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Who's Bill This Time

BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm not an anchorman - I'm an anchor, man.

(LAUGHTER)

KURTIS: I'm Bill Kurtis. And here's your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.

(APPLAUSE)

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Bill. Thank you everybody. Great to be back in Chicago. And we have a great show for you today. Later on, we're going to be joined by Bruce Eric Kaplan. He's done so much. He's a New Yorker cartoonist, he's been a writer for "Seinfeld" and now "Girls." We're just going to do whatever he says because with a name like Bruce Eric Kaplan, he has got to be a serial killer.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Because he's got the three names, right? They always have three names - John Wayne Gacy, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: So we may not have long to live, so hurry. Give us a call, 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.

SASKIA FABRICANT: Hi, this is Saskia from Medford, Mass.

SAGAL: Hey, Saskia. What do you do there?

FABRICANT: I teach English as a second language.

SAGAL: Oh, really? I've always been curious because a lot of people who did not speak English from birth and learn it, say they learned it from TV shows. So do you use TV shows and movies to teach English?

FABRICANT: I do not, but I'm actually thrilled that I'm on the show because you've solved my problem of Monday's lesson plan.

SAGAL: There you go.

(LAUGHTER)

AMY DICKINSON: Yay.

SAGAL: Well, Saskia, welcome to our show. Let me introduce you to our panelists this week. First up, it's the syndicated advice columnist known as Ask Amy, but we call her Amy Dickinson.

DICKINSON: Hey, Saskia.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Next, a man-about-town. He used to write for "The Colbert Report" and "Late Night With Seth Meyers," it's Peter Grosz.

PETER GROSZ: Hi, Saskia.

(APPLAUSE)

FABRICANT: Hi.

SAGAL: And joining our panel for the first time, it's a comedian recording her live album at Union Hall in Brooklyn, N.Y., on the second of June. You should go. It's Aparna Nancherla.

APARNA NANCHERLA: Hi, Saskia.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: So you'll start us off with Who's Bill This Time? Bill Kurtis is going to perform for you three quotations from the week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain two of them, you'll win our prize - scorekeeper emeritus Carl Kasell's voice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?

FABRICANT: Yes I am.

SAGAL: All right. Here's your first quote.

KURTIS: There are about 55 people running for president, from what I can tell.

SAGAL: That was former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. He's eyeing the competition at a big republican summit in what state this last weekend?

FABRICANT: Oh, New Hampshire.

SAGAL: Of course, New Hampshire. Yes. Very good.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: The presidential candidates have returned to New Hampshire, as they do every four years like cicadas.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Nineteen potential GOP nominee showed up there for something called the First in the Nation Forum. It's kind of an audition. They all have to do two monologues - one dramatic, one comedic - both about cutting taxes on the rich. Or you can think of it as a beauty pageant with the world's most horrifying swimsuit competition.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: How do you get away with going to that and simultaneously not officially be running for president?

SAGAL: It's very strange, but it's true. Jeb Bush was there...

GROSZ: He hasn't announced.

SAGAL: ...Thought of as a front runner. Right, he hasn't actually...

GROSZ: Was Chris Christie there? He hasn't announced.

SAGAL: Chris Christie was there.

NANCHERLA: I feel like it's like a pregnant woman convention. You still can't assume why they're there. You have to ask.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Yes, do not assume someone is running for president until you see the vice presidential running mate appearing from between their legs.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: That's the only was to be sure.

NANCHERLA: Yeah.

SAGAL: It makes perfect sense. So yes, Jeb Bush was there, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz was there, plus a lot of people who don't really have a chance. It's not like a crowd, it's a junk drawer of presidential candidates.

GROSZ: Hey, what's in there? There's a Lindsey Graham in here.

SAGAL: Yeah, I know. And they keep trying to close it, and Rick Perry keeps getting stuck.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Was this the week that they also asked - this is when they asked everybody, would you go to a gay wedding?

SAGAL: Well this has apparently been the question du jour or du week because that - this seems to be the way to suss out their opinion.

DICKINSON: So you don't even get to choose the grooms, for instance, or the brides? You're like, oh, I would go to - Mark Harmon married, you know. Like I'd go to that wedding but I wouldn't go...

GROSZ: Oh, if Mark Harmon married Harrison Ford, how many men would go to that wedding? How many nerds would be like, finally?

