinks

20:14

she is enough of a monster to someday

20:17

be Republican president

20:20

or dictator or

20:22

whatever we call the job by

20:24

then. And I'm just gonna say

20:26

this, and if you don't get the reference,

20:28

I'm going to suggest you google it or

20:31

go on to IMDb and look up

20:33

the movie The Dead Zone. But

20:35

if this is the start of Christy

20:38

Nomes presidential campaign, it

20:40

is the worst presidential

20:43

rollout since Greg

20:45

Stilson Stilson

20:53

S T I L L S O N S. Also

20:56

of interest here this is a mini

20:58

pod edition. Sorry, lots of personal

21:00

stuff going on, nothing wrong, just too

21:03

much stuff. Not enough day, not enough

21:05

Keith. So the rest of this episode

21:08

is the story from yesterday. You probably

21:10

skipped of how the first man ever

21:12

to run a mile in four minutes or less seventy

21:14

years ago. This week a moment so epic the

21:16

New York Times put out an editorial

21:19

wondering if anybody would ever do it again,

21:21

anybody would ever again run the mile in four

21:23

minutes or less? How he actually

21:25

was not the first man ever

21:27

to run a mile in four minutes or less. Roger

21:30

Banister, who was probably

21:33

the four thousandth man to run

21:35

a mile in four minutes or less. That's

21:38

next. This is countdown. This

21:41

is countdown with Keith Olberman.

21:48

It's mash up Time, a special

21:50

edition of Things I Promised Not To

21:52

Tell and Sports

21:55

Central Center. Seventy

21:57

years ago. Today, the world was

21:59

still in disbelief, because

22:02

the day before May sixth,

22:04

nineteen fifty four saw unfold

22:07

one of the most famous events in

22:09

sports history, in fact, in twentieth

22:12

century world history, and

22:15

everything you may have ever heard

22:17

about it is wrong.

22:20

From six zho four pm prevailing

22:23

local time in England on the early evening

22:25

of Thursday May sixth, nineteen fifty four,

22:28

continuing until the day the man died

22:30

on March third, twenty eighteen,

22:32

not a day went by,

22:35

probably not an hour went by without

22:37

somebody congratulating Roger

22:40

Banister on becoming or

22:43

having become, or being

22:46

or forever being or

22:48

being immortalized by being the

22:50

first human to run

22:53

a mile in four minutes

22:55

or less, the man who

22:58

broke the four minute mile.

23:01

Except for one small detail,

23:04

he wasn't. We

23:08

cannot now comprehend what a

23:10

big deal this really was. Neil

23:13

Armstrong, Times, Charles Lindbergh

23:15

plus George Washington Maybe. The

23:18

next day, The New York Times published

23:20

ten different stories

23:23

about Roger Banister breaking the four minute

23:25

mile barrier, plus an

23:28

editorial, an editorial on the editorial

23:30

page that asked if anybody

23:33

in world history would ever do it

23:35

again. Roger

23:38

Gilbert Banister began the Times

23:40

on the front page ran a mile in

23:42

three minutes fifty nine point four seconds

23:44

tonight to reach one of man's

23:47

hitherto unattainable

23:50

goals. There's

23:53

just one problem. Not only

23:55

was Roger Banister probably not the

23:58

first man to run a mile in less

24:00

than four minutes, but there is also a lot

24:02

of evidence that that record was

24:04

broke in May of seventeen

24:08

seventy by a guy who

24:10

sold fruits and vegetables from

24:12

a push cart on the streets

24:15

of London, a guy named

24:18

Parrot.

