April 24, 2025 • 36 mins
Hour 3 of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show begins with Clay Travis broadcasting from Knoxville, Tennessee, and Buck Sexton from Miami. The hosts encourage listeners to subscribe to the podcast and download the iHeartRadio app for easy access. They introduce Dr. Larry Arnn from Hillsdale College, who discusses the importance of academic independence and the controversy surrounding federal funding for universities like Harvard. Dr. Arnn emphasizes Hillsdale's commitment to not taking federal dollars to maintain educational freedom and criticizes institutions that rely heavily on government funding while engaging in discriminatory practices.
The conversation shifts to the cultural shift in higher education, highlighting the growing popularity of Southeastern Conference (SEC) schools and other southern state universities among students from traditionally liberal areas like New York and LA. Clay and Buck discuss how these schools have become desirable due to their stance against anti-Semitic protests and their commitment to academic integrity.
Dr. Arnn delves into the intellectual roots of modern progressivism, explaining how historical materialist doctrines have influenced current educational practices and the push for radical changes in family and societal norms. He critiques the lack of objective knowledge in these ideologies and stresses the importance of classical education in understanding and evaluating the world.
The hour continues with a discussion on George Clooney's potential political ambitions, sparked by his comments on the need for charismatic leaders in the Democratic Party. Clay speculates that Clooney might be positioning himself for a presidential run, given his media presence and public statements.
The hosts also touch on the highest-grossing movies adjusted for inflation, with Clay noting that "Gone with the Wind" tops the list, followed by "Avatar" and "Titanic." Buck expresses his disdain for the popularity of certain films and critiques the merit of judging artistic works by box office earnings.
The hour concludes with listener interactions, including humorous talkbacks from leaf blower enthusiasts and a call from a listener in Denver expressing frustration with George Clooney's comments about Trump.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome in Clay Travis buck Sexton Show. Appreciate all of
you hanging out with us. I'm in Knoxville, Bucks down
in Miami. We are having a fabulous Thursday with all
of you. Encourage you to go subscribe to the podcast.
If you haven't already, you can search out my name
Clay Travis. You can search out buck Sexton. Also you
can download the iHeartRadio app that a guy on Monday
(00:23):
at the CIA World Congress of Sport at the bar
was getting a beer and he pulled it up and
he said, Hey, I've listened on the iHeartRadio app. He
was from Chicago, probably listening right now. Appreciate him into
sports marketing universe and a lot of you out there
listening on podcasts five hundred and fifty plus AM FM
stations and also on so many different ways including the
(00:45):
iHeartRadio app. And we bring in now doctor Larry Arn
of Hillsdale College, and speaking of ways to get your
message out, Hillsdale has been phenomenal at getting the message
out about everything that they are doing. And I had
the good fortune to get to sit next to doctor
Larry Arn at a Seattle, Washington area Hillsdale College event,
(01:05):
and I read over the weekend. A great weekend to
interview with you, doctor Arne. Given all the controversy surrounding
Harvard and federal funding of universities and colleges out there,
you had a really good argument. I want to let
you make it for our audience. The reason Hillsdale doesn't
take federal dollars is to be completely independent. Harvard has
(01:25):
fifty three billion dollars in the endowment. Why can't Harvard
just say, hey, we don't need any of this federal
government money. We want to instruct in the best way
that Harvard feels possible. That seems like a pretty good
case to me, and you guys have done it at Hillsdale.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah, thank you very much. You're a sports guy. I
really enjoyed talking to you. Then I didn't enjoyed your
speech very much. Yeah. So we live in what we
think of as a liberal society. That means free, that
means a lot of things have to go on in
the society so that it can control the government. And
if the government in detail manages education, including higher education,
(02:02):
then the society loses its independence. And you know, Harvard,
which gets a lot of money from the government. I
mean billions. They are living under hundreds of pages of
detailed rules and they probably be better off without them.
But now they've met some rules they don't like, like
don't scream, don't let the students scream dirty two at
(02:24):
each other, and they are rebelling about that, and that's
you know, they're in an interesting spot, aren't they.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
They're not the only ones either, doctor. I appreciate you
being with us. There are a number of schools Plumba University.
I could rattle off a few more if I thought
about it. But some pretty big name educational institutions out
there that have gotten on the wrong side of the
Trump administration and therefore the federal government on some of
these issues. Do you think that their plan is to
(02:53):
just try to batten down the hatches and ride it
out and keep doing what they've been doing, Because in
the case of it missions, for example, of a Supreme
Court has been quite clear that some of these institutions
have been engaged in unconstitutional discrimination in their educational practice
and admissions practices, and yet the understanding seems to be
(03:14):
that they're just going to keep doing it and get
federal dollars.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah, there's something really bad about that. I mean, first
of all, these the institutions we're talking about are some
of the greatest universities in the world. Harvard is the
oldest in our country, and it has been a treasure
for a very long time, and it's still a very
elite place. But they got wedded to the idea that
what color you are is some vital characteristic in your
(03:41):
qualification to be a student. And that's just wrong. I mean,
it's it's it's bad philosophy. It undercuts the whole understanding
of the academic task. And as you point out, it's
unconstitutional in a nation devoted to all men are created equal.
So there's you know there, and they are stubborn about it.
(04:02):
It's deeply ingrained. It was amazing to me a year
ago in the spring that they were having these demonstrations
in favor of Hamas and you know, River to the Sea,
and they were oppressing Jewish kids, I mean, abusing them
and spitting on them, and some of them were assaulted physically,
(04:23):
and they were certainly terrorized, and they couldn't stop it.
And in Columbia they suspended class. At Harvard, there were
major disruptions, and I thought at some point these places
are run by people who are in broad agreement with
each other. At some point, you'd think they'd say, this
is embarrassing. We should go back to class. That's what
(04:45):
we're here to do. And they couldn't do it. And
that's just you know, sad. It was. It made me sad,
also surprised. And you know, they've they've got some problems.
Now they're they are addressing those problems, they say, and
(05:06):
I sometimes doubt their capacity to do that. And the
Trump administration is demanding certain monitoring of them, and that's
what they're kicking about and rebelling and their Harvard to
sue the government, and it's going to be a big
legal fight, and you know, but think of the outcome.
(05:26):
If they win, it would mean that they're entitled to
the money that you can't stop it on the ground
that they are discriminating and oppressing people because of their
race and religion, and you know, and the government may
not monitor that well. At the beginning of the show,
(05:47):
you said, what I think is the actual solution. We
need to decentralize very many things in America. There's way
too many rules coming from the top and making a
uniform administrative system all over every kind of industry all
over the place, and colleges should be funded in a
wide diversity of ways. You know, there's like really rich
(06:11):
people in America, and you know a lot of them
give money to Harvard and a lot of them don't. Well,
the thing is, those rich people disagree with each other.
And so if it's the government, it's a uniform rule
for everybody, and you have to have that some but
you don't have to have that so comprehensively, and especially
(06:34):
affecting something sensitive like education, which is you know where
what college is actually for is for young people to
go and grow into excellent human beings and intellect and character.
