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state, options selected by customer, availability

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and eligibility may vary. Welcome

1:00

to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late

1:02

Month series, Real Time with Bill Mau. OK,

1:05

here we are at CNN. Here's our panel.

1:08

He is the author of the new book,

1:10

The End of Waste Politics, Arguments for a

1:12

Colorblind America. Coleman Hughes is over here. She's

1:15

a staff writer at The Atlantic.

1:17

Caitlin Flanagan, our new all-know CNN

1:19

contributor and 29-time winning broadcaster

1:21

with MLB and TNT. Bob

1:24

Costas is over here. OK,

1:29

first one is for you, Bob. With the

1:31

allegations against Vince McMahon, now he's

1:34

the head of the... WWE used

1:36

to be the WWF. World

1:38

Wrestling. Right, World Wrestling Entertainment.

1:41

Entertainment. It better be because it's

1:43

not real. Yeah. Well,

1:45

you know, part of the reason they labeled

1:47

it that way was so that the various

1:50

state governments wouldn't subject those

1:52

athletes or performers to drug

1:55

testing. To performance sensing drug testing. Because

1:58

they're all on... Yeah, they basically... conceded that

2:00

these are scripted matches. They don't like

2:02

to blare that out to their fans,

2:05

some of whom actually think it's real.

2:07

But as

2:11

the long ago wrestling trainer, Bobby the

2:13

Brain Heenan said to me, there's only

2:15

two things that concern me about wrestling

2:17

fans. They can vote and they can

2:20

breed. No.

2:27

Bob? My

2:29

core audience is wrestling fans. Anyway,

2:35

the question is, would the allegations against

2:37

Vince McMahon, oh yes, for people who

2:40

don't know, I read this in the

2:42

paper, some really nasty, like Weinstein level

2:44

stuff. Or worse. Worse. Worse

2:46

than Weinstein. Well, sex trafficking and sexual

2:48

abuse. We'll see how this plays out.

2:50

Would they have been overlooked for so

2:53

long had he been working in an

2:55

industry like Hollywood instead of sports? Well,

3:00

you just brought up a name that

3:02

would refute that at least until recently. I

3:04

think the difference is that if you talk

3:06

about something like that, it's not

3:08

covered in the same way as baseball, football,

3:10

basketball would be covered. You don't have a

3:12

press corps that's covering them and holding them

3:14

to account. Netflix just gave WWE, is it

3:17

not? A $5 billion deal. It

3:25

has a television audience. It's one of the few things

3:27

that breaks the rules. I would guess no. But

3:30

knowing Netflix maybe not. Like a deal

3:32

like that usually gets

3:34

stopped when a guy like this is attached to

3:36

it. And he's ahead of it? It could be.

3:39

Or someone else takes over and the basic

3:41

product is appealing to enough of an audience

3:43

that they roll on. that

4:00

is majority Hispanic, that is to

4:02

say two-thirds of these kids are speaking Spanish at home,

4:05

they need to be taught the basics,

4:07

English, math, etc. That

4:09

school decided instead of focusing on those things

4:12

to hire an organization called Woke Kindergarten, pay

4:15

them a quarter million dollars over the years.

4:17

Literally called it Woke Kindergarten. Literally called Woke.

4:19

Oh, I see. I

4:21

thought that was the name that this guy

4:23

wrote the article gave him. That was

4:25

their name. The comerider in the back room.