24:22

Sixty nine years

24:25

later, and this is

24:27

still the most famous run in the

24:30

history of the world. May

24:32

sixth, nineteen fifty four, on

24:35

an ordinary spring evening at the Ifley

24:37

Road Track at Oxford University in England,

24:40

even as an unfavorable wind worked

24:42

against him, Roger Banister ran

24:45

through the tape in three point fifty nine to four

24:47

and ran directly into not just sports

24:50

history, but human history. The four

24:52

minute mile, the first human

24:54

ever to run that far that fast,

24:57

like the first man on the moon, no

24:59

matter how much farther we go, But

25:02

glory is his in

25:04

Defaul Forever, always

25:06

Eternal, immortal Neil

25:08

Armstrong, but in shorts

25:13

or there had already been a

25:15

four minute mile run in seventeen seventy,

25:18

and Banister has no more claim to immortality

25:20

than do you or I. And this is

25:22

really a story about bureaucracy supporting

25:25

bureaucracy, and what the experts

25:27

call recency bias, and a lot

25:29

of racism. And the story should

25:31

be about a guy who used to sell fruits and vegetables

25:33

on the streets of London, and who ran in his spare

25:36

time for money in the decade

25:38

before the American Revolution. And his

25:40

name was Parrot, as in

25:42

look, Maty, I know a dead parrot

25:45

when I see one, and I'm looking at one

25:47

right now. We

25:49

begin in the pages of a British

25:51

book dated from seventeen ninety

25:54

four, which seems to be for you

25:56

back to the future fans, a kind of Gray's

25:59

Sports Almanac. The seventeen

26:01

ninety four tome bears an amazingly

26:04

modern title the sports magazine,

26:08

and its chronology of top sports events

26:10

of recent years past includes

26:12

for the year seventeen seventy this quote

26:16

seventeen seventy May ninth, James

26:18

Parrott a costermonger. A

26:21

costermonger sold fruits and vegetables from

26:23

a pushcart on Street. James Parrott,

26:25

a costuremonger, ran the length of Old

26:28

Street viz. From the Charterhouse wall in Goswell

26:30

Street to Shoreditch Church Gates,

26:32

which is a measured mile, in four

26:35

minutes. Fifteen guineas

26:37

to five were betted he did

26:39

not run the ground in four minutes and a half.

26:43

So that's it. I am besmirching

26:46

the immortality of Saint Roger Banister

26:49

and everything you will see in the newspapers

26:52

about him over the weekend because of

26:54

fifty one words about some guy

26:57

racing against an eighteenth century watch

27:00

in the year seventeen seventy and the story wasn't

27:02

even published until twenty four years later. Seriously,

27:06

Seriously, there

27:08

is nothing else to say about James

27:11

Parrott. That snippet from that book

27:13

is all that researchers have

27:15

ever found or found out about

27:17

James Parrott. No obituary,

27:20

no nothing, no four minute mile,

27:22

no confirmation he ever existed. Besides

27:25

which, as every modern sports fan will tell

27:27

you, the athletes of today are the great,

27:29

greater, greatest of all time goats. If

27:31

the record book says nobody ran a four minute

27:33

mile until nineteen fifty four, of course the

27:36

record books are right. Since seventeen

27:38

seventy, humans have evolved, health

27:40

has evolved, training has evolved. Why

27:43

in seventeen seventy you couldn't even accurately

27:45

measure a mile, let alone measure exactly

27:48

four minutes. Actually,

27:52

agricultural chains, designed

27:54

to resolve who owned what property and

27:56

where international borders were had

27:58

been introduced in sixteen twenty

28:01

and have proved to be at worst only

28:03

off by a round owned two fifths

28:06

of an inch over a mile. And

28:09

if you're saying agcultural

28:11

chains, you don't use agricultural

28:13

chains in sports, let me ask

28:15

you this. What do they use

28:18

in National Football League games to check

28:20

whether or not it's a first down? Okay,

28:24

we're giving them the accuracy of the agricultural

28:26

chains we still use today in our pro

28:28

sports. You could measure

28:31

several blocks of London in seventeen seventy

28:33

and say from way back there to

28:36

right over here in front of the church, that is exactly

28:38

a mile, Guvnor, But

28:41

how would you time it four minutes?

28:44

Exactly what did they use a really good sundial.

28:47

No, that has been called a chronometer.

28:51

The chronometer was perfected by seventeen

28:54

sixty one. You may know the chronometer

28:56

as a Swiss watch, or

28:58

as you might also know it, a rolex.

