BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. You don't need a landline - you got a mo-Bill (ph).
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KURTIS: I'm Bill Kurtis. And here is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill.
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SAGAL: Thanks, everybody. We have a fine show for you today. Later on, we're going to be joined by Anthony Anderson, star of the sitcom "Black-ish" and host of the new "To Tell The Truth." But first, this is Lollapalooza weekend here in Chicago - the music festival that happens just a few blocks from our theater - so it's a chance to have our two different demographics mingling on the streets.
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SAGAL: There are the young people buzzed with beer and happiness and all the other people muttering, do their parents know they're out dressed like that?
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SAGAL: We don't care how you're dressed because we cannot see you. Give us a call.
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SAGAL: The number is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT - that's 1-888-924-8924. Let's welcome our first listener contestant.
Hi, you are on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
JOSHUA JORDAN: Hi. This is Joshua from Greenville, S.C.
SAGAL: Joshua from Greenville - how are you?
JORDAN: I'm doing quite well.
SAGAL: I'm glad to hear it. What do you do there in South Carolina?
JORDAN: I'm a college student, and I am interning at TD Bank.
SAGAL: You're interning at TD Bank. Do you want to be a banker?
JORDAN: Well, I'm majoring in English and history, so you tell me.
SAGAL: Yeah.
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SAGAL: You'd better hope you can be a banker, I guess is what I would say.
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JORDAN: You know.
SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Joshua. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, a comedian performing at Hyena's in Dallas August 8 through the 10, and her Netflix special drops August 13 - it's Aida Rodriguez.
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SAGAL: Next up, a comedian you can see at the Robin Theatre in Lansing, Mich. on August 25 - it's Mr. Adam Burke.
ADAM BURKE: Hello.
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SAGAL: And finally, a comedian you can see August 16 in Hyannis, Mass., at the Cape Cod Melody Tent and hear every week on her very own podcast, "Nobody Listens To Paula Poundstone" - it's Paula Poundstone.
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SAGAL: So, Joshua, welcome to our show. You, of course, are going to play Who's Bill This Time. That's how we start this show. Bill Kurtis is going to read you three quotations from the week's news. Guess what he's talking about or who he's imitating two times out of three, you will win our prize - the voice of anyone you might choose on your voicemail. You ready to play?
JORDAN: I am quite ready, sir.
SAGAL: I'm glad to hear it because here is your first quote.
KURTIS: Go easy on me, kid.
SAGAL: That was somebody speaking to Kamala Harris just as the Democratic debate started this week. She did not listen to him. Who was it?
JORDAN: That would be Uncle Joe.
SAGAL: Uncle Joe Biden.
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SAGAL: It was the second round of the Democratic debates this week, and despite the efforts of many people doing a lot of work, after the first round, we weren't able to get rid of any of those people.
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SAGAL: At the Wednesday debate - there were two, Tuesday and Wednesday - at the Wednesday debate, everybody went after Biden. And his main response was, hey, but Obama liked me.
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SAGAL: Come on, that was years ago. It's like the old guy who won't stop talking about high school, right? Hey, I was vice quarterback of the football team.
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SAGAL: Did you guys enjoy the debates?
AIDA RODRIGUEZ: I had to...
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SAGAL: I take it you did there, Aida.
RODRIGUEZ: I just - I feel bad for Marianne Williamson.
SAGAL: Yeah.
RODRIGUEZ: Because everybody kept tweeting her, like, affirmations.
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SAGAL: Oh, really?
RODRIGUEZ: And they were asking her if she had, like, stones and candles.
SAGAL: Yeah.
RODRIGUEZ: And they make - always make her sound like Harry Potter.
SAGAL: Yeah.
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RODRIGUEZ: I just feel bad for her.
PAULA POUNDSTONE: You know, I didn't watch these ones. But I will say I was shocked to see her on the debate stage for the Democrats and then very impressed in the first debate when she said - her first couple answers were pretty good.
RODRIGUEZ: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: And then by the third answer, her meds had worn off.
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SAGAL: It'll happen like that.
POUNDSTONE: Oh, my god.
BURKE: I bet she doesn't go for meds.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BURKE: She just rubs herself against an old oak or something.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah.
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SAGAL: The conventional wisdom coming out of the "Tonight" affair was that Joe Biden, who is leading by a long way the Democratic polls - all he had to do was not screw up. And he didn't screw up. So the idea was, like, oh, he's doing great. Except at the very end of it, he screwed up his own website, right?
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SAGAL: He said, go to Joe 30330 when he meant text that. I mean, it was such a grandfatherly thing to do.
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BURKE: Yeah. Also, although Joe does look like the kind of guy - Joe 3030 - it's - he looks like he'll be running in a thousand years' time.
SAGAL: I know.
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SAGAL: Your next quote is from some public service that NPR did sending a message to a specific group of men this week.
KURTIS: Children think you're really, really unattractive.
SAGAL: That was NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce talking about a new study that finds men with what facial feature actually scares young children?
JORDAN: Mustaches.
SAGAL: Oh, bigger than that. Go for the whole face.
JORDAN: Oh, beards.
SAGAL: Beards, yes.