And the definition of that is human and that means
Jews and Arabs should both aim for that, and the
(06:56):
institutions of higher education should have practices and standards so
that everybody pursues that and does it together. The word
college means partnership. So they lost their way, in my opinion,
and I hope they find it, but they're fighting very
hard not to do it. Not to do it.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Doctor Larry arned with us right now, if Hillsdale College,
fabulous school, got kids out there, not a bad place
to consider applying. I'm in Knoxville, Tennessee right now, doctor Arne.
Basically I can see the University of Tennessee campus nearly
from where I'm broadcasting. I'm curious how you would analyze
this in your career as an educator. It used to
(07:38):
be that people look down on big state schools in
the South Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas, whatever school
you want to use in the Southeastern Conference region. Now
I hear all the time, and I bet you do
as well for Hillsdale applications. People in New York, LA
(07:58):
Chicago who would have said in the past, oh, I
would never send my school, my son or daughter to
the University of Alabama or the University of Mississippi bragging
about their kids going to SEC schools because what you
just referenced, these protests, they didn't stand for them in
the South. They didn't stand for attacking Jewish people. In
(08:18):
the wake of October seventh, what does it say about
the cultural shift in our landscape that big state schools
in the South are suddenly desirable across the country and
small schools like yours in Michigan that are independent and
classically committed to education are surging in popularity, while places
like Harvard, Yale, Ucla, Stanford that maybe in the past
(08:40):
have been the absolute paragonds of academic achievement seem to
be declining. What does that tell us?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
And that's something and you know that has to do
with the politics of those states. You know, Hills to
Help's a special case because we don't take anybody from
the government, and we're old and committed to certain things
that we've been committed to for one hundred and eighty
two years. Those you know, in a in a state
like Tennessee or Arkansas. I'm from Arkansas. You know, the
(09:07):
government and several state legislatures, including in Tennessee, have set
up centers in those places where friends of mine are
teaching now and they you know, make sure they're sane.
But the general climate of those places is not. So
what the most elite places in America, and that it's
(09:29):
not just in higher end it's the Ivy League, but
it's journalism, it's the government, it's big corporations. They look
at the world as sort of an engineering project, and
we're going to remake the world, and so they don't
you know, they've they've got very unusual views about a
family and sex, and and it turns out that what's
(09:52):
going on in America is that's not working with lots
of people like you know why you know, we we
we you know. I think people want to get married
and have kids because it makes your life richer and
it's cool and it's hard. But if you do that,
what do you think about the kids? What do you
(10:13):
want them to become? They are produced by a relationship
and a sacrifice that parents make for decades, and so
they don't want their kids six changed without their permission.
They don't want their kids taught that human nature is
just a convention and we can re engineer it.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
And so there's doctor ar Can I just jump in
really quickly to ask because this is what I was
going to take you anyway, you're talking about the kids
and what they're being taught. I'm sure you saw the
arguments before the Supreme Court. We were talking about it
on the show. What is going on in education? Where
they want to read these very explicit and very trans
agenda focused books to very small children and this is widespread?
(10:59):
Where is this? Where does this come from?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Well, it's you know, first of All the intellectual roots
of this movement are old, right, that's you know, they
became explicit in nineteenth century German historicism, and they came
into America through a movement called progressivism that's still with
us today. People use that word still today. But what
(11:23):
did they think. What they thought was there isn't a
thing like human nature that that word nature is a
very interesting word and it means a lot of things,
but it starts with the Latin word for birth, how
we come to be and grow, and what we're like
when we're grown. But now, no, it's not that so much. Now.
What we have is the idea that we understand a
(11:45):
historical process that is liberating us and changing everything. And
because we have modern science, we can get control of
the process and we can re engineer even ourselves. And
so of course then the family has to be a
target of that, and race is a target of that,
(12:07):
and in some versions of it, you know, like the
difference between Nazism and Communism is only one thing. Nazism
is mostly about race. Communism is mostly about property and money,
and the Nazism thinks if you've got the right genes,
you're a superior being and Communism thinks you are formed
(12:30):
by what you do for a living and how you work.
And if you've got a lot of money, you're in
one class, and if you don't hear in another. And
there's a there's a and we have to transcend all that,
we have to overcome private property. And what the Nazis
think is, you know, if you've got the right blood,
then you're superior. Now, what's interesting about both of those doctrines,
(12:53):
because their materialist doctrines, what they do is upset that
the idea that any human child can come to know
things objectively. That's you know, and human freedom hinges on
that argument, which is a classical argument and a religious argument.
(13:14):
And all of the colleges, any college of any age,
Hilldale College, Harvard is the oldest one in America, they
were all founded on that idea that there's something a
spark in the human being that transcends his body, includes
his body, and transcends his body that makes it possible
for him to learn objectively. And if that and see,
(13:37):
what's interesting about discarding that argument is that you've discarded
all the basis of reasoning. In other words, if the
Nazis are right, or the communist. They can't have objective
knowledge of anything, see you, because their own they're just
creatures of some material condition that drives them. And you know,
(13:58):
in those dogs and those doctrines are very prevalent in
the world. They have led to two great world wars.
You know, tens of millions of people killed over them.
So what you should do in a college is study them,
understand them, and understand the alternative, which is, you know,
(14:19):
we study those things at Hillsteale College, but also we
study the classics, right, and then you've become armed with
a way to understand things that let you evaluate the world.
And see, that's another thing about these Ivy League colleges.
I noticed in the last three year ago last spring
(14:41):
that when they were demonstrating about hamas and anti Jews,
they would interview these kids and they didn't really seem
to know very much about it. You know, they've just
got doctrine and want their way right now. But aren't
they really there to learn It's you know, it's a
very interesting question, which you know, turns out I work
(15:03):
for a great story and who wrote about this? Did
Jews modern Israel have a right to the land on
which it is well First of all, that's a that's
a history that goes back. You know, Israel was fouted
in nineteen forty eight. How did that happen? Where did
that come from? Who decided it? Right? In other words,
(15:24):
there's a rich world of stuff to figure out about that,
and I don't do they're doing it Harvard.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, I think you're right about that. We have to
go to a commercial break. I feel like we could
just have you on talking for hours and it would
be phenomenal. We need to have a longer form conversation
at some point with you. In the meantime, if your
kids are applying to colleges, I would suggest you could
do way worse than Hillsdale.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Sir.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
We appreciate the time, and I encourage people to go
read that Wall Street Journal piece, which I thought really
elucidated some very interesting and intelligent arguments as it pertains
to academic freedom. Thank you, Doctor Arnold. Was great to
spend time. I'm with you in Seattle.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Thank you both.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Look NFL draft Puck is fired up. You heard Dana
Perino fired up, Doctor Larry arn He's a big sports fan.
We had a great conversation in Seattle. If you're fired
up and want to have some fun with the NHL,
with the NBA, with Major League Baseball underway. Heck, I'm
sitting right now at a minor league baseball stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee,
just off the University of Tennessee's campus. If you are
a sports fan, you need to go get signed up
(16:25):
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(16:47):
Do it today, pricepicks dot com, Code Clay, News and politics,
but also a little comic relief. Clay Travis at Buck Sexton.
Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you
get your podcasts. Welcome back into Clay en Buck. We're
gonna have a quick turn here, so I just want
to remind you to please send us talkbacks, give us
(17:07):
phone calls. We will talk to you on the back
half of this hour for sure. Really interesting talking to
doctor Larry arm there of Hillsdale. We need more Hillsdale's.
