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Too Woke: Has America's Cancel Culture Gone Too Far? Strongman Duterte Threatens Vaccine Decliners With Jail And "Butt" Injections; Ex-Sportswriter Says She Was Raped By Major League Baseball Player. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired June 23, 2021 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:30:00]
DR SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, this technology for creating vaccines is pretty remarkable.
And also, it's not clear that we need them right now. What we're seeing is the vaccines work well. If you get more and more people vaccinated the virus will circulate less, there will be fewer mutations, and maybe we won't need boosters at all. These vaccines could last -- be protective for a long time.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Go out and get your first shot. Let's do that first. Let's get everyone the first and second shot -- boosters, as needed, later on.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much.
Still ahead, one country's president threatening to arrest citizens who refuse to get vaccinated.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: It is wild. We're going to talk about that.
And, comedienne Bill Maher says Democrats need to stop apologizing, raising a question about cancel culture going too far.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:35:23]
KEILAR: Superstar singer Billie Eilish is apologizing after a year's old video surface of her lip-syncing an anti-Asian slur and apparently imitating an accent.
The seven-time Grammy winner posted a statement addressing the edited compilation of videos. She wrote, "I am appalled and embarrassed and want to barf that I ever mouthed along to that word. Regardless of my ignorance and age at the time, nothing excuses the fact that it was hurtful. And for that I am sorry." Eilish added that she was 13 or 14 at the time.
And then last week, of course, Lin-Manuel Miranda apologized after his film "In the Heights" was criticized for not depicting more dark- skinned Afro-Latinos in it. His apology prompting this response from Bill Maher.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL MAHER, HOST, "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER": Stop the apologizing. You're the guy who made the founding fathers Black and Hispanic. I don't think you have to apologize to Twitter.
This is why people hate Democrats. At some point, people are going to have to stand up to these bullies because that's what it is -- it's just bullying. It's I can make you crawl like a dog and I enjoy it.
I mean, he's a Latino making a Latino movie with a Latino cast -- not good enough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: All right, let's talk about this, and also this issue of cancel culture that has become obviously such a hot topic. Let's discuss with CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp and Mara Schiavocampo, who is a journalist and hosts the podcast "Run Tell This." Thank you guys so much for coming on.
S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's good to see you. Welcome to New York.
KEILAR: Thank you. It is so great to see you.
What do you think about what Bill Maher is saying that Democrats need to stop apologizing?
MARA SCHIAVOCAMPO, JOURNALIST AND HOST, "RUN TELL THIS" PODCAST: Well, first of all, it's kind of rich that Bill Maher is whitesplaining colorism to the Black community, right? There is a very big difference between what happened with Billie Eilish and what's going on with Lin-Manuel Miranda and in a lot of these other cases.
There is no such thing as cancel culture. There are consequences. There's consequences culture, there's accountability culture, and that's what we're seeing now.
So in the case of Billie Eilish, she apologized. It's smart for an entertainer to do that. Why would you want to alienate your fan base? And there will not really be any consequences for her in this -- mark my words -- as there shouldn't be.
I don't think any of us would want to be punished for stupid things we did when we were 13 years old. So she says there is no excuse. Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I think a child making a silly video can be forgiven for that.
But then we're talking about other cases where there are real consequences. And a lot of people who have never been held accountable don't like that the culture is shifting and that now, people are being held accountable for bad behavior and they're facing the consequences of it.
CUPP: Yes. I think the term "cancel culture" has been kind of used as a blunt force object to describe all kinds of things -- things that I would call basic accountability and human decency. And there is nothing wrong with looking inward, wanting to be a sensitive and inclusive society, and asking ourselves if we're speaking about these issues in the correct way.
But, of course, over on the far right, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And I think they are using cancel culture to scare you out of having a conversation about accountability.
However, I do think if you're someone who looks at the Lin-Manuel Miranda story -- and the only reason you probably know him is because he has amplified the voices of Black and brown America in such wonderful ways -- you were confounded by the fact that he is sort of in it right now.
