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Who's Bill This Time

BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. Hey, Iowa - I'm the only candidate that's via-Bill (ph).

(APPLAUSE)

KURTIS: I'm Bill Kurtis.

(LAUGHTER)

KURTIS: And here is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Bill.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Thank you, everybody. It's so good to see you here. We have such a great show for you today. Later on, we're going to be talking to the award-winning actor and playwright behind "August: Osage County" and "Killer Joe," many other plays, Tracy Letts. Yes, he's here.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: He writes brilliant plays filled with madness, murder, dysfunction and paranoia which weren't realistic when he wrote them, but circumstances have changed.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: We don't want to hear your deep family secrets. We just want you 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.

CHAD JOHANSSON: Hey, Peter and gang. This is Chad Johansson (ph) from the epicenter of the New Hampshire primary, Manchester, N.H.

SAGAL: Oh, my gosh.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: That's very exciting. So you're in Manchester. Are you one of those people who are excited about the primary season, or do you resent it?

JOHANSSON: You know what, Peter? I've grown up around it. I've always loved it here, very involved in politics. But I've got to tell you, this year, everything goes great until I turn on the television. I can't get away from you, Tom Steyer.

SAGAL: Oh, really?

PETER GROSZ: Oh.

SAGAL: So Tom Steyer, the billionaire candidate, is flooding the New Hampshire airwaves with that?

JOHANSSON: Oh, my gosh. I can't turn on YouTube, the local news - I can't turn on anything without seeing his face.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Those are the two choices.

SAGAL: I've just got to ask you, for Mr. Steyer's sake, have they worked? Are you finding yourself feeling warmly toward Tom Steyer?

JOHANSSON: I mean, he makes some good points, but I don't know. He's kind of encroaching on my personal time a little.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Well, Chad, we're glad to talk to you. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, a comedian you can see headlining the Motorco Music Hall in Durham, N.C., on February 19 and Victory North in Savannah, Ga., on February 20 - it's Hari Kondabolu.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Next, the syndicated advice columnist behind Ask Amy - it's Amy Dickinson.

(APPLAUSE)

AMY DICKINSON: Hey.

SAGAL: And finally, it's an actor and writer who wrote for the upcoming season of "At Home With Amy Sedaris." It's Peter Grosz.

GROSZ: Hello.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: So, Chad, welcome to the show. You, of course, are going to start us off with Who's Bill This Time. Bill Kurtis is going to read you three quotes from this week's news. They're all Tom Steyer, by the way, so...

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: He's heard them.

SAGAL: I'm kidding. If you can correctly identify or explain just two of them, you'll win our prize - any voice from our show you might choose on your voicemail. Are you ready to go?

JOHANSSON: Hit me with your best shot, Bill.

SAGAL: We will. Your first quote is from the CEO of a company that made a voting app called Shadow.

(LAUGHTER)

KURTIS: We feel really terrible about that.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: That man was apologizing for his company ruining the results of what this week?

JOHANSSON: The Iowa caucus.

SAGAL: The Iowa...

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: ...Caucuses.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Come on, Iowa. Not only do you have one job - you only have to do it once every four years.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: It's like an Olympic archer standing up and immediately shooting himself in the crotch.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: The Iowa caucuses are impossibly complicated, we found out this week. But apparently, we need to do them because only Iowans can really get to know the candidates face-to-face, which was why we saw a bunch of farmers feeling Bernie Sanders' haunches and checking his teeth.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: I've never seen a cow this old.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: I don't like this. I don't like this one bit.

(LAUGHTER)

HARI KONDABOLU: I hear his milk is 1%.

(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: So what was the result of the Iowa caucuses? Everybody's been waiting. Nobody knows. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. This brand-new phone app meant to make the results easy to report didn't work. Well, maybe they shouldn't have bought a product called Shadow.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Could they not get Evil Tech Inc. on the phone?

GROSZ: It also sounds like a mysterious makeup.

SAGAL: Yes.

GROSZ: Shadow.

SAGAL: Shadow.

GROSZ: Shadow.

DICKINSON: But wait - you know, the - I thought the Iowa caucuses were basically - it's, like, in a gym.

SAGAL: Yeah.

DICKINSON: It's like dodgeball, sort of. Like, the loser has to go over to the winner's side...

SAGAL: Yeah.

DICKINSON: ...And stand there, right?

SAGAL: Yeah.

DICKINSON: So how hard is that? Isn't it just counting?

GROSZ: I think...

DICKINSON: I mean, don't they just count?

GROSZ: I think that's neither the caucuses nor dodgeball.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Have you ever played dodgeball, Amy?

DICKINSON: Yeah, I've played dodgeball.

SAGAL: Yeah, pretty much...

GROSZ: The caucuses should be, by the way, the way that you just described it. It should be...

DICKINSON: They should play dodgeball.

GROSZ: It should be just the candidates in the gym throwing dodgeballs at each other.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: It would have been easier.

GROSZ: Yes.

