Who's Bill This Time
NPR
Saturday, January 31, 2015
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Bill Kurtis reads three quotes from the week's news: Modi and The Bam; New Koch; An Offensive Play.
Transcript
BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm a little teapot short and stout, 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. Thank you everybody.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thank you so much. We have a great show for you today. So excited that Senator Jon Tester of Montana will be joining us right here on stage. But the big news this week was the blizzard that hit New York. Well, it was only big news because New York is where the media is. If all the national network anchors lived here in Chicago, which they should, than the blizzard of New York would've been covered like this.
KURTIS: And that's tonight's news.
(LAUGHTER)
KURTIS: Oh, I almost forgot. A bunch of whiny pantywaists in New York got some snowflakes on their heads and lost their mind.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Whatever the weather is where you are, or however you feel about it, gives us a call. The number, of course, 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.
SUE BAUM: Hi.
SAGAL: Hi, who's this?
BAUM: This is Sue Baum from Lawrenceville, Georgia.
SAGAL: Lawrenceville, Georgia. Now where is that exactly?
BAUM: It's a suburb of Atlanta.
SAGAL: You know, at this point - and I've been to Atlanta many times, and the way it's growing, pretty soon everything will be a suburb of Atlanta.
BAUM: This is true.
SAGAL: Yeah, I know.
BAUM: It's pretty big.
SAGAL: And what do you do there?
BAUM: I'm a retired library media specialist.
SAGAL: Library media...
(APPLAUSE)
BAUM: Oh my goodness.
KURTIS: Convention tonight here.
SAGAL: What is the difference between library media specialist and a librarian?
BAUM: They just updated the title about 30 years ago. I don't know why.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Sue. Let me introduce you to our panel for this week. First up, rejoining us, it's a writer for "Late Night With Seth Meyers," it's Mr. Peter Grosz.
PETER GROSZ: Hi, Sue.
(APPLAUSE)
BAUM: Hi, Peter.
SAGAL: Next, it's the woman behind the advice column, Ask Amy, Amy Dickinson.
(APPLAUSE)
AMY DICKINSON: Hey, Sue.
BAUM: Hi.
SAGAL: And finally, it's a humorist and author who is hosting The Moth Mainstage at The Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire March 21, that would be Tom Bodett.
TOM BODETT: Hello, Sue.
(APPLAUSE)
BAUM: Hello, Tom.
SAGAL: So Sue, you'll start us off with Who's Bill This Time? Bill Kurtis standing right here will re-create for you three quotations from the week's news. Your job, of course, identify or explain two of those. Do that, you'll win Carl Kasell's voice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?
BAUM: I am.
SAGAL: All right. Here is your first quote.
KURTIS: Barack and I have a bond. We laugh and joke and talk easily on the phone. The chemistry has brought Barack and me closer.
SAGAL: That quote came from either A, Michelle Obama or B, Indian Prime Minister Modi.
(LAUGHTER)
BAUM: Oh my goodness. I guess I'll go with the Prime Minister.
SAGAL: Oh, you'd be right. It was a close one but yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: It's fair to say that President Obama has never enjoyed himself more than he did hanging out this week with Indian Prime Minister Modi during his visit to India. They put on an awesome parade for president Obama. It was incredible. It was like what a circus parade would be like if you were on acid or if they all were.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Would everybody - I mean, there were various state issues and there were issues of human rights in cooperation with Pakistan. Who cares? What everybody wanted to talk about on this state visit was Prime Minister Modi's suit. Did you guys see this? This is absolutely true. His suit - very nice - was pinstriped - except they weren't pinstripes. They were, if you looked closely, and I did, his own name written over and over again in very tiny embroidery.
DICKINSON: That is so awesome.
SAGAL: He did it so that he would not lose the suit at summer camp.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: 'Cause, you know, they do the laundry together. You need to have your name on it.
GROSZ: That is...
SAGAL: It's amazing.
GROSZ: That's baller.
SAGAL: Yeah.
GROSZ: That's a phrase I use a lot.
SAGAL: The only other world leader to pull this off was Irish Prime Minister Tommy Hilfiger.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: Obama has such a good time when he's not in America.
SAGAL: It really is true.
DICKINSON: Have you noticed?
GROSZ: I feel like when he's not president anymore, he's going to be like, you will never see me again.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: I am on a world tour.
BODETT: And Modi is kind of the humble origins like Obama had and they've kind of played that up. And you can imagine...