29:02

So this parrot runs a mile, or

29:04

maybe he runs a mile plus two

29:07

fifths of an inch, and he is timed by

29:09

several guys with rolexes, and

29:12

they all have the same score. He

29:14

did it in exactly four minutes. If

29:18

you're still not convinced, if you're still googling

29:21

Roger Banister's descendants so

29:23

they can sue this idiot Ulderman in his

29:25

podcast, let me emphasize

29:28

the part that convinced me that a man named

29:30

Parrot did run a four minute

29:32

mile two months and four days

29:35

after the Boston massacre unleashed

29:37

the events that would culminate in the American

29:39

Revolution. Permit me

29:41

to reread that last sentence about

29:44

James Parrott's run from Gray's

29:46

Sports Almanac, I'm sorry, from

29:48

the Sporting magazine of seventeen ninety

29:50

four. Quote fifteen

29:52

guineas to five were betted

29:55

he did not run the ground in four minutes

29:58

and a half. This

30:00

guy parrot bet on himself

30:04

and three to one odds, and

30:06

the five guineas wagered here that would

30:08

be worth about fifty five hundred dollars

30:11

in today's money, meaning this was

30:13

no eighteenth century Roger Banister hoping

30:15

to break a record for Queen and Country.

30:18

This was a guy who did this for

30:20

money, for the equivalent in

30:23

winnings of about seventeen

30:25

thousand dollars, at least as much

30:27

as his annual income might have been selling

30:30

fruits and vegetables from a cart, and the way

30:32

it's phrased in that magazine, we

30:34

don't know. If more than one bet of

30:36

fifteen guineas to five was placed,

30:39

he might have won thirty four thousand

30:41

dollars or fifty one thousand dollars

30:43

or five hundred and ten thousand dollars. Because

30:46

this was for money, the loser

30:50

or losers who bet he could

30:52

not finish the race in four and a half

30:54

minutes had to be satisfied that

30:56

he had done it in less than four and a

30:59

half, in this case in four. As

31:01

we know from our own times,

31:05

like to claim they didn't lose, and will

31:07

go to any length to convince others they did

31:09

not lose. But James Parrott got

31:11

his money, which means that

31:13

the loser or losers believed James

31:16

Parrott really raised a mile and did

31:18

it in four minutes. I'm

31:21

sold antiquated books

31:23

and four minute miles run one hundred and eighty three years

31:25

before the first four minute mile, and costermongers

31:28

and agricultural change. They may come and

31:30

go and may be trustworthy or

31:32

untrustworthy, but money

31:36

is money, and

31:38

James Parrott was given the equivalent of

31:40

his annual salary at least

31:42

once because somebody who thought

31:44

he could not do it agreed, Yeah,

31:47

I was wrong. He really, really, really

31:49

really did just run the mile in four minutes.

31:53

Now, of course, the whole account

31:56

in the book could be wrong. I'm

31:58

old enough that I was actually on the air doing

32:00

sportscast on the radio network of United

32:02

Press International on April twenty five, nineteen

32:05

eighty when Rosie Ruiz quote

32:07

one unquote the Boston Marathon.

32:10

Then it turned out two people had

32:12

seen Rosy Ruiz burst out of

32:15

the crowd of spectators on Commonwealth

32:17

Avenue and start running alongside

32:19

the men runners. And then it turned out that while

32:21

she was supposedly completing the nineteen seventy

32:24

nine New York Marathon, she had struck

32:26

up a conversation with a freelance photographer

32:29

on the subway, and the two of

32:31

them went to the finish line together, and Rosie

32:33

Ruiz then told officials she had just

32:36

finished the race. And Rosie Ruiz was

32:38

a total fraud in two different

32:40

marathons. Maybe the

32:42

seventeen seventy four minute mile of James

32:45

Parrott was just inaccurate.

32:48

Maybe it was just an inside joke or

32:50

a misheard rumor or a

32:52

typo, or he took the

32:54

subway with Rosie

32:57

Ruiz, or

32:59

it was a joke by whoever wrote the book.

33:01

I've told you the story before about the nineteen

33:03

twelve Saint Louis Round second baseman named

33:06

Proctor, and nobody could find anything about

33:08

him. And then it turned out Proctor was the Western

33:10

Union operator who used to make up

33:12

all the official scorecards after each

33:14

game, and one day he decided he always wanted to be a

33:16

Major League ball player, so he put himself in the scorecard.

33:19

Maybe James Parrott was the author of this the

33:22

sports magazine or

33:24

his four minute miles and Monty Python jokes

33:26

go. Now, that's what I call a dead

33:28

parrot. So

33:31

if it's a mistake, if it's a typo,

33:33

if it's his hype job, if it's Rosie

33:36

Ruiz, if it's low Proctor,

33:38

Roger Banister is safe.