I mean, we can't create a great university that's been
around for a very long time because it take a
long time. But we need other institutions like that in
higher ed. So I think setting a great example for
(17:30):
others to follow. And yeah, they don't get a lot
of federal dollars. So why is Harvard crying like a
bunch of little babies about this, especially given their enormous
almost fifty billion dollar endowment. So we'll get into some
of that and get in some of your calls here
coming up. Look, place yourself in this scenario for a second.
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(17:52):
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(18:57):
Welcome back in Clay, Travis Bucksex and Show. Appreciate all
of you hanging out with us. We're rolling through the
Thursday edition of the program, and I mentioned that I'm
in Knoxville. I've got a speech engagement here I'm going
to do as soon as the show is over. But
I do think we talked to doctor Larry arn just
because I'm so close to the University of Tennessee campus
right now. I don't know that the full nation. Buck,
(19:20):
your wife is a University of Florida graduate. I don't
know that the full nation has quite come to grips
with Southeastern Conference schools, also ACC schools the Florida States,
the Clemsons of the world. How insanely popular all of
these schools have become in the wake of the protest,
(19:41):
such that a lot of Jewish families New York, LA,
Chicago area that would have never even thought of sending
their kids to SEC schools in the wake of the
October seventh protests, and the fact that so many SEC
schools counter protested in support of israel I would argue
that probably the most supportive area in the country of
(20:04):
Jewish people in the wake of October seventh has actually
been some of these SEC campuses which have now exploded
in applications. Certainly COVID is a part of this too,
because you could actually have a normal life, But the
idea that the University of Alabama is now an aspirational
goal for a kid growing up in New York or LA.
(20:26):
You grew up in New York, can you imagine, like
back when you were graduating, if you'd been like, yeah,
my choices are you know, Amherst or University of Georgia.
People would have thought you were crazy. Now people are
like that, I didn't know a single person from my
one hundred and thirty guy class that even applied to
(20:48):
an SEC school Clay Yep, not even Vanderbilt. I'm sorry, Vanderbilt.
Vanderbilt was the exception. I applied to Vanderbilt, so I mean,
so yes, I forgot that Vanderbilts. But I mean all
the other schools you talk about, I didn't know a
single person who applied, you know, I just looked this up.
I was kind of curious because our neighbors here have
a boy who's applying. He's a junior, and I was like, oh,
(21:08):
he lives in Florida. UF. Right. They're like, oh, UF
obviously where Kerrie went. UF very very tough these days.
And I'm like, well, how tough are we talking about?
You know? The average? The average sat at the University
of Florida. The average sagy, what do you think it is?
Take a guess. I don't know if they still score
them the same way, because I've got to sell. Forget
about the twenty four hundred that was a garbage thing
(21:30):
where they added no, no, no, no, we're talking to the
usual sixteen thirteen hundred or something is probably the average
at a school like Florida thirteen eighty. It's almost a
fourteen hundred. Now, that's in my day. If you broke
fourteen hundred, you you you know, you were looking at
Ivy League possibility and you broke fifteen hundred, you could
(21:50):
apply anywhere. So you're you're basically at the similar scores
to get into like and I know it's been this
way at you, Michigan, and you've you know, Versity of
Virginia for the state schools for a long time, but
you of f Now, I don't know. I can check
and see what it is at University of Georgia. I'm
sure it's higher than it's ever been. I will tell
you certainly Texas, Texas, A and M. When I was
(22:12):
a kid, you basically had not try to take a
shout here. Thirteen thirteen to twenty University of Georgia, that's
a very respectable I mean, that's you get to you know,
you break the thirteen hundred, the SAT is a very
respectable score. These are tough. You basically had to have
a pulse to get into the university of Tennessee when
I was graduating from college, I mean high school, twenty
five years ago. It's really hard now to get into
(22:36):
the University of Tennessee. Like they're turning people down. I
think they had sixty thousand applicants for the University of Tennessee,
which is crazy to think about from all over the country.
By the way, let me hit you at this buck.
This was my big provocative take all right. In addition
to everything else I've said today, George Clooney is going
(22:56):
around doing his in his tour media tour because he
got good Night, Good Luck, which I went watched and
teed off on a bit. The Broadway play it's one.
I think it's the highest grossing Broadway play in history.
In a week, I think it's making like four I
think that's right. I think it's making four million dollars
on average a week right now in Broadway plays, which
(23:17):
I think is the highest grossing Broadway play ever. Now
they have started dynamic pricing, which means they're charging hundreds
and hundreds of dollars a ticket. So that's part of
the reason. But you get if I got tickets for free,
would I want to go see this thing? For free.
Would I be happy? Yes, I would, Okay, all right,
(23:37):
I mean I I I went solo, you were out.
It was baby week because I'm in New York. It
was awful weather. I went and saw that and Othello
with Denzel Washington both solo, and I was impressed with both,
but for the fake Elon Musk spoiler alert Nazi salute
(23:58):
at the end of good Night and good Luck, of course,
not being asked about it at all, despite all of
the guest hits he's doing as an interview subject. But
here's I want to play this cut here in a sec.
But here's my thesis, Buck. I think George Clooney is
going to run for president. I think George Clooney is
going to toss his hat in the ring because he
(24:23):
when I watched this play, it felt to me like
an audition for president of the United States. It did.
Now let's listen to what he said, But just to
kind of put that out there, I think there are
going to be several Democrat candidates who are not sitting
office holders because the sitting Democrat office holders, many of
them are very, very unpopular. But here's what Clooney said,
(24:44):
We've got to cut for you discussing the current political situation.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
From Jackson to McCarthy to this the authoritary of the demagogue.
It goes away when they go away, and he will
go and they don't have anybody that's as charismatic as
and he's charismatic. As of taking that away from him,
it's a television start. He is, he's charismatic. I mean,
I don't agree with him at all on anything, but
you know, he was famous from the television show If
you're a Democrat, we have to find some people to
(25:11):
represent us better, who have a sense of humor and
who have a sense of purpose, and you know, we
need to put some people out there. There are a
couple of guys that a couple of people that I
really admire and I think could be I think Wes
Moore should be president. I think he's going to be
a real force in the next lesson. He's the governor
of Maryland.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
So that answer Buck, he gives Wes Moore some credit,
gives him his flowers. But the person that George Clooney
is describing there is what they need, I think is
George Clooney. I think George Clooney is saying what America
really needs is a guy who's a good communicator, has
done television and has a sense of humor. And you're
supposed to think, oh, well, that's George Clooney, Like George
(25:52):
Clooney wants to be drafted to run for president of
the United States and basically feel like he is the
salvation of the Democrat Party. This is my this is
my theory. You're calling a shot way out there and
weigh in advance, but it's already bothering me because this
would be horrific because he is. You want to talk
(26:13):
about overrated, I think George Clooney may be the most
overrated person on the planet as an actor, as a
as a columnist. For political reasons, you and Trump both
have come after George Clooney on the program. Trump sniffed
this guy out a long time ago. Clooney is just lucky.
He he's the same kind of wooden, boring performance and
(26:36):
everything that he's in. I know people say, oh, I
like Ocean's Eleven. Yeah, I do too, But do you
care if George Clooney is in it? No, you do not.
