BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm not a turkey, but I still say gobble, gobble gob-Bill Kurtis.
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KURTIS: And here is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody.
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SAGAL: Thank you all so much.
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SAGAL: Later on, we're going to be talking to the fabulous, young Elaine Welteroth. She's from "Project Runway" and Teen Vogue. But before we start, we're very proud to tell the world that we here in Chicago now have the largest Starbucks store in the world.
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SAGAL: It's true - 35,000 square feet. It's got three stories and only one bathroom.
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SAGAL: But you won't have to wait in line to play our games. Give us a call. The number is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Let's welcome our first listener contestant.
Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT DON'T TELL ME.
LEAH O'MALLEY: Hi, this is Leah O'Malley calling from Pittsburgh, Pa.
SAGAL: Hey, how are things in Pittsburgh?
O'MALLEY: It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
SAGAL: Aw. You guys must be very excited. There's this new movie with Tom Hanks playing your most famous native son, Mr. Rogers.
O'MALLEY: Yes. We're so excited here.
SAGAL: What do you do there in Pittsburgh?
O'MALLEY: I do a lot of things. I'm a school counselor. I'm a mom and a wife. And I'm training to be a yoga teacher on the side.
SAGAL: Because you have so much free time.
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O'MALLEY: That's right.
SAGAL: Welcome to our show, Leah. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First, it's a comedian performing New Year's Eve in San Francisco at the Sydney Goldstein Theater, the host of the podcast Nobody Listens To Paula Poundstone. It's Paula Poundstone.
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PAULA POUNDSTONE: Hey.
SAGAL: Next, it's a features writer for the style section of The Washington Post. It's Roxanne Roberts.
ROXANNE ROBERTS: Hi, Leah.
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O'MALLEY: Hi.
SAGAL: And making his debut on our panel, it's a comedian you can see in "Sunnyside" - now streaming on Hulu. His podcast is Urgent Care - that's on Earwolf. Welcome Joel Kim Booster.
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JOEL KIM BOOSTER: Hi, Leah.
SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Leah. You're going to play Who's Bill This Time. Bill Kurtis is going to read you three quotations from the week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain just two of them, you'll win our prize - any voice from our show you might choose for your voicemail. You ready to play?
O'MALLEY: I am ready.
SAGAL: All right. Here's your first quote, which we heard read aloud at a congressional hearing this week.
KURTIS: Zelenskiy loves your ass.
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SAGAL: That was something that we now learned that a man named Gordon Sondland said to whom?
O'MALLEY: Trump.
SAGAL: Yes, he said it to Trump. Yes.
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SAGAL: On Wednesday, we met the man at the center of the Ukraine scandal, Ambassador Gordon Sondland. Almost immediately he threw the entire Trump administration under the bus. Although this being the Trump administration, they insisted on being thrown under a private jet.
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SAGAL: The amazing thing was as he implicated the president in high crimes along with all of his senior aides and cabinet members, he seemed to be having so much fun.
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SAGAL: He was laughing and smiling just like they did back in Watergate, you know? There's a cancer on the presidency, and it's fabulous.
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SAGAL: Now, the other star of the week was former NSC staff member Fiona Hill. She is a British-born Russia expert. This is a woman who - and this is a true story. When she was a girl in class taking a test, some boy behind her set her pigtails on fire. And this is true. She reached back, put it out with her hand and then just proceeded to continue to ace the test. This is true. But the most amazing part of that story - that boy behind her is now president of the United States.
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BOOSTER: It's been a real banner week for, like, severe, unflappable ladies.
SAGAL: It really is, yes.
BOOSTER: And I - oh, God, I just want - for my birthday, I would like Fiona Hill to testify against me, you know?
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SAGAL: Really?
BOOSTER: Yeah, I would pay money for that. It would be like, yes, drag me more.
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POUNDSTONE: Sounds like - it sounds like a Broadway show - severe, unflappable ladies.
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SAGAL: What's weird is that - despite there's all this very sort of hostile energy, how orderly Schiff keeps it. So, like, at the end of every hearing, Republican Devin Nunes, the ranking member - he makes this bizarre rant tearing apart the Democrats and accusing Schiff of all these things. And afterwards, Schiff just says, I thank the gentleman.
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SAGAL: This is a witch hunt led by a dishonest warlock named Adam Schiff whose mom looks like an old ham. I thank the gentleman.
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POUNDSTONE: You know, if he's not wearing one of those dog Thunder Vests (ph), I don't know how he's doing it.
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SAGAL: What you can't see is that underneath his...
POUNDSTONE: Yeah.
SAGAL: ...Underneath the desk there's this little stuffed animal that Schiff has torn to pieces.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right, Leah, here is your next quote.
KURTIS: You are literally a widdle baby.
SAGAL: That was somebody on Twitter criticizing Peter Buttigieg as he participated in what big event on Wednesday?