33:41

Now he's not because there was also a

33:43

runner named Powell, and Powell

33:46

in seventeen eighty seven said he could run a

33:48

mile in four minutes, and he wasn't messing around. He

33:50

bet a thousand guineas that he

33:52

could do it, one point one million

33:54

dollars in today's money. And

33:57

not only that, but he ran on a famous English

33:59

running track near Hampton Court, and five

34:01

days before Christmas of seventeen eighty seven he

34:04

ran a time trial so that

34:06

the gamblers could all come over and see what shape

34:08

he was in and whether they should bet for

34:11

him or bet against him. And

34:13

he did it in the time trial in four

34:15

minutes and three seconds. And

34:18

when Powell said the betters could see what shape

34:20

he was in, he really meant it. He

34:22

was dedicated to his cause.

34:25

Five days before Christmas and this guy

34:28

ran a mile naked.

34:31

All that was in the papers. What

34:34

happened to the actual race, We

34:36

don't know that. Nobody has ever found that newspaper.

34:39

Nobody's ever found an account of the race, only

34:42

the time trial, so we have to go

34:44

under the assumption that Powell never did better

34:46

than four to three.

34:48

But once again, Roger Banister's four minute mile

34:51

has withstood the test of time. Uh

34:54

kinda bah,

34:57

No, Actually it hasn't. There's also another guy

34:59

named Weller. Weller

35:01

was famous enough as a professional runner of the time

35:03

that when he said he could run a mile on the Banbury

35:06

Road in Oxford, the newspapers of the

35:08

day all showed up to preview it, to talk

35:10

about his two brothers, who were also professional

35:12

runners, and to cover his attempt on October

35:14

tenth, seventeen ninety six.

35:16

And there it is in the papers. Weller

35:19

of Oxford runs a mile

35:22

in three minutes fifty eight

35:24

seconds, not

35:27

only one hundred and fifty eight years before

35:30

Roger Banister, but a second and

35:32

a half faster than Roger

35:34

Banister. So

35:38

here's the thing. If somebody really ran

35:40

a mile in three fifty nine or three

35:42

fifty eight at the time of the American

35:44

Revolution, wouldn't that stand out

35:47

as such an impossible performance,

35:49

then, such an anomaly so startling

35:52

that it would be viewed in the same way we would

35:54

view news coming up on Monday that somebody

35:56

now had just run the mile in three

35:58

minutes flat. I mean, if somebody ran

36:01

the mile in three minutes flat, we would check to

36:03

see if the guy was a space ala or

36:05

a time traveler. Wouldn't they

36:07

have been amazed on October tenth, seventeen

36:09

ninety six, disbelieving

36:12

what they had heard, not

36:15

at all. And that's the second half

36:17

of the story of the day. Roger Banister did

36:19

not break the four minute barrier. Research

36:22

and computers and simulations show

36:24

that people in the seventeen eighties were consistently

36:28

running the mile in four minutes and eighteen

36:30

seconds, four minutes and twenty seconds,

36:32

four minutes and fifteen seconds, if the

36:34

info about Weller is right, three

36:36

minutes and fifty eight seconds. All

36:39

the time, these numbers were being put up by all

36:41

kinds of runners. So a four

36:43

minute mile would have been great, but

36:46

not out of context, not in seventeen

36:48

ninety six. And

36:51

then you have to ask, if it happened,

36:54

where are all those records? Who

36:56

were all those four minute eighteen guys

36:59

and four minute three second guys and

37:02

three fifty eight guys. What happened

37:04

to the record words. Well,

37:06

see, that's another scandal. Those

37:08

eighteenth century records were erased

37:12

in the nineteenth century because richer,

37:15

slower people in the nineteenth century

37:18

wanted to say they held the

37:20

records, they erased

37:23

the record book. That part

37:25

of the story, and the additional sad

37:27

truth that much of the claims about Roger Banister

37:30

are really really racist.

37:33

Next,

37:43

we know Roger Banister really did

37:46

run a three minute and fifty nine second

37:48

mile on May sixth,

37:50

nineteen fifty four in England. It

37:53

was timed and announced to a waiting

37:55

crowd by no less a figure than

37:57

Norris mcwerder, who was later

38:00

the founder or co founder of the Guinness

38:02

Book of World Records. And everybody

38:04

who was there saw history and

38:06

was part of an impossible dream coming true.