You can replace him with ten other people. Every movie
that George Clooney was supposed to carry is is grim
and boring, but Hollywood tells you it's great because he's
got the right friends at the right you know, right studios,
the right publications. I am, I am. You know Clooney
(26:59):
is the fauci of Hollywood, all right. The guy's terrible
and nobody should think otherwise. But it'd be fun if
he ran for president, because then I could focus all
of my anti Clooney ire into a concentrated, like long
term campaign to explain to everybody that you know, he's
just he's just kind of the worst. He's just the
worst producer. Ali, by the way, is just Broadway fact
(27:24):
checking me like crazy. Over my Here is the headline
from the Hollywood Reporter. Good Night and good Luck just
hit three point nine million dollars. That is the most
money that a Broadway play has ever made in the
history of a week, not all time, the most that
has ever happened in It eclipsed Othello with Denzel Washington,
(27:48):
which made nearly three million the week before. So this
news just came out a couple of days ago, but
it is legitimately the average ticket price buck three hundred
and ten dollars to get in to good night in
good luck right now, you know. But making the most money.
You know, Pablo Escobar made a lot of money too,
But I don't think that he left a good mark
(28:09):
on the world. I'm just saying. And it did get
hippos to Colombia, he did, there was a population. They
did eventually move them back to Africa, I believe, but
hippos too. I think they're still there. I think hippos
are still there. I thought they were trying to get
rid of relocate them. Yes, I I am not not
a a fan of judging the merit of any artistic
(28:31):
work by the box office goes you know why. You
know what, the highest grossing movie of all time is Avatar,
which is just Dances with Wolves and fern Gully with
blue people and three D. That makes your stomach turn. Okay,
Avatar was trash, a trash movie, and everybody one that
(28:53):
you got wrong. You came on here and you were like,
Avatar two is gonna bomb, and then like a week
later it made like a billion dollars. I get it.
I went and watched it. I don't disagree with your
fern Gully meets Dances with the Wolves. That movie does
I don't understand why, but it does unbelievable gross. They're
making a third I think no they Oh my god,
(29:17):
the third highest box office of all time, of all times,
Avatar two. What is wrong with people? Now? What is wrong?
To be fair? To be fair? You really have to
inflation adjust these things? Because I think I'm correct at
Gone with the Wind, which you somehow have never seen,
is the highest grossing movie of all times. If I
(29:38):
try to watch this with Carrie, I'm just gonna I'm
gonna put my marker out there right now. Carrie will
last ten minutes before she's out like a light. If
we try to watch Dancy, it's gonna get you. She's
a savory private ride all now like it has to
grip her right away or else she's out. Every woman
in America has seen Gone with the Wind except my wife.
Apparently she's never seen real. She hasn't seen it. I
(30:01):
don't think care. Oh, she's gone now, she's one hundred
percent seen Gone with the Wind. I don't think so.
I've never seen the sound of music, either, which apparently
everybody has seen. I've heard so much about it that
I think I have seen it because I know the
musical numbers from it. We know Clay is a big
musical guy, but I am. I am in shock and
(30:22):
dismay right now as I look at the top grossing
by the way, the ALLI pulled up. The number one
grossing Broadway all in all time is The Lion King,
which I respect that. I like the Lion King. That
makes sense, I mean, and also those they get on tours, right,
So yeah, and it's very family friendly. It's very you know,
you can watch The Lion King anywhere in the world
and it's gonna appeal to you. It's gonna be cool.
(30:44):
The top movies, though, guys, this is this is horror.
James Cameron dominates, dominates top movies all time. Avatar, then
it's Avengers End Game, don't I can't even produce. If
producer Marcus here, he'd be shaking his head at me
because I've always I think that these guys single handedly
have like destroyed the superhero genre. Yes theyveinger Z Game
(31:06):
is really well done. Oh it is. I'm sorry you're
on the wrong side of history with that. Take Clas
Clays a barbarian. Avatar, The Way of Waters number three,
Titanic is number four. I mean okay, and then Star Wars, Avengers,
Spider Man, Jurassic World. I love Jurassic Park. As you
(31:30):
all know, I'm a big Michael Crichton. Devote Jurassic World garbage.
The Lion King number eleven respect here. Here they are
by the way you float. Well, let's go to break.
I'll tell you the inflation adjusted because I think that's
one of the ways you have to look at it.
But James Cameron not doing poorly there either. Yeah, yeah,
all right, I agree. I agree with it, James Cameron.
(31:51):
This guy makes a lot of money. Why is he
a communist? It's a shame. Now that I'm a dad,
the meeting of family roots hits a little bit differently.
He can't wait to share our Sexon and Flatley family
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legacy box dot com slash buck. Want to begin to
know when you're on to go? The Team forty seven
podcast trump highlights from the week Sundays at noon Eastern
in the Clay Bug Podcast Speed find it on the
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. All right,
welcome back into Clay and Buck. Got some important updates
(33:20):
on conversations we've been having today on the show, including
I was right play. My wife has never seen Gone
with the Wind, would agrees with my assessment that she
would rapidly fall asleep because it's probably too slow for
her liking. So I would have lost massive amounts of money.
I don't know how it's possible, given how often this
(33:43):
thing is on TBS to have not seen Gone with
the Wind, especially a Southern girl like your like your wife,
who grew up in Tallahassee Florida Girl, Florida. All right, sorry,
Gone with the Wind, by the way, highest grossing movie
adjusted for inflation of all time, then Avatar, then Titanic.
(34:07):
So James Cameron has two of the highest grossing movies
adjusted for inflation in the history of film. That's pretty
I would never have believed that Avatar is number two
in the history of film. Have you seen some of
those after the fact analyzes of Titanic, like if you're
really if we just take away, like step away from
(34:27):
the whole. Oh, it's a movie, just enjoy Think for
a second. So this lady is engaged to this rich
guy and she decides to just have a one night
stand with some homeless dude who she then lets drift
underwater and freeze to death. There was room on that door.
We all know it. Like, it's pretty messed up when
you actually when you actually dig into this a little bit. Yeah,
I mean I would think that she would have had,
(34:48):
you know, instead of throwing the Golden goblet or whatever
the jewel into the water, I think she would have
thrown herself into the water. We got a couple of
funny talkbacks here, by the way, she should have definitely
let Jack up on the float. And the fact that
that is the third highest grossing movie of all time,
it's pretty incredible. Ben in Denver, Colorado, what you got
(35:09):
for us? Cc Hey Clay, I love you, Bud, but
I'm a leaf blower guy. Play Clay is having fits
right now. I mean, you're you're putting him over the edge.
I am very anti leaf blower and Cameron in Miami
down in Buckstown, he also wanted to weigh in leaf
(35:29):
Blowers United. They hate me. Go Cameron, Hey, Clay, this
one's for you. Put on your show. What explliance you're having.
Leaf blower guy is going to destroy it. They got
to show up. You were yelling about it that he's yelling.
(35:51):
Do you like that over his own leaf blower that's aggressive. No,
I don't. I don't like it at all. And you
were just telling me that they ruined the leaf blowing guys,
when you're Charles did with your mom hanging out for
her birthday. Yeah, Savannah, they came over having a nice,
beautiful coffee on the streets of Savannah and leafflower guy
comes over right next to us. I was just like
pulling leaves out of my teeth instead of drinking my
cappuccino like a civilized man. Julie and Salt Lake City,
(36:15):
what have you got for us?
