Who's Bill This Time
NPR
Saturday, May 16, 2015
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Bill Kurtis reads three quotes from the week's news: The (Boringest) Fight of the Century, You've Got Merger, Simon Said.
Transcript
BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm the only Bill to get unanimous support in both Houses of Congress...
(LAUGHTER)
KURTIS: ...Bill Kurtis.
(APPLAUSE)
KURTIS: And here is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you so much.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thanks, everybody. We've got a great show for you today. We have got Tony Robbins, the internationally famous speaker and consultant and life coach. He's the guy who millions of people have flocked to find out how to unleash their power within and leave their terrible, soul-crushing jobs and live the life they really want. So if this goes well, you will never hear us on this little crap shack again.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: We are busting out. So unleash your power or at least your telephone. Give us a call. The number is 1-888-Wait-Wait. That's 1-888-924-8924. It's time to welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.
GRACE HOPKINS: Hi, my name is Grace Hopkins (ph), and I'm calling from Truro, Mass.
SAGAL: Truro, Mass.?
HOPKINS: Yep.
SAGAL: Yes.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: I think they're being polite.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: But maybe they know that Truro is a beautiful place out in Cape Cod, right?
HOPKINS: It is. We're almost to the end, one town away from Provincetown.
SAGAL: Oh, I see. You got, like, almost out there, then you felt a little shy and said, no, let's just stay here.
HOPKINS: Yep.
SAGAL: What do you do there?
HOPKINS: I'm an artist, and I manage a gallery.
SAGAL: Of course you do.
HOPKINS: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, welcome to our show, Grace. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First, it's the host of Live Wire Radio and the man behind the podcast Too Beautiful To Live, it's Luke Burbank.
LUKE BURBANK: Hey, Grace.
HOPKINS: Hey.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Next, it's a comedian and a writer for "Brooklyn Nine-Nine." It's Gabe Liedman.
GABE LIEDMAN: Hi, Grace.
HOPKINS: Hi, Gabe.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Next and finally, it is the comedian who will be performing at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center in Charlotte, N.C., on July 11, Paula Poundstone.
PAULA POUNDSTONE: Hey, Grace.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: So, Grace, I bet you know this, but you're going to play Who's Bill This Time? Bill starts us off every week by re-creating three voices from the week's news. Of course, your job - identify or explain that 2 out of 3 times. If you do, you'll win our once-and-future prize the voice of Carl Kasell, scorekeeper emeritus, on your home voicemail. You ready to play?
HOPKINS: Very much so, this is exciting.
SAGAL: It is exciting. All right, your first quote comes from Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.
KURTIS: It's Democrat on Democrat violence.
SAGAL: Sen. Cruz was talking about Senate Democrats uniting to fight what common enemy this week?
HOPKINS: I think it has something to do with the bill - the thing that Elizabeth Warren was fighting against.
SAGAL: Yes, that's right. They were fighting against this, but, specifically, who was the person they were trying to bring down, who they were trying to fight, who they were accusing of misleading the American public?
HOPKINS: Obama.
SAGAL: Yes, their own president, President Obama.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: So this week, President Obama got into a bitter fight with Sen. Elizabeth Warren over whether customs enforcement terms in a trade bill should include measures on currency manipulation. This was a real blow to the people who insisted just last week that Mayweather-Pacquiao was the most boring fight in history.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Senate Democrats initially declared victory over their own leader by defeating Obama's bill, and then a few days later, in the Senate, they accepted a token compromise and let it pass. So bad news for Democrats - they got beaten by themselves. Good news for Democrats - they finally found someone they can beat.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Did you guys - I have to ask - did you guys pay any attention to this story? Because it was a huge political fight. It was the political story of the week.
POUNDSTONE: No, I heard him when he was speaking at Camp David. I heard him refer to the press sort of roiling the waters...
SAGAL: Yes.
POUNDSTONE: ...Of his disagreement with Elizabeth Warren. And he said the press likes to poke at it, but really there's no big disagreement there.
SAGAL: That - well, there was a fairly big disagreement. The press did want to make it personal. And this is true. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was the leader in opposition to this trade pact. And at one point, President Obama, in speaking about her, referred to her by her first name. Well, Elizabeth, he said, you know, she's also a politician, and she has to stake out her positions. And he was accused, by another Democratic senator, of being sexist.
POUNDSTONE: Because he called her Elizabeth?
LIEDMAN: 'Cause her name's Elizabeth.