O'MALLEY: Oh, the Democratic debate.
SAGAL: Yes, right. Very good.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: The Democrats debated once again on Wednesday with nine contenders and Tom Steyer.
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SAGAL: Taking the stage in Atlanta, it was the first debate since Mayor Pete Buttigieg took a lead in the Iowa polls. And everybody was gunning for him. They resent his popularity and his youth. Did you know that the year Buttigieg started high school, Bernie Sanders was already 96 years old?
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SAGAL: All of the candidates want to prove they're best equipped to take Trump on, right? You know, Senator Kamala Harris says, I'm a prosecutor. Elizabeth Warren, you know, she has this depth of knowledge. Buttigieg has the advantage that Trump will accidentally confuse him with Barron and be nice to him.
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ROBERTS: Oh, I wouldn't count on that.
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SAGAL: We have been reading, though, about how much the other candidates are just annoyed by him because, like, Kamala Harris...
POUNDSTONE: He leaves his toys out. That's one of the problems.
SAGAL: I know.
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SAGAL: You're not going to be allowed to canvas, Mayor Pete, unless you pick up your toy.
POUNDSTONE: That's right.
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POUNDSTONE: Elizabeth Warren nearly killed herself tripping over his Legos at the debate the other night.
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SAGAL: Well, they're annoyed because, like, they're senators and stuff. And they've won statewide office. And as somebody pointed out, Pete Buttigieg won the office of mayor of South Bend the first time with 8,000 votes - not by 8,000 - with 8,000 votes.
POUNDSTONE: Wow.
SAGAL: More people vote for the winning butter sculpture at the Iowa State Fair.
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SAGAL: And the butter sculpture is also beating Amy Klobuchar.
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ROBERTS: Now, you're the youngest one on the panel. Do you like Mayor Pete?
BOOSTER: No.
SAGAL: You don't.
ROBERTS: No.
BOOSTER: No, I feel - he gives me very much like the worst RA energy, you know?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Yeah, he's totally going to narc you out.
BOOSTER: Hey, guys. I don't want to put - rain on anyone's parade, but could we keep the music down a little bit, you know?
(LAUGHTER)
BOOSTER: It's like, you're two years older than me. What's wrong with you? He's like - he's the person at, you know, like, the high school party who'd be upstairs talking to your parents, you know? Like...
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BOOSTER: (Groaning) You know?
POUNDSTONE: In their native language.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: There is - yeah, I hadn't really thought about it that way. But you're right. In fact, he is using all of his babysitting money to do this campaign.
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POUNDSTONE: Which I just think is bold.
SAGAL: All right. Your last quote is from an upcoming movie. It's called "Turkey Drop."
KURTIS: I have something I need to talk to you about.
SAGAL: That was the boyfriend in "Turkey Drop," a movie about the latest trend in dating when people come home for Thanksgiving and do what?
O'MALLEY: Break up with their significant other.
SAGAL: That's exactly right.
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KURTIS: Good one.
SAGAL: This is apparently a thing now.
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SAGAL: Food isn't the only thing to look forward to this Thanksgiving because, you know, that's the traditional time for, we are told, the turkey drop - when college freshmen come home and break up with their high school sweethearts. This happens all the time. Kids go to college. They realize that everybody there is far more interesting and attractive than the person they left back home.
Sorry, Brian. You're special, but you're not Cal State University Fresno special.
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POUNDSTONE: So all right. So they've gone to college. Then they - you know, they fly home or take the bus home or something. And now...
ROBERTS: The first time back.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah.
ROBERTS: So, like, eight weeks after they started.
POUNDSTONE: Oh, yeah. So they're eight weeks into college...
ROBERTS: Or 12 weeks in.
POUNDSTONE: ...And they know who they are now.
BOOSTER: They've gotten yelled at by...
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BOOSTER: ...Their RA Pete Buttigieg a couple times...
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, exactly.
BOOSTER: ...For smoking in the stairwell.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah.
ROBERTS: They've stayed up all night and no one has yelled at them.
POUNDSTONE: They've lied to their parents multitudinous times.
ROBERTS: No, they didn't have to lie because now they're on their own. They're adults now. No one can tell them what to do.
SAGAL: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, keep feeding that lie to the children.
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SAGAL: Don't worry. If you miss your chance to do the turkey drop, you can still catch the Hanukkah heave.
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SAGAL: Don't buy eight candles. We won't get to them.
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SAGAL: Bill, how did Leah do on our quiz?
KURTIS: She did quite well. She got them all right.
SAGAL: Congratulations, Leah.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thanks so much for playing.
O'MALLEY: Thank you so much. Thanks.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
POUNDSTONE: Bye, Leah.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WE ARE NEVER EVER GETTING BACK TOGETHER")
TAYLOR SWIFT: (Singing) We are never ever, ever, ever getting back together. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.