-(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
-Okay! Here we are on CNN. Here's our panel here.
He's the author of the new book, <i>The End of Race Politics,</i> <i> Arguments
for a Colorblind America.</i> Coleman Hughes is over here. She's a staff writer
at<i> The Atlantic,</i> Caitlin Flanagan, and you all know
CNN contributor, and 29-time winning broadcaster
at MLB and CNT, Bob Costas is over here. -Okay. First one is for you Bob.
-BOB COSTAS: Oh. With the allegations
against Vince McMahon. -Now, he's the head of the--
-WWE used to be the WWF. -BILL MAHER: World Wrestling.
-BOB: Right. -World Wrestling Entertainment.
-Entertainment. It better be,
cause it's not real. -Yeah.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) Well, you know,
part of the reason -they labeled it that way...
-BILL: Right. ...was so that the various
state governments wouldn't subject those athletes
or performers to drug testing, to performance enhancing
drug testing. -Because they're all on drugs.
-Yeah. They basically conceded
that these are scripted matches. They don't like to blare
that out to their fans, some of whom
actually think it's real. -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-But as-- As the long ago
wrestling trainer, Bobby "The Brain" Heenan
said to me, "There's only two things
that concern me about wrestling fans. They can vote
and they can breed". (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) Well... (CHUCKLES) Bob... My core audience
is wrestling fans. -(CHUCKLES)
-BILL: All right. -Anyway, the question is...
-BOB: Yeah. ...would the allegations
against Vince McMahon-- Oh, yes. Now he's--
For people who don't know, I've read this in the paper,
some really na-- I mean,
like, Weinstein-level stuff. -Or worse.
-Worse than Weinstein? Well, there's sex trafficking... -BILL: Oh.
-...and sexual abuse. We'll see how this plays out. Would they have been overlooked
for so long, had he been working
in an industry like Hollywood -instead of sports...
-Well... (CHUCKLES) -You just brought up a name...
-BILL: Yeah. Right. ...that would refute that
and at least until recently. I think the difference is
that if you talk about something like that,
it's not covered in the same way as baseball, football,
basketball would be covered. You now have a press corps
that's covering them and holding them to account.
They operate on their own. Netflix just gave WWE,
is it now? -BOB: Yeah.
-A five-billion-dollar deal? -Yeah.
-CAITLIN FLANAGAN: Oh, really? It has a television audience. It's one of the few things
that breaks through. BILL: Five billion dollars?
I would guess so. (CHUCKLES) But knowing,
Netflix maybe not. But usually,
like a deal like that, it usually gets stopped
when a guy like this is attached to it. -BOB: And it could be.
-And he's the head of it. -BOB: It could be.
-Okay. Or someone else takes over
and the basic product is appealing
to enough of an audience -that they roll on.
-All right. For Coleman, is the Woke
Kindergarten Controversy in San Francisco an example
of DEI running amuck in school? Well, first of all,
we'll have to explain what the Woke Kindergarten
Controversy is. Yeah, so the Woke Kindergarten
Controversy is that a school in San Francisco
that is majority Hispanic. That is to say,
two-thirds of these kids are speaking Spanish at home.
They need to be taught the basics, English,
Math, etcetera. That school decided instead
of focusing on those things to hire an organization
called Woke Kindergarten. You pay them
a quarter million dollars. Literally, called it?
Called it Woke Kindergarten? -Literally, called "Woke--
-It's not what-- -Oh, I see. (CHUCKLES)
-Yeah. You're-- (ALL CHUCKLE) I thought that was the name
that the guy who wrote -the article gave it.
-No. -That was their name?
-The comment-- They're owning it. Okay, got it.
Owning it. Woke Kindergarten. Yeah. Self-awareness
is a wonderful thing. -BILL: It really is.
-Yeah. Can't start them too young, huh?
(CHUCKLES) And rather, rather predictably,
what happened is that their math and reading scores
have been declining for several years. And it's just become
yet another example of precisely
the opposite priorities that typical
normal Americans want, which is, we wanna send
our kids to school to learn the basics
as we decline worldwide. Not to be taught why math
is racist, for instance, and... (AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) And then the final thing
I'll say... Yeah. -I think--
-What about six? -(CHUCKLES) What about it?