38:09

And as I mentioned earlier, the next day, the

38:11

New York Times actually had an editorial asking

38:13

whether or not anybody would ever do it again.

38:17

There is considerable evidence, as I've laid

38:19

out here, that it was done before,

38:22

like two hundred years before. But

38:26

if you were still not convinced that, no,

38:28

no matter what else, it was Roger Banister's

38:30

three minute, fifty nine point four second mile

38:33

on May sixth, nineteen fifty four was not

38:35

the first four minute mile. If James

38:37

Parrott and the naked runner

38:39

Powell of Hampton Court and Weller

38:42

seventeen ninety six don't convince you there

38:44

is also this. There

38:46

is a sports historian named Peter Radford,

38:49

himself the bronze medalist in two sprints

38:51

at the nineteen sixty Olympics in Rome, and

38:54

he brought the story of Parrot and Powell

38:56

and Weller to the forefront in

38:58

the British press nearly twenty years ago.

39:01

This man found them because he was

39:03

looking for and finding the records of more than

39:05

six hundred running races in

39:07

the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Running

39:10

against the clock, against each other, usually

39:13

for money, was not only the most

39:15

popular professional sport in Britain

39:17

at that time, it was also probably the

39:20

first. And with so many

39:22

races and especially winning and losing times

39:24

recorded, Peter Radford had data

39:26

to work with. When guys

39:29

didn't run a four minute mile, how fast

39:31

did they run it? How fast were these professionals

39:34

going the average ones over other

39:36

distances in say seventeen

39:39

eighty nine, what was the range of times?

39:42

And his computer looked at all of these

39:44

races six hundred or so, and

39:46

all of the times and all of the speeds,

39:48

and it spit out this conclusion. Factoring

39:51

in the margin of error, Radford wrote,

39:53

the best possible one mile time

39:56

would be anywhere between four

39:58

minutes thirteen seconds and

40:01

exactly four minutes. So

40:03

no, you cannot say James Parrott ran

40:06

the first four minute mile in seventeen seventy,

40:08

and Weller ran the first sub

40:10

four minute mile in seventeen ninety six, not

40:12

with certainty, but I think you can say

40:15

with certainty that somebody

40:18

did it before the year eighteen hundred,

40:20

and that when Roger Banister crashed through

40:22

the tape at Oxford at

40:24

six oh four Greenwich meantime on the

40:26

evening of Thursday May sixth, nineteen fifty

40:28

four, and the track announcer Norris

40:31

McWhorter announced

40:33

that Roger Banister's time in the mile was

40:36

and he gave it a desperately long pause

40:38

by all accounts, three

40:40

minutes fifty I an unfall ten seconds

40:44

the moment that happened, Roger Banister

40:46

became at best the second

40:49

man to run a mile in four minutes

40:51

or less, but more

40:53

likely he was like the twenty

40:55

second or the two hundred

40:58

and twenty second. So

41:01

why why didn't anybody know

41:03

this? Why did Roger Banister

41:05

live a life of unceasing, undiminished

41:09

and sorry, undeserved fame? And

41:12

that guy Weller who may

41:14

have run the race a second faster and one hundred

41:17

and fifty eight years earlier, why don't we even

41:19

know Weller's first name? All

41:24

sports are based on history. Records

41:26

are made to be broken. The older the record,

41:29

the louder the break. Who screwed this up?

41:32

How did we lose Weller in the nooks

41:35

and crannies of history. We

41:37

didn't lose him. It wasn't

41:39

an error. It was deliberate.

41:43

And that's where this gets to be a crime. Our

41:47

historian and ex Olympic runner

41:49

mister Radford quoted another ancient book,

41:51

British Rural Sports

41:53

by J. H. Walsh, which was

41:55

published in eighteen eighty eight, and in

41:58

it, all the dozens of

42:00

speed and distant events had

42:02

two sets of records. One for professionals

42:05

like Parrot and Powell and Weller,

42:08

the ones who ran for money, the

42:10

ones on whom people bet, the ones who bet

42:12

on themselves. There was that set of records,

42:14

and then another set of records which was given

42:16

far more weight and far more importance for

42:19

the amateurs. By

42:22

the early twentieth century, Radford wrote,

42:24

the professional records had been erased

42:26

from these books, expunged, not

42:28

forgotten, removed.