SAGAL: Because of Elizabeth.
POUNDSTONE: No.
SAGAL: Yes.
POUNDSTONE: If you'd called her a *****, that would have...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Yeah, if he had said, well...
POUNDSTONE: Yes.
SAGAL: If he had said, well, Sen. Sweet Cheeks, just shouldn't worry her little head about it...
POUNDSTONE: Precisely. Yeah, precisely.
SAGAL: That would be sexist.
POUNDSTONE: I think the name Elizabeth, give that it's hers, is fair game.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: You'd think. Grace.
HOPKINS: Yeah.
SAGAL: Here is your next quote.
KURTIS: Another old person tricked into buying AOL.
SAGAL: That was the journalist Scott Klein talking about whose announcement that they are, in fact, buying AOL?
HOPKINS: Time Warner.
SAGAL: No - wait, that is a decent guess. Time Warner did this about 20 years ago.
HOPKINS: Oh, they did it last time, right.
SAGAL: Yeah, much to their...
HOPKINS: Comcast.
SAGAL: Yeah, no.
HOPKINS: No, Verizon.
SAGAL: Verizon, yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Wow. There's only like three companies left, so we'll get there.
LIEDMAN: Verizon, Target (laughter),
SAGAL: Most people reacted to the news that Verizon was buying AOL for more than $4 billion by saying, wow, AOL still exists.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I thought they went under when everybody realized that having an aol.com email address is the Internet equivalent of going out to dinner at 4 p.m.
(LAUGHTER)
BURBANK: Listen, grandma's got to email too.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BURBANK: OK? And it's either that or Web TV.
LIEDMAN: Yeah.
SAGAL: One of the things we found out this week as this company got bought for $4.4 million, AOL says there are 2 million people who still pay AOL every month for access to dial-up service.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It's like they all live in a magical island where it's still 1996.
(LAUGHTER)
LIEDMAN: Do these people know that they're doing this or is this like an auto-rebill kind of nightmare situation?
SAGAL: Probably, I'm sure.
LIEDMAN: Yeah.
SAGAL: No, it's - I mean, AOL - it's really the Internet equivalent of those TV preachers who call up your grandma and get her to donate money.
LIEDMAN: (Laughter) Yeah. They say I've got mail.
(LAUGHTER)
LIEDMAN: I like them.
SAGAL: Yeah. Grace, here is your last quote.
KURTIS: Do you have singing teacher? Get a lawyer and sue her.
SAGAL: Those were the helpful words of Simon Cowell. He was, of course, once a fixture on the show that just announced it will finally be going off the air. What is the show?
HOPKINS: Oh, gosh.
LIEDMAN: You have been doing a lot of painting, Grace.
(LAUGHTER)
BURBANK: Yeah. I mean, seriously what is going on in Massachusetts?
KURTIS: That's why it's going off the air...
BURBANK: Yeah.
KURTIS: ...This pause.
BURBANK: What country...
HOPKINS: Oh, "America's Got Talent?"
(LAUGHTER)
HOPKINS: No. America's best something? America's - something.
SAGAL: Every - the more you struggle with this and show your absolute ignorance of this whole genre of television, the more I admire you as a human being.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: I'm going to cut this short.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: And since you've already won our game, I'm just going to tell you it's "American Idol."
HOPKINS: "American Idol," right.
POUNDSTONE: Of course.
HOPKINS: I don't have TV, sorry (laughter).
SAGAL: Well, let me explain for, I'm sure, many of our listeners pretend not to know what it is as well.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: "American Idol" is, of course, the musical competition show - huge show. But after creating superstars like Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Hudson and about 10 interchangeable white guys with guitars, "American Idol" will finally go off the air next year. And here's the thing - and I think that those of you who watched it, will agree with me - the reason it went off the air is 'cause they could never replace Simon Cowell, who left at about five years ago, right? Because we didn't watch it for the talent. We watched it for Simon yelling at people. He was a real inspiration to all of us. Now we don't tell our kids, you need to do better on your homework. We say, you call that spelling? It looks like somebody vomited alphabet soup on your worksheet. Bill, how did Grace do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Well, she already won because she's living on the Cape.
SAGAL: Yes.
KURTIS: But she got 2 out of 3, and that's a winner here.
(APPLAUSE)
POUNDSTONE: Very nice, Grace.
HOPKINS: Thank you so much.
SAGAL: Thanks for playing, Grace.
HOPKINS: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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