Speaker 2 (36:18):
He claimed about Hey, I just wanted to say.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
George Clooney got me riled up his comments about Trump.
I don't know, I don't remember it exactly what he said,
but he implied that it was because.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
He was elected.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
We were all duped into voting for him because he
was a TV personality and charismatic.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
No.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
I voted for Trump because he was a successful businessman
before that, and I trust him to do well by
our country. Okay, we agree, Thank you. That's a very
nice call. Nice nice way to end things here. Guys.
We'll be back tomorrow. Uncle Bill's gonna be with us.
Bill O'Reilly is gonna be exciting,
Welcome in Clay Travis buck Sexton Show. Appreciate all of
you hanging out with us. I'm in Knoxville, Bucks down
in Miami. We are having a fabulous Thursday with all
of you. Encourage you to go subscribe to the podcast.
If you haven't already, you can search out my name
Clay Travis. You can search out buck Sexton. Also you
can download the iHeartRadio app that a guy on Monday
(00:23):
at the CIA World Congress of Sport at the bar
was getting a beer and he pulled it up and
he said, Hey, I've listened on the iHeartRadio app. He
was from Chicago, probably listening right now. Appreciate him into
sports marketing universe and a lot of you out there
listening on podcasts five hundred and fifty plus AM FM
stations and also on so many different ways including the
(00:45):
iHeartRadio app. And we bring in now doctor Larry Arn
of Hillsdale College, and speaking of ways to get your
message out, Hillsdale has been phenomenal at getting the message
out about everything that they are doing. And I had
the good fortune to get to sit next to doctor
Larry Arn at a Seattle, Washington area Hillsdale College event,
(01:05):
and I read over the weekend. A great weekend to
interview with you, doctor Arne. Given all the controversy surrounding
Harvard and federal funding of universities and colleges out there,
you had a really good argument. I want to let
you make it for our audience. The reason Hillsdale doesn't
take federal dollars is to be completely independent. Harvard has
(01:25):
fifty three billion dollars in the endowment. Why can't Harvard
just say, hey, we don't need any of this federal
government money. We want to instruct in the best way
that Harvard feels possible. That seems like a pretty good
case to me, and you guys have done it at Hillsdale.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah, thank you very much. You're a sports guy. I
really enjoyed talking to you. Then I didn't enjoyed your
speech very much. Yeah. So we live in what we
think of as a liberal society. That means free, that
means a lot of things have to go on in
the society so that it can control the government. And
if the government in detail manages education, including higher education,
(02:02):
then the society loses its independence. And you know, Harvard,
which gets a lot of money from the government. I
mean billions. They are living under hundreds of pages of
detailed rules and they probably be better off without them.
But now they've met some rules they don't like, like
don't scream, don't let the students scream dirty two at
(02:24):
each other, and they are rebelling about that, and that's
you know, they're in an interesting spot, aren't they.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
They're not the only ones either, doctor. I appreciate you
being with us. There are a number of schools Plumba University.
I could rattle off a few more if I thought
about it. But some pretty big name educational institutions out
there that have gotten on the wrong side of the
Trump administration and therefore the federal government on some of
these issues. Do you think that their plan is to
(02:53):
just try to batten down the hatches and ride it
out and keep doing what they've been doing, Because in
the case of it missions, for example, of a Supreme
Court has been quite clear that some of these institutions
have been engaged in unconstitutional discrimination in their educational practice
and admissions practices, and yet the understanding seems to be
(03:14):
that they're just going to keep doing it and get
federal dollars.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah, there's something really bad about that. I mean, first
of all, these the institutions we're talking about are some
of the greatest universities in the world. Harvard is the
oldest in our country, and it has been a treasure
for a very long time, and it's still a very
elite place. But they got wedded to the idea that
what color you are is some vital characteristic in your
(03:41):
qualification to be a student. And that's just wrong. I mean,
it's it's it's bad philosophy. It undercuts the whole understanding
of the academic task. And as you point out, it's
unconstitutional in a nation devoted to all men are created equal.
So there's you know there, and they are stubborn about it.
(04:02):
It's deeply ingrained. It was amazing to me a year
ago in the spring that they were having these demonstrations
in favor of Hamas and you know, River to the Sea,
and they were oppressing Jewish kids, I mean, abusing them
and spitting on them, and some of them were assaulted physically,
(04:23):
and they were certainly terrorized, and they couldn't stop it.
And in Columbia they suspended class. At Harvard, there were
major disruptions, and I thought at some point these places
are run by people who are in broad agreement with
each other. At some point, you'd think they'd say, this
is embarrassing. We should go back to class. That's what
(04:45):
we're here to do. And they couldn't do it. And
that's just you know, sad. It was. It made me sad,
also surprised. And you know, they've they've got some problems.
Now they're they are addressing those problems, they say, and
(05:06):
I sometimes doubt their capacity to do that. And the
Trump administration is demanding certain monitoring of them, and that's
what they're kicking about and rebelling and their Harvard to
sue the government, and it's going to be a big
legal fight, and you know, but think of the outcome.
(05:26):
If they win, it would mean that they're entitled to
the money that you can't stop it on the ground
that they are discriminating and oppressing people because of their
race and religion, and you know, and the government may
not monitor that well. At the beginning of the show,
(05:47):
you said, what I think is the actual solution. We
need to decentralize very many things in America. There's way
too many rules coming from the top and making a
uniform administrative system all over every kind of industry all
over the place, and colleges should be funded in a
wide diversity of ways. You know, there's like really rich
(06:11):
people in America, and you know a lot of them
give money to Harvard and a lot of them don't. Well,
the thing is, those rich people disagree with each other.
And so if it's the government, it's a uniform rule
for everybody, and you have to have that some but
you don't have to have that so comprehensively, and especially
(06:34):
affecting something sensitive like education, which is you know where
what college is actually for is for young people to
go and grow into excellent human beings and intellect and character.
And the definition of that is human and that means
Jews and Arabs should both aim for that, and the
(06:56):
institutions of higher education should have practices and standards so
that everybody pursues that and does it together. The word
college means partnership. So they lost their way, in my opinion,
and I hope they find it, but they're fighting very
hard not to do it. Not to do it.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Doctor Larry arned with us right now, if Hillsdale College,
fabulous school, got kids out there, not a bad place
to consider applying. I'm in Knoxville, Tennessee right now, doctor Arne.
Basically I can see the University of Tennessee campus nearly
from where I'm broadcasting. I'm curious how you would analyze
this in your career as an educator. It used to
(07:38):
be that people look down on big state schools in
the South Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas, whatever school
you want to use in the Southeastern Conference region. Now
I hear all the time, and I bet you do
as well for Hillsdale applications. People in New York, LA
(07:58):
Chicago who would have said in the past, oh, I
would never send my school, my son or daughter to
the University of Alabama or the University of Mississippi bragging
about their kids going to SEC schools because what you
just referenced, these protests, they didn't stand for them in
the South. They didn't stand for attacking Jewish people. In
(08:18):
the wake of October seventh, what does it say about
the cultural shift in our landscape that big state schools
in the South are suddenly desirable across the country and
small schools like yours in Michigan that are independent and
classically committed to education are surging in popularity, while places
like Harvard, Yale, Ucla, Stanford that maybe in the past
(08:40):
have been the absolute paragonds of academic achievement seem to
be declining. What does that tell us?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
And that's something and you know that has to do
with the politics of those states. You know, Hills to
Help's a special case because we don't take anybody from
the government, and we're old and committed to certain things
that we've been committed to for one hundred and eighty
two years. Those you know, in a in a state
like Tennessee or Arkansas. I'm from Arkansas. You know, the
(09:07):
government and several state legislatures, including in Tennessee, have set
up centers in those places where friends of mine are
teaching now and they you know, make sure they're sane.