42:31

Why because the professionals

42:34

were far better than the amateurs. No

42:37

amateur held the record in the mile. It was all

42:39

professionals, but

42:41

the amateurs were in charge. They

42:44

were the British upper class. They rased

42:46

not for money, but for sport. So the

42:48

amateurs simply did what the upper

42:50

class always does in this situation. They erased

42:53

the records of all the professionals. And

42:55

oh, by the way, they also erased all records

42:58

set by women. The

43:00

British obsession with the

43:03

superiority of the amateurs over

43:05

the professional If you've ever seen

43:07

the movie Chariots a Fire, you already know exactly

43:09

what I mean. It spread throughout the

43:12

world through the Olympics. That's why

43:14

Jim Thorpe lost all his gold medals

43:16

from the nineteen twelve Games. Why the greatest

43:18

all around athlete ever died

43:20

in poverty because he had once played minor

43:23

league baseball to make some money in

43:25

the summer, and everybody knew about it, and nobody thought

43:27

they'd hold it against it, but then

43:29

they held it against him. He

43:31

was a professional, so his records did

43:33

not count like James Parrott

43:36

or fill in the blank here, Powell

43:39

or I don't remember his first name

43:42

Weller. So

43:44

the world record in the

43:46

mile as of the year

43:48

eighteen sixty one was credited

43:51

to a man, an amateur named

43:53

Matthew Green. Matthew Green

43:55

was the fastest man in human history

43:59

four minutes and forty six seconds,

44:02

four minutes and forty six seconds. In

44:05

my twenties, I might have come close to that number.

44:09

By nineteen thirteen, the International Amateur

44:11

Athletics Federation had taken over, and it

44:14

recognized a runner from Cornell, not

44:16

me, a different runner from Cornell, as

44:18

the all time outdoor record holder in the mile

44:21

four minutes and thirteen seconds, John

44:23

Paul Jones, one hundred

44:26

and forty three years after James Parrot. The

44:29

indoor record in the mile was then

44:31

held by a man named Abel Kiviat four

44:34

eighteen and two I

44:36

met Abel Kiviat. I interviewed him

44:39

when he was ninety. I

44:41

wish I had known about James Parrott. Then

44:43

I didn't. Abel, and I talked about his

44:45

roommate at the nineteen twelve Olympics, Jim Thorpe,

44:47

got to tell you that story sometime too, But

44:50

boy Able Kiviat and I could have had a conversation

44:52

about amateurs versus professionals and whether or

44:54

not his record was actually a record.

44:58

Anyway, you can see where this is all going, and

45:00

we are almost at our proverbial finish

45:02

line. Not only did his we forget

45:05

the great athletes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

45:07

like Parrot and Powell and Weller, who if they

45:09

did not break the four minute mile, they came damn

45:11

close and did a lot better than

45:13

my friend Abel Kiveat did, or my Cornell

45:16

guy John Paul Jones, to say another, of Matthew

45:18

Green four minutes and forty six seconds, What

45:20

did you do stop for lunch? Not

45:24

only were the remarkable

45:26

athletes like Parrot and Powell and

45:28

Weller forgotten, they

45:30

were buried deliberately.

45:34

It makes the subject of the Roger Banister

45:36

four minute mile that everybody

45:38

celebrates with almost

45:41

undiminished astonishment every

45:44

year at this time. It makes all

45:46

this a little less trivial and a

45:48

little bit more nefarious and

45:50

wrong and ugly. Speaking

45:55

of ugly and Banister there is one

45:57

other component to this story. In the

45:59

nineteen nineties, having been the god of

46:01

the four minute mile for four decades,

46:04

having been celebrated every day for breaking

46:06

a record that was probably broken one hundred and eighty

46:08

three years before, Roger Banister

46:11

was asked about the new generation of

46:13

runners, those of African

46:15

descent on September

46:17

twelfth, nineteen ninety five, Sir

46:19

Roger Banister explained, quote,

46:23

it's certainly obvious when you see an all black

46:26

sprint final that there must be something rather special

46:28

about their anatomy or physiology

46:31

which produces these outstanding successes.