4:28

They're owning it. Okay, got it. Owning

4:30

it. Owning it. Woke Kindergarten. Self-awareness

4:32

is a wonderful thing. It really

4:34

is. Kids start

4:36

them too young, huh? And

4:39

rather predictably what happened is

4:42

that their math and reading

4:44

scores have been declining for several years

4:47

and it's just become yet another

4:49

example of precisely the opposite priorities

4:51

that typical normal Americans want, which

4:54

is we want to send our

4:56

kids to school to learn the

4:58

basics as we decline worldwide, not

5:00

to be taught why math is

5:02

racist, for instance. And

5:04

the final

5:07

thing I'll say, I think... What

5:10

about the six? That

5:13

number I always... Yeah, a little bit suspicious,

5:15

right? I

5:19

think that the basic problem with

5:21

Wokeness, one of the

5:23

basic problems is that it views

5:25

kids as somehow inherently racist

5:27

and the racism needs to be

5:29

hammered out of them in some way, when

5:32

the reality is that among all the

5:34

problems kids have, for instance, being

5:36

selfish and needing to learn to share, racism

5:38

is not one of them. So

5:41

really, in the same way

5:43

we want to protect a child's sexual innocence

5:45

for as long as possible, we should want

5:47

to preserve that racially innocent mindset for as

5:50

long as possible. Okay. Caitlin,

5:57

as an educator, what do you think of Dartmouth announcing it

5:59

was a good idea? will bring back the

6:01

SAT as a requirement for all the

6:03

goods. Now, if people don't know, all

6:05

eight Ivy Leagues got rid of the

6:07

SAT in the name of equity about,

6:09

I don't know, three or four years

6:11

ago. And now Dartmouth is saying no,

6:14

right through the

6:16

red flag. Well, there are reasons for it, I can

6:19

tell you, it's absolutely true, that all over the

6:21

country, people don't realize this. There are kids who

6:23

didn't have an access to go to a

6:26

good secondary school, or their parents moved a

6:28

lot, or their families chaos. And

6:30

they'll pop up with these great scores

6:32

that, individually, and these are the

6:34

kids that, you know, they can, the old ideas

6:36

you could test into certain schools. You should be

6:39

able to test into the University of

6:41

California. And it was a tremendous benefit

6:43

to kids who had every disadvantage along

6:45

the way. And now, and the other

6:48

thing is, we don't want to admit

6:50

this, and it's irrelevant for well-off

6:52

kids, but the SAT truly is

6:54

the best single predictor of, can the kid get

6:56

through the school? Is he going to, is he

6:59

or she going to show up and say, yeah,

7:01

I can do this coursework, you

7:03

know, maybe I'm not as wealthy as the

7:05

others, or gifted in sports or whatever, but

7:07

I'm not having problems here, I'm moving through

7:10

the curriculum. And you can't

7:12

lie on it. I read that

7:14

60 percent of college applicants admit

7:16

they lie at some part

7:18

of their application. Right. You can't

7:20

lie on the SAT. Well, that's your Felicity Huffman. Well,

7:22

that's not the SAT, too. Right, OK. That's the ACT,

7:24

I think. All

7:28

right. For everybody, is

7:31

there any merit in

7:33

Tucker Carlson's interview with

7:36

Vladimir Putin? I guess that was,

7:38

today, I read that Putin

7:40

went on for a half hour, the

7:42

first question. He just

7:45

gave him a history lesson, an

7:47

erroneous... Reprehensible. That he

7:49

would even do it? Reprehensible. Well,

7:52

I mean, we, interviewers

7:54

have done that. I mean, I remember Mike

7:56

Wallace with the Ayatollah. Of course, but under

7:58

the kind of rules of engagement. that

8:00

that interview was conducted and

8:03

with a certain acquiescing

8:05

lens through which Tucker put

8:08

the answer. Right. I mean,

8:10

Tucker has already been part

8:12

of Putin's propaganda

8:14

apparatus for a few years now. It

8:16

would have been like if Mike Wallace

8:19

had been on an Iran for two

8:21

years. Right. Right, right. Hey, that's the

8:23

difference. I

8:25

have to imagine if for some reason

8:27

you were interviewing Putin

8:30

and he started going on about how

8:32

Poland was to blame for World War

8:35

II, you would say, hold on a second,

8:38

black. Right. And you would

8:40

give people, Tucker just lets him go

8:42

on with basic historical facts that

8:45

That's what he said, that Poland was. Well,

8:47

yeah, he held Poland responsible for. For

8:50

being attacked by Hitler. Correct.

8:52

Yeah, I would definitely flag

8:54

that. For

8:58

whatever it's worth, I mean,

9:01

when the Olympics, was they doing

9:03

this in the ground floor or was it up by a

9:05

winner? For

9:08

whatever it's worth, when the Olympics were in Sochi,

9:10

Russia in 2014, we requested for

9:13

many months prior to and during the games,

9:15

whether it would be me or someone from

9:17

NBC News and Putin turned that down flatly.

9:21

Right. So he wasn't. And did

9:23

you think I? Yes, he did.

9:25

A whole floating

9:28

dagger operation that Putin and

9:30

the KGB obviously undertook just

9:32

to pull me up. I

9:35

knew it. Yeah. Yeah.

9:38

And those people to this day, they'll say, conversational icebreaker occasionally.

9:40

Bob, you remember that time you had pink

9:42

eye at the Olympics? No,

9:44

I don't recall. Refresh my

9:46

memory. A hundred

9:49

million people with memes all over

9:51

the Internet and ridiculous, untrue theories

9:53

as to how I contracted. I

9:55

have no idea. Remind me again

9:57

what that was. But

10:00

now he's going to the Yes. You

10:03

still don't know why you got it? I

10:06

don't. I honestly don't. OK. All right. What

10:09

do you think? What

10:11

do you think that the government is

10:13

now banning Eugenia,

10:16

Taviem and Xtendymax? Well,

10:21

I have a lot of feelings about Eugenia,

10:23

Tavi, Mendymax. What are you talking about? What

10:26

is that? They're they're weed

10:28

killers. Oh. I

10:34

want to know what they did to us and why they

10:36

sound like Bonerpelt. They do. Last

10:39

one does. Last one

10:41

does. All right. Thank you. Thank

10:44

you, CNN. Catch

10:50

all new episodes of The O'Connor Showmark every

10:52

Friday night at 10 or Washington

10:54

and Tom on HBO on demand. For

10:57

more information, log on to

10:59

hbo.com.