# BONUS: Daily Review With Clay and Buck - May 21 2026 Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/verdict-with-ted-cruz-108306/bonus-daily-review-with-clay-and-buck-may-21-2026 Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/verdict-with-ted-cruz-108306/bonus-daily-review-with-clay-and-buck-may-21-2026.md Podcast: [Verdict with Ted Cruz](https://stenobird.com/podcast/verdict-with-ted-cruz-108306) Published: 2026-05-21T19:40:11+00:00 Episode link: https://omny.fm/shows/the-clay-travis-and-buck-sexton-show/daily-review-with-clay-and-buck-may-21-2026 Audio file: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/arttrk.com/p/D5CA5/mgln.ai/e/28/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/57c236de-aec0-46c1-b141-ae3c00026d77/57abe3e7-977f-4182-abaf-b45101427644/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=84cf551f-a33b-41d8-b112-af2a01167541 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/verdict-with-ted-cruz-108306/episodes/bonus-daily-review-with-clay-and-buck-may-21-2026 Duration seconds: 3672 ## Resource Meet my friends, Clay Travis and Buck Sexton!  If you love Verdict, the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show might also be in your audio wheelhouse. Politics, news analysis, and some pop culture and comedy thrown in too.   Here’s a sample episode recapping four takeaways. Give the guys a listen and then follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.   Branding vs. Education   Clay Travis and Buck Sexton give an in‑depth critique of the American higher education system, with specific attention to grade inflation, standardized testing, and admissions fairness. The hosts highlight Harvard University’s decision to eliminate widespread grade inflation and reintroduce a bell curve grading model, noting that a large majority of students had been receiving A grades. They trace the historical roots of grade inflation back to the Vietnam War era, when professors were reluctant to assign low grades that could result in students being drafted, and argue that the COVID‑19 pandemic accelerated the trend by lowering academic expectations nationwide.   The conversation expands into a broader analysis of elite universities such as Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, comparing traditional grading systems with pass‑fail models used in some law schools. While acknowledging arguments that elite students perform at a higher level, the hosts ultimately contend that grade inflation has eroded academic standards and made it harder to distinguish top performers. This leads into a discussion of the rise and fall of test‑optional admissions policies, which surged during 2020 but were later reversed after colleges found that standardized testing remained one of the most reliable ways to evaluate student readiness.    Get Smarter Listening to This   Ry… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/verdict-with-ted-cruz-108306/episodes/bonus-daily-review-with-clay-and-buck-may-21-2026/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/verdict-with-ted-cruz-108306/bonus-daily-review-with-clay-and-buck-may-21-2026.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.