Maybe I might look at this story and say well, I want to know more about why. I want to know why the Afro-Latino community is upset with him. Others might say to hell with that -- there's nothing I can do -- and kind of give up on the whole project.
I don't think that's great, and if the intention of accountability is to educate people it can't be to scare them into silence. I don't think that's actually moving this conversation along.
BERMAN: Mara?
SCHIAVOCAMPO: Well, people decry free speech.
CUPP: Yes.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: They say that free speech is on the line -- you're not allowed to say anything. But that's not actually what's happening.
CUPP: No, that's (INAUDIBLE) -- sure.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: People are able to speak their mind --
CUPP: Of course.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: -- and say what they believe. The question is how is the marketplace going to respond?
CUPP: Exactly.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: How is your audience going to respond?
So in the specific case of "In the Heights" --
CUPP: Yes.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: -- if you were to say well, what more do you want, right? You made the founding fathers Black and now people are still giving you a hard time.
The neighborhood that the "Heights" is about, which is about half a mile from where I live in Harlem, is majority Afro-Dominican. So imagine making a movie about Greenwich, Connecticut with no white actors. People would say make that make sense.
So if you're pointing out a glaring erasure of this -- of people in this community, that is not a bad thing.
CUPP: Yes.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: That is something that needs to be acknowledged --
[07:40:00]
CUPP: No, I totally agree. And --
SCIAVOCAMPO: -- and he, himself, has acknowledged it.
CUPP: Yes, and he's apologized for it. And I think there's nothing wrong, ever, with apologizing and reflecting. I'm just saying I don't think people are going to -- all people are going to do that kind of legwork to get to that place.
And it also just feels confusing I think to a lot of people. If you look at -- someone like Mel Gibson has said the worst things I've ever heard a human say about women, about Jews -- still making movies. Just won a bunch of awards for the last blockbuster that he had, "Hacksaw Ridge."
Someone like Alison Roman, "New York Times" cookbook columnist, was basically shelved for saying something critical of Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo's marketing tactics.
To me, I understand because I read about this stuff and I want to know more about this stuff. I think to a lot of people it is confounding -- that makes no sense in the world.
BERMAN: So what bothers me the most about the discussion in general is I think there's a huge straw man component to it.
CUPP: Yes.
BERMAN: I think there is one side that's winning, by the way -- right now, by the words we are putting on the screen -- by saying cancel culture.
CUPP: Yes.
BERMAN: By using that terminology to define what's happening, you are giving one side --
CUPP: Incorrectly.
BERMAN: -- everything it wants --
CUPP: Yes, right.
BERMAN: -- here, which suggests that people -- has Mel Gibson been canceled?
CUPP: No.
BERMAN: Has Bill Maher been canceled?
SCHIAVOCAMPO: No, that's the thing about Bill Maher. That's what's so great about this, right? If cancel culture was real, Bill Maher would have been canceled a long time ago.
Let's look at the list of things that he has said -- a very short, abridged version of them where he talked about the 9/11 terrorists less than a week after 9/11, saying that they were not cowards. He has compared mentally disabled children to dogs. He has called himself a house "n" word -- not saying "n" word but saying the full word.
So if cancel culture was real, he would have been canceled. He has a successful show. He's touring all over the country. He is example number one of how cancel culture is not real.
BERMAN: Let me ask about Liz Cheney. Has --
CUPP: Can we do Keith Olbermann next though, by the way? I'm sorry -- that guy.
BERMAN: Has Liz Cheney been canceled from the Republican caucus? Yes.
CUPP: Yes, right.
BERMAN: Yes.
CUPP: Right.
BERMAN: So some of the very same people who say oh, you can't say anything anymore these days without getting canceled, kick her out of her job.
It's just -- it's wildly inconsistent.
CUPP: Yes.
BERMAN: It is wildly selective when people choose to get upset about it and I think that's a major issue.
KEILAR: And I wonder how to look at it. I wonder how you guys think you should look at it in terms of someone's net contributions.
Alison Roman, for instance --
SCHIAVOCAMPO: Yes.