But the general climate of those places is not. So
what the most elite places in America, and that it's
(09:29):
not just in higher end it's the Ivy League, but
it's journalism, it's the government, it's big corporations. They look
at the world as sort of an engineering project, and
we're going to remake the world, and so they don't
you know, they've they've got very unusual views about a
family and sex, and and it turns out that what's
(09:52):
going on in America is that's not working with lots
of people like you know why you know, we we
we you know. I think people want to get married
and have kids because it makes your life richer and
it's cool and it's hard. But if you do that,
what do you think about the kids? What do you
(10:13):
want them to become? They are produced by a relationship
and a sacrifice that parents make for decades, and so
they don't want their kids six changed without their permission.
They don't want their kids taught that human nature is
just a convention and we can re engineer it.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
And so there's doctor ar Can I just jump in
really quickly to ask because this is what I was
going to take you anyway, you're talking about the kids
and what they're being taught. I'm sure you saw the
arguments before the Supreme Court. We were talking about it
on the show. What is going on in education? Where
they want to read these very explicit and very trans
agenda focused books to very small children and this is widespread?
(10:59):
Where is this? Where does this come from?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Well, it's you know, first of All the intellectual roots
of this movement are old, right, that's you know, they
became explicit in nineteenth century German historicism, and they came
into America through a movement called progressivism that's still with
us today. People use that word still today. But what
(11:23):
did they think. What they thought was there isn't a
thing like human nature that that word nature is a
very interesting word and it means a lot of things,
but it starts with the Latin word for birth, how
we come to be and grow, and what we're like
when we're grown. But now, no, it's not that so much. Now.
What we have is the idea that we understand a
(11:45):
historical process that is liberating us and changing everything. And
because we have modern science, we can get control of
the process and we can re engineer even ourselves. And
so of course then the family has to be a
target of that, and race is a target of that,
(12:07):
and in some versions of it, you know, like the
difference between Nazism and Communism is only one thing. Nazism
is mostly about race. Communism is mostly about property and money,
and the Nazism thinks if you've got the right genes,
you're a superior being and Communism thinks you are formed
(12:30):
by what you do for a living and how you work.
And if you've got a lot of money, you're in
one class, and if you don't hear in another. And
there's a there's a and we have to transcend all that,
we have to overcome private property. And what the Nazis
think is, you know, if you've got the right blood,
then you're superior. Now, what's interesting about both of those doctrines,
(12:53):
because their materialist doctrines, what they do is upset that
the idea that any human child can come to know
things objectively. That's you know, and human freedom hinges on
that argument, which is a classical argument and a religious argument.
(13:14):
And all of the colleges, any college of any age,
Hilldale College, Harvard is the oldest one in America, they
were all founded on that idea that there's something a
spark in the human being that transcends his body, includes
his body, and transcends his body that makes it possible
for him to learn objectively. And if that and see,
(13:37):
what's interesting about discarding that argument is that you've discarded
all the basis of reasoning. In other words, if the
Nazis are right, or the communist. They can't have objective
knowledge of anything, see you, because their own they're just
creatures of some material condition that drives them. And you know,
(13:58):
in those dogs and those doctrines are very prevalent in
the world. They have led to two great world wars.
You know, tens of millions of people killed over them.
So what you should do in a college is study them,
understand them, and understand the alternative, which is, you know,
(14:19):
we study those things at Hillsteale College, but also we
study the classics, right, and then you've become armed with
a way to understand things that let you evaluate the world.
And see, that's another thing about these Ivy League colleges.
I noticed in the last three year ago last spring
(14:41):
that when they were demonstrating about hamas and anti Jews,
they would interview these kids and they didn't really seem
to know very much about it. You know, they've just
got doctrine and want their way right now. But aren't
they really there to learn It's you know, it's a
very interesting question, which you know, turns out I work
(15:03):
for a great story and who wrote about this? Did
Jews modern Israel have a right to the land on
which it is well First of all, that's a that's
a history that goes back. You know, Israel was fouted
in nineteen forty eight. How did that happen? Where did
that come from? Who decided it? Right? In other words,
(15:24):
there's a rich world of stuff to figure out about that,
and I don't do they're doing it Harvard.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, I think you're right about that. We have to
go to a commercial break. I feel like we could
just have you on talking for hours and it would
be phenomenal. We need to have a longer form conversation
at some point with you. In the meantime, if your
kids are applying to colleges, I would suggest you could
do way worse than Hillsdale.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Sir.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
We appreciate the time, and I encourage people to go
read that Wall Street Journal piece, which I thought really
elucidated some very interesting and intelligent arguments as it pertains
to academic freedom. Thank you, Doctor Arnold. Was great to
spend time. I'm with you in Seattle.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Thank you both.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Look NFL draft Puck is fired up. You heard Dana
Perino fired up, Doctor Larry arn He's a big sports fan.
We had a great conversation in Seattle. If you're fired
up and want to have some fun with the NHL,
with the NBA, with Major League Baseball underway. Heck, I'm
sitting right now at a minor league baseball stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee,
just off the University of Tennessee's campus. If you are
a sports fan, you need to go get signed up
(16:25):
right now pricepicks dot com Code Clay. You get fifty
bucks when you sign up, and whatever sport you love,
you can play along with Rush loved sports. I know
many of you out there are huge sports fans as well.
All you have to do is go to pricepicks dot com,
put in the code Clay, and you get fifty dollars
when you play five dollars. You can play in California,
you can play in Texas, you can play in Georgia.
(16:47):
Do it today, pricepicks dot com, Code Clay, News and politics,
but also a little comic relief. Clay Travis at Buck Sexton.
Find them on the free iHeartRadio app or wherever you
get your podcasts. Welcome back into Clay en Buck. We're
gonna have a quick turn here, so I just want
to remind you to please send us talkbacks, give us
(17:07):
phone calls. We will talk to you on the back
half of this hour for sure. Really interesting talking to
doctor Larry arm there of Hillsdale. We need more Hillsdale's.
I mean, we can't create a great university that's been
around for a very long time because it take a
long time. But we need other institutions like that in
higher ed. So I think setting a great example for
(17:30):
others to follow. And yeah, they don't get a lot
of federal dollars. So why is Harvard crying like a
bunch of little babies about this, especially given their enormous
almost fifty billion dollar endowment. So we'll get into some
of that and get in some of your calls here
coming up. Look, place yourself in this scenario for a second.