46:33

And indeed there may be, but we don't

46:35

know quite what it is. Some

46:37

countries have the good fortune to have a high

46:39

proportion of black sprinters and hurdlers.

46:42

End quote.

46:45

Nineteen years later, Banister was still

46:48

driving right into the Eugenics lane,

46:50

sounding just enough like Jimmy the Greek Snyder

46:53

to make you squirm. I

46:55

love watching people like Usain Bolt,

46:57

Banister said. The West Africans,

46:59

of course, have an inbuilt advantage, having

47:02

been transported as slaves to

47:04

the way Indies. Only the toughest

47:06

endured. They have astonishing muscle

47:09

composition with those fast fibers

47:11

and superior genes. I

47:15

will leave it to you and to his maker,

47:19

an assessment of how much of Roger Banister

47:21

was patronizing, how much was him

47:23

trying to rationalize how his time had been bettered

47:26

by nearly ten percent, and

47:29

how much of it was just sheer racism.

47:31

But I will note that in what Banister said

47:34

is another reason to believe that the idea

47:36

that he was the first human to

47:38

run a four minute mile is

47:41

laugh out loud ridiculous.

47:44

What about all of

47:46

the runners of color over

47:49

the centuries, over the

47:51

millennia, in Africa and

47:54

South America and elsewhere on this globe.

47:57

By Banister's own disturbing

47:59

logic, certainly some

48:01

of them must have beaten him

48:04

to break the four minute tape.

48:07

No, let

48:10

me close with this. I don't know for

48:12

certain who ran the first

48:14

four minute mile or when. For

48:17

all we know, it was broken two

48:19

thousand years ago, and for that matter, so was

48:21

the present world record of three point forty three

48:23

point thirteen. Might have been James Parrott or

48:25

Powell or Weller, whose first names we don't

48:28

know, or someone so lost to history

48:30

that we don't know their first name, or their last

48:32

name, or their country. We

48:34

don't know who it was. But

48:37

no matter what you hear, or see or

48:39

read in this Weekend

48:41

Ahead, it's sure as hell was not Roger

48:44

Banister, which

48:47

brings us lastly to missus

48:49

Roger Banister, Moira Elva

48:52

Jacobson Banister, daughter of a

48:54

Swedish economist. According

48:56

to Roger Banister, his wife didn't

48:58

know a lick about sports, let alone about running,

49:01

let alone about him running four

49:05

time. Roger Banister once

49:08

said, my wife thought I had run

49:11

four miles in one

49:13

minute. You

49:18

know, as I've been thinking about this and researching

49:20

that story, you might as well go with that four

49:24

miles in one minute. It's

49:26

no more ridiculous than thinking that Roger

49:28

Banister was the first man to run one

49:30

mile in four minutes. I've

49:54

done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.

49:57

Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and John

49:59

Phillip Scheneil arranged, produced

50:01

and performed most of our music. Mister

50:03

Ray was on the guitars, base and drums, and mister

50:05

Shaneil handled orchestration and keyboards,

50:08

and was produced by Tko Brothers. Other

50:11

music, including some of the Beethoven compositions

50:13

arranged and performed by the group No Horns

50:15

Allowed. The sports music is the Alderman

50:17

theme from ESPN two, written by

50:19

Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN

50:22

Inc. Our satirical and pithy

50:24

musical comments are by Nancy Fauss. The best

50:26

baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer

50:28

was my friend Dennis Leary, and everything else

50:30

was pretty much my fault. So

50:33

that's countdown for this the one hundred and eighty

50:35

second day until the twenty twenty

50:37

four presidential election, the two

50:39

hundred and nineteenth day since

50:42

Defendant J Trump's first attempted

50:44

coup against the democratically elected government

50:46

of the United States. Use the

50:48

mental health system, use the not regularly

50:51

given elector objection option, use

50:53

the justice system to stop

50:56

him from doing it again while

50:58

we still can. The

51:02

next scheduled countdown is tomorrow Boalton's

51:04

as a new warrant. Still then, I'm Keith Ulremman.

51:06

Good Morning, good afternoon, good night, and

51:09

good luck. Countdown

51:31

with Keith Olreman is a production of

51:34

iHeartRadio. For more podcasts

51:36

from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio

51:38

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

51:41

you get your podcasts