SAGAL: On Wednesday, they put out more results, but then they had to put out a retraction. They promise they will have the official guaranteed verified results by the time Trump is reelected.

(GROANING)

DICKINSON: Ooh.

(OOHING)

SAGAL: I see who you're caucusing for.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right. Your next quote is from the president of these United States.

KURTIS: Tonight, we have a very special surprise.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: There were a lot of surprises in what big speech on Tuesday?

JOHANSSON: The State of the Union.

SAGAL: Yes, the State of the Union address.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: What pomp. What circumstance.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: The president began the evening by refusing to shake Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's hand. It all went downhill from there. For the entire speech, sitting behind him, Nancy Pelosi looked like a woman listening to her ex-boyfriend talk.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And Mike Pence looked like a contestant hoping to get picked on "The Bachelor."

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: As you could imagine and could have anticipated, President Trump said, the state of the union is strong. That's better than his first draft in which he said, the state of the union is Kansas.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: But he seemed to be in a really good mood. Why not? He was getting ready to celebrate being acquitted in his first impeachment.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: But it got really bizarre because he had all these reality show stunts. He gave a young woman a scholarship right there in the gallery - surprised her with it. He surprised Rush Limbaugh with a Medal of Freedom right there, live on national TV. Hey, Rush Limbaugh - you just got the Medal of Freedom. What are you going to do now? Well, I'm going on a sex tour of Thailand.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: The thing I couldn't get over was when he reunited a military family...

DICKINSON: I know.

SAGAL: ...By surprise.

DICKINSON: I did...

SAGAL: That was, like - and this woman, she came to the State of the Union with her children. She didn't know her husband was going to be showing up from Afghanistan - particularly sad because she brought her boyfriend. And...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: But then it turns out - it got even better. It turns out Trump had hidden a free soldier under every chair in the auditorium.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: You get a soldier. You get a soldier.

KONDABOLU: Can we go back just for a moment to Rush Limbaugh getting a Medal of Freedom?

(LAUGHTER)

KONDABOLU: Just that's a thing that happened.

SAGAL: Yeah.

KONDABOLU: And a - but, I mean, it's good in that it means that we're all a step closer to getting the Medal of Freedom.

(LAUGHTER)

KONDABOLU: I feel more qualified for it than I ever have.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Well...

KONDABOLU: Mother Teresa won a Medal of Freedom.

(LAUGHTER)

KONDABOLU: It's like Charlie Brown getting elected to the NFL Hall of Fame. Like...

(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: And then, as we said, it ended with Ms. Pelosi ripping up the speech. She really enjoyed it. That's why we should not have put her in charge of counting the paper ballots in Iowa.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right. Your last quote - changing direction - is a comment on a New York Times report about a group of people cooking dinner in Florida.

KURTIS: These guys should use an apron at least.

SAGAL: So that was a reaction to this story about people cooking while what?

JOHANSSON: They're cooking naked.

SAGAL: Yes, they are.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: They're cooking naked.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Turns out the latest trend in home cooking is not raw cuisine but cooking in the raw.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: According to the New York Times, the paper of record, more and more people are embracing nude cooking, but they're not embracing each other. That's not what nudism is about. Didn't you read our pamphlet?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Nudists see, they say, a clear link between being unclothed and creativity, which is true. Just think of all the really interesting ideas you've had with your pants off.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Amy, you've been doing this show for 20 years...

DICKINSON: I - yes.

SAGAL: And yet you seem surprised sometimes.

DICKINSON: I...

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Maybe she identified with the ideas while your pants are off.

DICKINSON: I just added one more thing that I don't want to do when I'm naked. I'm just - it's a long list.

(LAUGHTER)

DICKINSON: A very long list.

SAGAL: Sex is right at the top.

DICKINSON: It's right at the top.

(LAUGHTER)

DICKINSON: Right at the top.

SAGAL: Now, it turns out, of course, that not only do people cook but, of course, these nudist resorts have restaurants, which in this particular case...

DICKINSON: Ugh.

SAGAL: ...The...

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Amy, they have to eat.

SAGAL: They have to eat.

GROSZ: They have to eat.

SAGAL: The restaurants in this particular one, according to the New York Times, the great gray lady, Butt Hutt...

(LAUGHTER)

DICKINSON: No.

SAGAL: ...The Bare Buns Cafe, TMI Fridays...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...Crack Barrel.

DICKINSON: Oh.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: You know, someone - some nudist is listening to this show right now, and they are turning off their radio while naked.

SAGAL: That's true.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: They are very offended.

SAGAL: Bill, how did Chad do on our quiz?

KURTIS: Chad was great. He got three right, and that means he's the winner.

SAGAL: Congratulations, Chad.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Thank you so much for playing. And good luck surviving the next week.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WE DON'T HAVE TO TAKE OUR CLOTHES OFF 7" VERSION")

JERMAINE STEWART: (Singing) We don't have to take our clothes off to have a good time. Oh, no. We could dance and party all night, all night... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.