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(17:52):
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(18:57):
Welcome back in Clay, Travis Bucksex and Show. Appreciate all
of you hanging out with us. We're rolling through the
Thursday edition of the program, and I mentioned that I'm
in Knoxville. I've got a speech engagement here I'm going
to do as soon as the show is over. But
I do think we talked to doctor Larry arn just
because I'm so close to the University of Tennessee campus
right now. I don't know that the full nation. Buck,
(19:20):
your wife is a University of Florida graduate. I don't
know that the full nation has quite come to grips
with Southeastern Conference schools, also ACC schools the Florida States,
the Clemsons of the world. How insanely popular all of
these schools have become in the wake of the protest,
(19:41):
such that a lot of Jewish families New York, LA,
Chicago area that would have never even thought of sending
their kids to SEC schools in the wake of the
October seventh protests, and the fact that so many SEC
schools counter protested in support of israel I would argue
that probably the most supportive area in the country of
(20:04):
Jewish people in the wake of October seventh has actually
been some of these SEC campuses which have now exploded
in applications. Certainly COVID is a part of this too,
because you could actually have a normal life, But the
idea that the University of Alabama is now an aspirational
goal for a kid growing up in New York or LA.
(20:26):
You grew up in New York, can you imagine, like
back when you were graduating, if you'd been like, yeah,
my choices are you know, Amherst or University of Georgia.
People would have thought you were crazy. Now people are
like that, I didn't know a single person from my
one hundred and thirty guy class that even applied to
(20:48):
an SEC school Clay Yep, not even Vanderbilt. I'm sorry, Vanderbilt.
Vanderbilt was the exception. I applied to Vanderbilt, so I mean,
so yes, I forgot that Vanderbilts. But I mean all
the other schools you talk about, I didn't know a
single person who applied, you know, I just looked this up.
I was kind of curious because our neighbors here have
a boy who's applying. He's a junior, and I was like, oh,
(21:08):
he lives in Florida. UF. Right. They're like, oh, UF
obviously where Kerrie went. UF very very tough these days.
And I'm like, well, how tough are we talking about?
You know? The average? The average sat at the University
of Florida. The average sagy, what do you think it is?
Take a guess. I don't know if they still score
them the same way, because I've got to sell. Forget
about the twenty four hundred that was a garbage thing
(21:30):
where they added no, no, no, no, we're talking to the
usual sixteen thirteen hundred or something is probably the average
at a school like Florida thirteen eighty. It's almost a
fourteen hundred. Now, that's in my day. If you broke
fourteen hundred, you you you know, you were looking at
Ivy League possibility and you broke fifteen hundred, you could
(21:50):
apply anywhere. So you're you're basically at the similar scores
to get into like and I know it's been this
way at you, Michigan, and you've you know, Versity of
Virginia for the state schools for a long time, but
you of f Now, I don't know. I can check
and see what it is at University of Georgia. I'm
sure it's higher than it's ever been. I will tell
you certainly Texas, Texas, A and M. When I was
(22:12):
a kid, you basically had not try to take a
shout here. Thirteen thirteen to twenty University of Georgia, that's
a very respectable I mean, that's you get to you know,
you break the thirteen hundred, the SAT is a very
respectable score. These are tough. You basically had to have
a pulse to get into the university of Tennessee when
I was graduating from college, I mean high school, twenty
five years ago. It's really hard now to get into
(22:36):
the University of Tennessee. Like they're turning people down. I
think they had sixty thousand applicants for the University of Tennessee,
which is crazy to think about from all over the country.
By the way, let me hit you at this buck.
This was my big provocative take all right. In addition
to everything else I've said today, George Clooney is going
(22:56):
around doing his in his tour media tour because he
got good Night, Good Luck, which I went watched and
teed off on a bit. The Broadway play it's one.
I think it's the highest grossing Broadway play in history.
In a week, I think it's making like four I
think that's right. I think it's making four million dollars
on average a week right now in Broadway plays, which
(23:17):
I think is the highest grossing Broadway play ever. Now
they have started dynamic pricing, which means they're charging hundreds
and hundreds of dollars a ticket. So that's part of
the reason. But you get if I got tickets for free,
would I want to go see this thing? For free.
Would I be happy? Yes, I would, Okay, all right,
(23:37):
I mean I I I went solo, you were out.
It was baby week because I'm in New York. It
was awful weather. I went and saw that and Othello
with Denzel Washington both solo, and I was impressed with both,
but for the fake Elon Musk spoiler alert Nazi salute
(23:58):
at the end of good Night and good Luck, of course,
not being asked about it at all, despite all of
the guest hits he's doing as an interview subject. But
here's I want to play this cut here in a sec.
But here's my thesis, Buck. I think George Clooney is
going to run for president. I think George Clooney is
going to toss his hat in the ring because he
(24:23):
when I watched this play, it felt to me like
an audition for president of the United States. It did.
Now let's listen to what he said, But just to
kind of put that out there, I think there are
going to be several Democrat candidates who are not sitting
office holders because the sitting Democrat office holders, many of
them are very, very unpopular. But here's what Clooney said,
(24:44):
We've got to cut for you discussing the current political situation.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
From Jackson to McCarthy to this the authoritary of the demagogue.
It goes away when they go away, and he will
go and they don't have anybody that's as charismatic as
and he's charismatic. As of taking that away from him,
it's a television start. He is, he's charismatic. I mean,
I don't agree with him at all on anything, but
you know, he was famous from the television show If
you're a Democrat, we have to find some people to
(25:11):
represent us better, who have a sense of humor and
who have a sense of purpose, and you know, we
need to put some people out there. There are a
couple of guys that a couple of people that I
really admire and I think could be I think Wes
Moore should be president. I think he's going to be
a real force in the next lesson. He's the governor
of Maryland.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
So that answer Buck, he gives Wes Moore some credit,
gives him his flowers. But the person that George Clooney
is describing there is what they need, I think is
George Clooney. I think George Clooney is saying what America
really needs is a guy who's a good communicator, has
done television and has a sense of humor. And you're
supposed to think, oh, well, that's George Clooney, Like George
(25:52):
Clooney wants to be drafted to run for president of
the United States and basically feel like he is the
salvation of the Democrat Party. This is my this is
my theory. You're calling a shot way out there and
weigh in advance, but it's already bothering me because this
would be horrific because he is. You want to talk
(26:13):
about overrated, I think George Clooney may be the most
overrated person on the planet as an actor, as a
as a columnist. For political reasons, you and Trump both
have come after George Clooney on the program. Trump sniffed
this guy out a long time ago. Clooney is just lucky.
He he's the same kind of wooden, boring performance and
(26:36):
everything that he's in. I know people say, oh, I
like Ocean's Eleven. Yeah, I do too, But do you
care if George Clooney is in it? No, you do not.
You can replace him with ten other people. Every movie
that George Clooney was supposed to carry is is grim
and boring, but Hollywood tells you it's great because he's
got the right friends at the right you know, right studios,
the right publications. I am, I am. You know Clooney
(26:59):
is the fauci of Hollywood, all right. The guy's terrible
and nobody should think otherwise. But it'd be fun if
he ran for president, because then I could focus all
of my anti Clooney ire into a concentrated, like long
term campaign to explain to everybody that you know, he's
just he's just kind of the worst. He's just the
worst producer. Ali, by the way, is just Broadway fact
(27:24):
checking me like crazy. Over my Here is the headline
from the Hollywood Reporter. Good Night and good Luck just
hit three point nine million dollars. That is the most
money that a Broadway play has ever made in the
history of a week, not all time, the most that
has ever happened in It eclipsed Othello with Denzel Washington,
(27:48):
which made nearly three million the week before. So this
news just came out a couple of days ago, but
it is legitimately the average ticket price buck three hundred
and ten dollars to get in to good night in
good luck right now, you know. But making the most money.