SAGAL: They both arose from nothing.
BODETT: And these two guys watching the parade go by, they're leaning in saying, can you believe we're even here?
DICKINSON: Amazing.
BODETT: What are we doing here anyway?
GROSZ: Wait. They have similar origins, so Modi was born in Kenya?
SAGAL: Exactly.
GROSZ: That's crazy. How did he become Prime Minister of India?
SAGAL: Sue, here is your next quote.
KURTIS: For that kind of money, you could buy yourself a president. Oh, right. That's the point.
SAGAL: That was GOP strategist Mark McKinnon talking about whose plan to donate almost a billion dollars in the 2016 election cycle?
BAUM: The Koch brothers.
SAGAL: The Koch brothers. Who else?
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: The Koch brothers, for those who don't know, were a great '60s singing duo who later went into being billionaires. They have pledged to spend nearly a billion dollars on the 2016 election. It's not clear if they're going to use that money to support a candidate of their choice or if they're just going to dress up the pile of cash in a suit and run it as a candidate.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: People would be like, I don't know. He's got private sector experience. Plus for some reason, he reminds me a lot of the founding fathers.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: I'd love to see the attack ads though on the pile of cash.
SAGAL: Really?
GROSZ: Pile of - did you know that when pile of cash was in Congress, he voted against giving himself to the middle class?
(LAUGHTER)
KURTIS: And traces of cocaine were found.
SAGAL: Found all over him.
GROSZ: I always think the Koch brothers just sound like two jerks who went to Dartmouth, you know? Like, yeah, we're the Koch brothers. You need a little something?
SAGAL: I thought these guys were genius businessmen, but they're spending almost a billion dollars and they're getting a country that's almost 200 years old. I mean, for that much money you can get a nice new country with that new country smell. I don't know what the problem is.
GROSZ: Yeah, like South Sudan. Isn't that like the newest country?
SAGAL: Yeah. I mean, what's crazy about this is how up-front they are. I mean, usually, you know, you think of like guys in back rooms slipping envelopes under the - no, these guys are like, we're spending a billion dollars. We'd like to buy the election.
A bunch of the Republican candidates went out to their gathering in Palm Beach to basically audition for them. And it was like "Shark Tank," except they're running for president.
GROSZ: I wish it really was an audition. And they'd be like, hello, I am Bobby Jindal and I will be reading from the Bible.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: I'll be reading from 1 Corinthians and we'll just...
SAGAL: For your last quote, Sue, I want you to listen to this line. It was repeated 29 times at a press conference this week.
KURTIS: I'm just here so I won't get fined.
SAGAL: That was Seattle Seahawks football player Marshawn Lynch, and it's how he answered every single question at the Media Day event before what?
BAUM: The Super Bowl.
SAGAL: The Super Bowl. Yay.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Mr. Lynch loves playing football. He's very good at it. But he hates talking about playing football. The NFL has twice fined him $50,000 for not talking to the media. So he showed up and just told the media that he wouldn't talk to them.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Twenty-nine times he did that. Journalists were incredibly upset. Since he refused to answer their questions, we will never know what he thought of his team's chances in the game, or if he intended to give 100 or 110 percent.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Scandal, this year, as I'm sure you guys know, we've been covering it, of course, it Deflategate. The latest revelation out of Deflategate is that they now have video of a Patriots' assistant bringing in the balls in with him to a restroom for 90 seconds.
DICKINSON: Yeah.
SAGAL: After they had been tested by the referee.
GROSZ: That is sick.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: Well, I...
SAGAL: What was he doing in there with his balls?
DICKINSON: I know.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Did he adjust them in some way?
DICKINSON: I think you...
GROSZ: How many balls?
BODETT: Twelve.
SAGAL: He had 12 balls.
DICKINSON: How many times can we say balls? Like...
GROSZ: In 90 seconds?
DICKINSON: ...Do we just get to say it?
GROSZ: Balls, balls, balls, balls, balls.
BODETT: I live with an 8-year-old and an 11-year-old.
DICKINSON: You just say it all the time.
BODETT: I just...
GROSZ: And these aren't your kids, they're just roommates?
BODETT: Yeah - no.
(LAUGHTER)
BODETT: It's great. We just chew gum for dinner and watch TV all day.
SAGAL: Bill, how did Sue do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Perfect field goal, 3-0, Sue. You did well.
BAUM: Yay.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thank you for playing Sue.
BAUM: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF NFL THEME SONG) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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