KEILAR: -- which a lot of people may not be familiar with her.
CUPP: Yes. KEILAR: But she had to leave "The New York Times." She was kicked out of "The New York Times." She was someone who made cooking during the pandemic more accessible to people.
CUPP: Yes.
KEILAR: That's really when she kind of blew up.
CUPP: Pasta, yes.
KEILAR: That pasta, which is amazing.
CUPP: Delish, yes.
KEILAR: Is so the cookie, right?
CUPP: Right.
KEILAR: And stew.
OK, anyway -- so --
CUPP: Yes.
KEILAR: But she did -- yes, what she said about Marie Kondo, what she said about Chrissy Teigen.
CUPP: Yes.
KEILAR: And people said what are you thinking? You're talking about --
SCHIAVOCAMPO: Two Asian women.
KEILAR: -- two women of color and not recognizing kind of what you're doing. But at the same time, you see these other examples where it really -- like the net contribution, like with Mel Gibson, is what?
CUPP: It just feels egregious.
KEILAR: Yes.
CUPP: And if I'm -- to everyone's point -- a point I also conceded -- everything looks like a nail and we're completely taking a broad brush to all of this to our own detriment. But it's hard to make sense of it when you look at -- I wouldn't say it feels arbitrary but it kind of feels capricious and like you can't -- you can't navigate it.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: But I think the differentiator is who is your audience? If you're Alison Roman, your audience is other women --
KEILAR: That's true.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: -- and they don't take very well to a woman attacking other women.
If you're a political figure then maybe all that rabble-rousing serves you.
CUPP: Yes.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: So the question is who is your audience and are you smart enough to know and figure that out?
CUPP: So who is Mel Gibson's audience?
SCHIAVOCAMPO: Well, who's going -- who's paying for his film? I'm certainly not.
CUPP: No, me neither.
KEILAR: OK, let me ask you this. Kevin Hart who, of course, got nixed from the Oscars in 2019 for old tweets that were homophobic --
CUPP: Yes.
KEILAR: -- he brought up this point where he's talking about look, why are we supposed to be perfect? I don't hold my wife or my kids to the standard of being perfect. And he basically said last I checked, the only way you grow up is from (bleeping) up.
What do you think about that?
SCHIAVOCAMPO: So there's a question about when have people done enough to redeem themselves. And I think that's a very real question -- is when is somebody worthy of forgiveness?
You take someone, for example, like Michael Vick. He did something terrible, was convicted, paid the cost for that, served his time, and then came out and did a tremendous amount of work in supporting animal rights. And when you speak to people in those communities they say no, we feel like this was genuine. He really is very remorseful for what he did.
So at what point do we as a community say OK, you have paid your debt to society? We forgive you because nobody is perfect.
CUPP: I don't think anyone's striving for perfection and that's a standard no one will meet. We will all fail at it.
[07:45:00]
But I think yes, if you're looking at someone like Alexi McCammond -- wonderful journalist. A great journalist, a woman of color. Was fired from Vogue for past homophobic tweets that were awful and anti-Asian tweets that were awful. She made them as a teenager.
When does she get a second shot at a big career? Or is the consequence listen, you said some things you shouldn't have said and you don't have a right to a high-paying, high-profile job in journalism maybe. I don't have the answer to that but I think that's what people are trying to reconcile with, and it's unclear.
KEILAR: Yes. We've had her on this show -- CUPP: Yes.
KEILAR: -- multiple times.
CUPP: Yes.
KEILAR: So I think that's a very -- that is a very good question.
CUPP: Yes.
KEILAR: Perhaps that's as big of an answer as well.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: Well, I think that really, none of us would want to be defined by our worst moments.
CUPP: Yes.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: And so, I think if we can extend a little bit of compassion --
CUPP: Some mercy.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: -- and a little bit of mercy --
CUPP: Yes.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: -- and empathy and grace the same way that we would want it ourselves.
BERMAN: Read Lin-Manuel Miranda's explanation. You know, it actually makes a ton of sense --
CUPP: Yes.