You know, Pablo Escobar made a lot of money too,
But I don't think that he left a good mark
(28:09):
on the world. I'm just saying. And it did get
hippos to Colombia, he did, there was a population. They
did eventually move them back to Africa, I believe, but
hippos too. I think they're still there. I think hippos
are still there. I thought they were trying to get
rid of relocate them. Yes, I I am not not
a a fan of judging the merit of any artistic
(28:31):
work by the box office goes you know why. You
know what, the highest grossing movie of all time is Avatar,
which is just Dances with Wolves and fern Gully with
blue people and three D. That makes your stomach turn. Okay,
Avatar was trash, a trash movie, and everybody one that
(28:53):
you got wrong. You came on here and you were like,
Avatar two is gonna bomb, and then like a week
later it made like a billion dollars. I get it.
I went and watched it. I don't disagree with your
fern Gully meets Dances with the Wolves. That movie does
I don't understand why, but it does unbelievable gross. They're
making a third I think no they Oh my god,
(29:17):
the third highest box office of all time, of all times,
Avatar two. What is wrong with people? Now? What is wrong?
To be fair? To be fair? You really have to
inflation adjust these things? Because I think I'm correct at
Gone with the Wind, which you somehow have never seen,
is the highest grossing movie of all times. If I
(29:38):
try to watch this with Carrie, I'm just gonna I'm
gonna put my marker out there right now. Carrie will
last ten minutes before she's out like a light. If
we try to watch Dancy, it's gonna get you. She's
a savory private ride all now like it has to
grip her right away or else she's out. Every woman
in America has seen Gone with the Wind except my wife.
Apparently she's never seen real. She hasn't seen it. I
(30:01):
don't think care. Oh, she's gone now, she's one hundred
percent seen Gone with the Wind. I don't think so.
I've never seen the sound of music, either, which apparently
everybody has seen. I've heard so much about it that
I think I have seen it because I know the
musical numbers from it. We know Clay is a big
musical guy, but I am. I am in shock and
(30:22):
dismay right now as I look at the top grossing
by the way, the ALLI pulled up. The number one
grossing Broadway all in all time is The Lion King,
which I respect that. I like the Lion King. That
makes sense, I mean, and also those they get on tours, right,
So yeah, and it's very family friendly. It's very you know,
you can watch The Lion King anywhere in the world
and it's gonna appeal to you. It's gonna be cool.
(30:44):
The top movies, though, guys, this is this is horror.
James Cameron dominates, dominates top movies all time. Avatar, then
it's Avengers End Game, don't I can't even produce. If
producer Marcus here, he'd be shaking his head at me
because I've always I think that these guys single handedly
have like destroyed the superhero genre. Yes theyveinger Z Game
(31:06):
is really well done. Oh it is. I'm sorry you're
on the wrong side of history with that. Take Clas
Clays a barbarian. Avatar, The Way of Waters number three,
Titanic is number four. I mean okay, and then Star Wars, Avengers,
Spider Man, Jurassic World. I love Jurassic Park. As you
(31:30):
all know, I'm a big Michael Crichton. Devote Jurassic World garbage.
The Lion King number eleven respect here. Here they are
by the way you float. Well, let's go to break.
I'll tell you the inflation adjusted because I think that's
one of the ways you have to look at it.
But James Cameron not doing poorly there either. Yeah, yeah,
all right, I agree. I agree with it, James Cameron.
(31:51):
This guy makes a lot of money. Why is he
a communist? It's a shame. Now that I'm a dad,
the meeting of family roots hits a little bit differently.
He can't wait to share our Sexon and Flatley family
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legacy box dot com slash buck. Want to begin to
know when you're on to go? The Team forty seven
podcast trump highlights from the week Sundays at noon Eastern
in the Clay Bug Podcast Speed find it on the
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. All right,
welcome back into Clay and Buck. Got some important updates
(33:20):
on conversations we've been having today on the show, including
I was right play. My wife has never seen Gone
with the Wind, would agrees with my assessment that she
would rapidly fall asleep because it's probably too slow for
her liking. So I would have lost massive amounts of money.
I don't know how it's possible, given how often this
(33:43):
thing is on TBS to have not seen Gone with
the Wind, especially a Southern girl like your like your wife,
who grew up in Tallahassee Florida Girl, Florida. All right, sorry,
Gone with the Wind, by the way, highest grossing movie
adjusted for inflation of all time, then Avatar, then Titanic.
(34:07):
So James Cameron has two of the highest grossing movies
adjusted for inflation in the history of film. That's pretty
I would never have believed that Avatar is number two
in the history of film. Have you seen some of
those after the fact analyzes of Titanic, like if you're
really if we just take away, like step away from
(34:27):
the whole. Oh, it's a movie, just enjoy Think for
a second. So this lady is engaged to this rich
guy and she decides to just have a one night
stand with some homeless dude who she then lets drift
underwater and freeze to death. There was room on that door.
We all know it. Like, it's pretty messed up when
you actually when you actually dig into this a little bit. Yeah,
I mean I would think that she would have had,
(34:48):
you know, instead of throwing the Golden goblet or whatever
the jewel into the water, I think she would have
thrown herself into the water. We got a couple of
funny talkbacks here, by the way, she should have definitely
let Jack up on the float. And the fact that
that is the third highest grossing movie of all time,
it's pretty incredible. Ben in Denver, Colorado, what you got
(35:09):
for us? Cc Hey Clay, I love you, Bud, but
I'm a leaf blower guy. Play Clay is having fits
right now. I mean, you're you're putting him over the edge.
I am very anti leaf blower and Cameron in Miami
down in Buckstown, he also wanted to weigh in leaf
(35:29):
Blowers United. They hate me. Go Cameron, Hey, Clay, this
one's for you. Put on your show. What explliance you're having.
Leaf blower guy is going to destroy it. They got
to show up. You were yelling about it that he's yelling.
(35:51):
Do you like that over his own leaf blower that's aggressive. No,
I don't. I don't like it at all. And you
were just telling me that they ruined the leaf blowing guys,
when you're Charles did with your mom hanging out for
her birthday. Yeah, Savannah, they came over having a nice,
beautiful coffee on the streets of Savannah and leafflower guy
comes over right next to us. I was just like
pulling leaves out of my teeth instead of drinking my
cappuccino like a civilized man. Julie and Salt Lake City,
(36:15):
what have you got for us?
Speaker 2 (36:18):
He claimed about Hey, I just wanted to say.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
George Clooney got me riled up his comments about Trump.
I don't know, I don't remember it exactly what he said,
but he implied that it was because.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
He was elected.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
We were all duped into voting for him because he
was a TV personality and charismatic.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
No.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
I voted for Trump because he was a successful businessman
before that, and I trust him to do well by
our country. Okay, we agree, Thank you. That's a very
nice call. Nice nice way to end things here. Guys.
We'll be back tomorrow. Uncle Bill's gonna be with us.
Bill O'Reilly is gonna be exciting,
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
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Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
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