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SAGAL: Wait a minute.
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SAGAL: You said that with a tone of resignation and sadness. Do you, sir, have a beard?
JORDAN: I definitely do not.
SAGAL: OK. Yes. But the answer is beards. A new study finds adults perceive people with beards as stronger and more mature but that young children find them terrifying.
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RODRIGUEZ: So do single moms.
SAGAL: OK.
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POUNDSTONE: Who thinks they're stronger and more mature?
SAGAL: Most adults, according to psychological surveys.
POUNDSTONE: Well, I wasn't - they didn't survey me in that. I...
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SAGAL: This is what they did as part of this study. This was part of it. They were trying to find out how kids related to people with beards and not, so what they did was they took some young kids, and they gave them a specially created picture book. It's about a mysterious island where the kids were instructed to complete quests, and they could pick helpers, right? So they tended to pick clean-shaven men for tasks involving cooperation and bearded men for tasks that called for strength and mansplaining.
BURKE: This is already too...
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BURKE: This is already too complicated.
SAGAL: I know. But that - they - figuring out the kids don't like - it's terrifying.
BURKE: Are b-bearded (ph) people annoyed?
SAGAL: B-bearded people?
BURKE: Yeah.
SAGAL: B-b-b-bearded (ph).
BURKE: Yeah, b-bearded...
SAGAL: B-bearded.
BURKE: People with a beard - the hirsute - are they annoyed by the findings of this?
SAGAL: I don't know. Are you?
RODRIGUEZ: Are you?
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BURKE: No. no. First of all, children should find men terrifying. Have you see men?
SAGAL: That's true.
BURKE: They're awful.
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BURKE: Of course they should. Everyone should have a beard. Also, who wants to be attractive to children? That's weird.
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POUNDSTONE: Yeah. You know, I'm so not a detective. Like, I wasn't even thinking, Adam, about the fact that you have a beard. And I said, like, oh I don't think that they seem mature or, like...
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POUNDSTONE: And I don't.
BURKE: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: But that wasn't directed at you.
SAGAL: No, no, no.
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BURKE: That's all right.
POUNDSTONE: But you don't seem particularly mature.
BURKE: No.
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SAGAL: Here, Joshua, is your last quote.
KURTIS: I got the horses in the back. Horse tack is attached.
SAGAL: Those were some of the lyrics to the song that has now broken the record for longest run ever at the top of the Billboard charts. What is that song?
JORDAN: Oh, it's that horrible song "Old Town Road."
SAGAL: Oh, you may think it's horrible, sir, but the nation disagrees.
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SAGAL: The song by a Lil Nas X has been number one on the Billboard charts for 17 consecutive weeks. That breaks a record. At this rate, it will last longer than human civilization.
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SAGAL: Lil Nas X keeps it in the charts - this is true - by constantly churning out new versions with different collaborators, including Billy Ray Cyrus and Lil Wayne. The song keeps getting updates. We're now at version 13.8, so it doesn't work with the old versions.
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SAGAL: It's so frustrating. You know who will not ever be on a remix of "Old Town Road?" Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the presidential candidate. This is true. He and Lil Nas X were supposed to do an event together, and Mayor Pete said, well, hey, if we're going to be on stage together, can I do the song with you? And Lil Nas X said no.
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SAGAL: It's true. He had already done a mix with the 12-year-old Mason Ramsey from Nashville, so he didn't want another with a yodeling child.
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BURKE: Well, according to the campaign rules, he would have had to do a remix with all 19...
SAGAL: Oh, my god.
BURKE: ...Of the candidates.
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SAGAL: I should say that even though Pete Buttigieg was turned down, there is, in fact, a growing trend of presidential candidates collaborating with pop stars. Bernie Sanders did an event with Cardi B this week. She - he's actually - he and she have been talking for a while. She has that lyric about bloody shoes, and you know he heard that and was, like, (imitating Bernie Sanders) I had that, too. She should meet my podiatrist.
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RODRIGUEZ: She did a video on Instagram endorsing him.
SAGAL: Yeah.
RODRIGUEZ: And if it would have been on NBC, it would have been one solid beep.
SAGAL: Yeah, I know.
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RODRIGUEZ: Like, (imitating beep). Because she was, like - I was, like, oh, my goodness. It was interesting. Elizabeth Warren also did something with her.
SAGAL: With Cardi B.
RODRIGUEZ: Yeah.
SAGAL: I wasn't aware of that.
RODRIGUEZ: Cardi B.
SAGAL: What did Elizabeth Warren do with Cardi B?
RODRIGUEZ: I don't know. She also spoke about it. What she said was that she's going to use her platform to talk about politics and other things that people don't want her to talk about. And she was, like, if I end up dead, y'all know who did it.
SAGAL: Oh, wow.
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RODRIGUEZ: We're, like, no, we don't.
SAGAL: No.
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SAGAL: Bill, how did Joshua do on our quiz?
KURTIS: You know, Joshua did OK, and 3 and 0 is OK.
SAGAL: Congratulations.
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JORDAN: Thank you. Bye.
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KURTIS: I got the horses in the back. Horse tack is attached.
SAGAL: Right now, panel, time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.