BERMAN: -- and he learned something from it. You know, we can actually listen to what people say after the fact and that can have an impact also.
This was a great discussion.
KEILAR: It was wonderful.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: Thank you, guys.
KEILAR: We're probably going to get in trouble for it but I loved that we talked about it.
SCHIAVOCAMPO: Please don't cancel us.
(CROSSTALK)
KEILAR: All right. Mara, S.E., thank you so much.
Coming up, book reports and movie reviews. Why a woman charged in the Capitol riot cited "Schindler's List" ahead of her sentencing. You'll want to hear this. BERMAN: And a socialist candidate staging what could be a historic election upset. She'll join us live in her first national interview coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:50:48]
KEILAR: Philippine strongman President Rodrigo Duterte is threatening to jail citizens who refuse to get a coronavirus vaccine. He is threatening -- and this is what he's saying -- to stick them in the butt with it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT RODRIGO DUTERTE, PHILIPPINES (through translator): You choose -- get vaccinated or I will have you jailed. I'm telling you, those police jail cells are filthy and foul-smelling. Police are lazy in cleaning. That is where you'll be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Goodness gracious.
Joining us now, Maria Santana, who is the anchor and correspondent for CNN en Espanol.
OK, so he also said -- I mean, I want you to sort of discuss that with us. But he also said if you don't want to get the vaccine, go to India or America.
MARIA SANTANA, CNN EN ESPANOL ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, I interpret that in a couple of different ways. One, I think it just highlights that freedom still does exist in America.
I mean, as much as groups of people wanted to cry mask mandates and COVID restrictions as assaults on their individual freedoms, here you have the president of a country saying if you don't do exactly what we tell you we are literally going to deprive you of your freedom. But if you still want to go around doing whatever the heck you want without regard for anybody else but yourself, go to America. They'll let you do it -- no consequences. So I see that in that sense.
But also, I think it's a reflection of what the rest of the world must see about America. Here we are, a country with ample supply of the vaccine where we have to bribe people to go get it. And part of the problem in the Philippines -- why they have this outbreak -- is exactly that -- shortage of the vaccine. People are waiting eight hours in line. They want it.
They can get it here. We have it -- it's available. It's easy to get. It's free most of the time. And we're like oh well, we don't want to.
BERMAN: I mean, there's a lot of things going on at once here, right?
SANTANA: Yes. BERMAN: You have one of the world's worst strongmen --
SANTANA: Yes.
BERMAN: -- saying something that's clearly absurd here but trying to address a problem in his country which is running rampant.
SANTANA: Yes. Well, you know, it's really rich and ironic that he is saying you have -- if you're hesitant to get the vaccine -- well, then get out of the country. Because his critics say that he is part of the problem. He has not inspired confidence in science and in vaccines in his own country.
You know, when he took the vaccine he insisted on getting Sinopharm, which is a Chinese-produced vaccine, which was not approved at the time.
In 2017, there was a huge controversy over the Dengue vaccine. Several children died. So that caused people to not want to get vaccinated because they don't trust their government. They don't trust what they're telling them scientifically.
And this is just another case where you have -- the words and actions of leaders matter, whether it's here in America, whether it's in Brazil with Jair Bolsonaro, whether it's Duterte. You know, people look to their leaders to emulate their behavior, especially in times of crisis.
But if you are going to promote anti-science, anti-intellectual theories and practices, and then when that hits the reality of something like a pandemic and it's not out of control because of exactly what you did, then what do these -- history has taught us that what strongmen do is just double down on their strongman tactics.
BERMAN: Maria, it's such an interesting discussion. Such an interesting microcosm of things we're seeing in this country and around the world. Thanks so much for joining us.
SANTANA: Oh, thank you so much. Thank you.
KEILAR: A startling revelation from a respected former sports journalist, Kat O'Brien. In an opinion piece for "The New York Times," Kat made this public for the first time that she was raped by a Major League Baseball player in 2002. She was just 22 at the time. She was a year out of college.
And she says she never reported what happened because she was afraid of the backlash. She writes that it was, quote, "A trauma that had been living inside me for 18 years."