NANCHERLA: Even if it was a straight wedding, it's like some of them are just more fun.

GROSZ: It should've been where is the wedding going to be? It should've been the first questions.

SAGAL: What will they serve? That's important.

GROSZ: Yeah, exactly.

SAGAL: Destination wedding, I'm not going. Come on.

GROSZ: Yeah, gay or straight.

SAGAL: Yeah, no way.

GROSZ: Yeah, you know, marriage is a covenant between people who live in that city and the people who host the wedding in that city...

NANCHERLA: Yes, exactly.

GROSZ: ...And I just do not think that if you have to fly over 500 miles, that God wants that.

DICKINSON: No, yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right, Saskia, your next quotation comes from Congressman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, who was going after the head of a particular government agency.

KURTIS: Honestly, what the hell do you do?

SAGAL: The woman he was questioning stepped down this week after a report that said that her agents, her employees, were having crazy parties paid for by Colombian drug lords. What is the agency?

FABRICANT: The Secret Service?

SAGAL: No, not the Secret Service, although you're absolutely forgiven...

DICKINSON: It's probably true.

SAGAL: ...For thinking it was the Secret Service. That was last year's great Colombian parties. Let me just say that this is a particularly bad agency to work for if you are having parties paid for by Colombian drug lords.

FABRICANT: Is it the DEA?

SAGAL: It is the DEA - the Drug Enforcement Agency.

KURTIS: Good girl.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: You'd think that rule one at the DEA - do not attend parties with prostitutes paid for by Colombian drug lords, not even if they're billed as a get-to-know-your-enemy mixer. So DEA had had Michele Leonhart - had to step down Tuesday because of this scandal. Interestingly enough, if you read the reports, the agents in Colombia only got caught because their parties were too loud.

DICKINSON: Oh my God.

SAGAL: Their landlords, you know, complained to the DEA senior official saying, you know, these guys are having these parties. And the senior officials didn't do anything.

GROSZ: In all fairness to the guys, and girls, I'm sure, as well, have you ever partied with Colombian prostitutes at a party paid for by drug dealers? It is not a quiet affair.

DICKINSON: It's loud.

GROSZ: All you want to do is just exhort with joy.

SAGAL: Yeah.

GROSZ: And scream at the top of your lungs until noon the next morning because you're so high on cocaine.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I know. Ten of these DEA agents went to a sex party together. And you realize when you read this, just other people have a very different relationship with their coworkers than I do.

NANCHERLA: (Laughter). Yeah.

SAGAL: Because I don't even like it if I'm in the restroom and another coworker walks in. I'm like this is too close.

DICKINSON: They make - all these stories make, you know, serving your country like seem pretty appealing. I think a lot of young people are going to be interested in, you know, government like service now. That's awesome.

GROSZ: Yeah, like either Secret Service or DEA please.

NANCHERLA: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

GROSZ: IRS? No. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right, Saskia, here is your last quote.

KURTIS: To do this would be a violation of PBS rules, even for Batman.

SAGAL: Now that was Henry Louis Gates. He's the host of PBS's show "Finding Your Roots." He was explaining why he didn't want to edit the part of his show where they hid that a particular person's ancestor owned slaves. So who is the guy who did not want his great-great-great-great grandfather's secret revealed?

FABRICANT: Was it Ben Affleck?

SAGAL: It is been Affleck.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Yes, very good. Ben Affleck.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: You'd think a man who lived through the humiliation of both "Gigli" and "Daredevil" would be fine having a great-great-great grandfather who owned slaves. This all happened last year on the show from PBS. But the emails in question came to light this week, Affleck begging Henry Louis Gates to leave that stuff out. You can't blame him. But the PBS show also found that that Matt Damon's family owned much cooler slaves.

(LAUGHTER)

NANCHERLA: I don't think you can be that mad that someone who's playing Batman has some secrets that he doesn't want to reveal.

GROSZ: He is "The Dark Knight."

NANCHERLA: He's kind of big on secrets.

GROSZ: He's dark. He's got secrets.

SAGAL: Maybe he convinced Henry Louis Gates to get rid of it by using his new Batman voice.

(Imitating Batman voice) I want it edited out.

(LAUGHTER)

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

KURTIS: She got us off to a very good start. Saskia got them all right. Congratulations.

SAGAL: Well done, congratulations Saskia.

(APPLAUSE) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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