-(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING) -That number, I always--
-Yeah. A little bit suspicious, right? -(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
-(CHUCKLING) I think that the basic problem
with wokeness... one of the basic problems is
that it views kids as somehow inherently racist, and the racism needs to be
hammered out of them in some way. When the reality is that
among all the kids, the problems kids have
for instance being selfish and needing to learn to share,
racism is not one of them. So, really, in the same way
we want to protect a child sexual innocence
for as long as possible, we should wanna preserve
that racially innocent mindset for as long as possible,
not hammer it... (AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) Okay, Caitlin, as an educator,
what do you think of Dartmouth announcing it will bring back
the SAT as a... Oh, yes, as
a requirement for all the kids? Now, for people who don't know,
all eight Ivy leagues, got rid of the SAT in the name
of equity about, I don't know three
or four years ago. And now Dartmouth is saying,
"um, no". -Right through the red flag.
-CAITLIN: Well, the reason for it I can tell you
it's absolutely true that all over the country,
people don't realize this. There are kids
who didn't have an access to go to a good secondary school
or their parents moved a lot, or their family's chaos,
and they'll pop up with these great scores
that... individually. And the these are the kids
that, you know, they can-- The old idea was you could
test into certain schools. You used to be able to test into
the University of California. And it was a tremendous benefit
to kids who had every disadvantage
along the way, and now... and the other thing is
we don't want to admit this, and it's irrelevant
for well-off kids, but the SAT truly is
the best single predictor of, "Can the kid get through
the school?" Is he usually gonna show up
and say, "Yeah, I can do this coursework. Maybe, I'm not as wealthy
as the others, or gifted in sports or whatever, but I'm not
having problems here. I'm moving through
the curriculum". And you can't lie on it.
I read that 60 percent of college applicants admit
they lie on some part
of their application. -Right.
-Can't lie in the SAT. Well, unless
you're Felicity Huffman. (AUDIENCE CHEERING) -That's not the SAT.
-CAITLIN: Okay. It's the ACT. All right, for everybody,
is there any merit in Tucker Carlson's interview
with Vladimir Putin? (CHUCKLES) I guess that was today. I read that Tucker-- That Putin
went on for a half hour, the first question. He just gave him
a history lesson -an erroneous...
-It's reprehensible. -BILL: That he would even do it?
-It's reprehensible. Well, I mean, interviewers
have done them. I mean, I remember Mike Wallace
with the Ayatollah. Of course, but under
the kind of rules of engagement that interview was conducted,
and with a certain acquiescing lens through which
Tucker put the answer. Right. I mean Tucker has already
been part of Putin's propaganda apparatus
for a few years now. Yeah, it would have been
like if Mike Wallace had been -on in Iran for three years.
-CAITLIN: Right. Hey, Ayatollah. (CHUCKLES)
That's the difference. (AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) I have to imagine,
if for some reason you were interviewing Putin, and he started going on
about how Poland was to blame for World War II. You would say, -"Hold on a second, Vlad."
-Right. And you would give people--
Tucker just lets him go on with basic historical facts
that-- That's what he said?
That Poland was... Well, yeah. He held Poland
responsible for-- -For being attacked by Hitler?
-Correct. Yeah. Yeah, I would definitely
flag that. -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-(LAUGHS) -For whatever it's worth--
-I mean... -When the Olympics--
-Were they doing this on the ground floor
or was it up by a window? -Right. (CHUCKLES)
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) For whatever it's worth
when the Olympics were -in Sochi Russia in 2014.
-BILL: Oh, yes. We requested for many months
prior to and during the games, whether it would be me
or someone from NBC News and Putin turned
that down flatly. Right. So he wasn't--
he wasn't going to sit... -And gave you pink eye.
-Yes, he did. (AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) A whole cloak-and-dagger
operation that Putin and the KGB
obviously undertook -just to screw me up.
-I saw it immediately. -I knew it. I knew that.
-Yeah. Yeah. And there are people to this day
they'll say, like conversational icebreaker
occasionally. "Bob, you remember that time,
you had pink eye -at the Olympics?"
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) "No, I don't recall.
Refresh my memory". A hundred million people
with memes all over the internet and ridiculous, untrue theories
as to how I contracted. I have no idea!
Remind me again what that was." (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) CAITLIN:
But now we can say it. Yes! Yes! You still don't know
why you got it? -I don't. I honestly don't.
-BILL: Okay. All right, um,
what do you-- (CHUCKLES) CAITLIN: Dirty tricks. What do you think
that the government is now banning Eugenia, Tavium and Extendy Max? Well, I have a lot of feelings
about Eugenia, Tavi, Mendy Maxx, what are you talking about?
(CHUCKLES) BOB: (CHUCKLES) What is that? -They're weed killers.
-Oh. -(AUDIENCE CHUCKLES)
-(CHUCKLES) I wanna know
what they did to it. And why they sound
like Boner pills. They do! They do!
The last one does. -(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
-The last one does. All right. Thank you,
we ran out of time. Thank you, CNN,
we'll see you next week.