With us now to share her story is Kat O'Brien, former reporter and baseball beat writer for the "Fort Worth Star-Telegram" and "Newsday."
Kat, thank you so much for writing this. I know that so many people have read it and they have connected with it for so many different reasons -- that your voice on this has been so important. [07:55:02]
Just tell us -- walk us through what happened that day.
KAT O'BRIEN, FORMER MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL REPORTER, FORT WORTH STAR- TELEGRAM AND NEWSDAY (via Webex by Cisco): Hi, Brianna. Thank you for having me.
You know, I just -- I was working on a long-term case (ph) and sometimes people like to talk a lot of other people so that they don't know necessarily that they're a source for the story. Not everyone is always quoted in a story -- maybe on background.
And this player said he wanted to talk privately. And so we went to do an interview in his hotel room and we sat down on different chairs and started out fine. And then he took things in a different direction that I -- you know, I said no and stop.
But unfortunately, I'm not anywhere near as strong as a professional athlete who had -- I don't know -- 60-80 pounds on 115-120 pounds. There was no way that I could overpower him. And, yes --
KEILAR: You protest -- you talk about this -- you protested.
And then afterwards, you questioned yourself. You wondered, why did I wear a skirt? You write about that. And then you say well, because it was summer, it was hot. Of course, you would wear a skirt. But that was one of your instincts was to kind of look inward.
And you talk about how you didn't tell a soul. Not your best friend, not your sister, not your mom, or your editor, who was a woman. But then, something changed years and years later, here in January. Tell us -- tell us what changed that made you want to tell this story.
O'BRIEN: So there had been a lot of reports over the last few months, particularly Jared Carter, who was the Mets' general manager being fired over sending many explicit images and texts to a female reporter who ultimately left the industry and left the country.
And so I was reading some of those reports. I don't work in sports anymore. And in particular, I read one by Brittany Ghiroli of "The Athletic" that she was in a similar situation.
It started the same way. She went to a hotel room of a player to do an interview. The difference is that hers -- from the very start, it was obvious that they didn't want to do an interview. She was met with a romantic scene and so she left, which I would've done the same if I'd been met in that way.
And suddenly, I read her story and I was just like -- it shocked me. I just suddenly realized what I should have known all along because if it was someone else, I would have known all along that it wasn't their fault and they didn't do anything wrong. But I think sometimes we expect of ourselves -- like, I should have been Wonder Woman and I should have just like somehow been a superhero and been able to get out of there. And I read her story and it just shook me and I was so upset. In a way, it was good because I realized that, but then I couldn't keep it quiet anymore. And so, initially, I told a couple of people -- a few people.
And even though I'm not currently a writer or a reporter for a profession, I'm still a writer at heart. I still post stories. I still (audio gap) narrative. And so I wanted to tell my story.
And the reason I decided to come forward is I kept reading these stories about not as severe things but just the pervasive everyday sexual harassment, which is something I lived with all the time. And it doesn't seem like it's gotten better.
And I also felt because I'm not a reporter anymore, because I'm not in sports anymore, I could come forward and be frank and be sincere and say everything I wanted to say without fear of losing my job or my ability to be a reporter. Because I don't -- I'm not dependent on anyone in baseball (audio gap).
KEILAR: Sure.
And, Kat, I want to read a statement if we can put this up -- what was said here in this case. This is from Major League Baseball. Because you said not enough has changed.
They say, "We were deeply saddened to learn what Kat endured during her career as an accomplished and highly respected baseball writer. We are grateful for her courage in sharing such a painful experience with others."
They do go on to say that they've put in place sort of forums or ways that this behavior can be better reported.
I wonder what you -- what you say to that? And also if you can address, as you do in your column, why you've decided you're not going to name your alleged rapist?
O'BRIEN: Yes. So, I mean, I think that's great that they -- that they put things in place, and maybe there are more things. I spoke to someone from Major League Baseball yesterday and I'm definitely going to talk with other women and see if there are things that can be done. Obviously, you can't prevent any -- everything, but there are things that can be done to help.
