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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. Don't eat at Ikea, try my Swedish meat-Bills (ph).

(LAUGHTER)

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. Thank you, everybody.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: We've got a great show for you today. Later on, we are going to be talking to Ina Garten, also known on the Food Network as the Barefoot Contessa. We will ask her about her cookbooks and her amazingly long-lasting successful marriage. And why, after all the success she's had, she still cannot afford shoes. But first, give us a call to play our games. Carl Kasell's voice awaits you. The number is 1-888-WAITWAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. It's time to welcome our first listener contestant.

Hi, you are on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

JOE KOERNER: Hi, I'm Joe from St. Louis.

SAGAL: Hey, Joe from St. Louis, how are you?

KOERNER: I'm well. Thank you. Glad to be with you.

SAGAL: I'm glad to have you. What do you do there in St. Louie?

KOERNER: Well, I'm retired but one of the things I do and I - I'm happy to announce - I'm an adjunct instructor of Latin at St. Louis University.

SAGAL: No kidding, really?

KOERNER: Yeah...

KURTIS: It'll come back.

SAGAL: Yeah, it'll come back. Just wait.

(LAUGHTER)

KOERNER: (Unintelligible) Come back, it's already here. In fact, I want to be sure to tell you that our students - my students in this classroom said they really like your show.

SAGAL: Really?

MO ROCCA: Can you say WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME in Latin?

KOERNER: Yes, I can. (Speaking Latin).

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Well, welcome to our show, Joe. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, it's a correspondent for "CBS Sunday Morning" and host of the "Henry Ford's Innovation Nation," Saturdays on CBS. It's Mr. Mo Rocca.

ROCCA: Hi, Joe.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Next, it's the author of "Approval Junkie," newly out this week in paperback everywhere books are sold. It's Faith Salie.

FAITH SALIE: Hi, Joe.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Finally, it's the star of shows like "The Goldbergs" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm," and director and star of the new movie "Handsome," coming to Netflix on May 5. It's Jeff Garlin.

(APPLAUSE)

JEFF GARLIN: Hello, Joe.

SAGAL: So, Joe, welcome to the show. You're going to play Who's Bill This Time. Bill Kurtis is going to read you three quotations from the week's news. Your job, correctly identify or explain just two of them. Do that, you'll win our prize, the voice of scorekeeper emeritus Carl Kasell on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?

KOERNER: All ready here, yes.

SAGAL: All right. Your first quote is our president threatening another country.

KURTIS: We are sending an armada, very powerful.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Turns out that Mr. Trump was sending an armada. As it turned out he was sending it far, far away from what country?

KOERNER: Oh, he wanted - he was supposed to send off to Korea, North Korea.

SAGAL: Exactly, he was sending it to North Korea.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL, APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: President Trump decided to ratchet up the tension with North Korea by sending an aircraft carrier strike group to the Korean coast. And when it came out he was completely wrong and the ships were actually 3,000 miles away going in the other direction, well, that is our president's strategic genius. He was sneaking up on Kim Jong Un by going the long way around.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: I love this - I love his 16th century Spanish king persona from behind the moat at Mar-a-Lago, dispatching his armada.

SAGAL: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: What Donald Trump is basically doing right now is cheating at Battleship on a global scale.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: There's nothing on B-9, trust me.

GARLIN: You sounded like Nixon.

SALIE: But Nixon...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: No, no, that was my - I was just saying that was my Nixon. That's all I got.

GARLIN: Yeah.

SAGAL: I should have Bill do this.

GARLIN: Every president sounds like Nixon.

SAGAL: Pretty - like every old - it's like to me, every old person is Jewish, every president sounds like Nixon, makes things easier.

(LAUGHTER)

GARLIN: By the way, Jews do dominate the old person world.

SAGAL: That's true.

ROCCA: Is that right?

(LAUGHTER)

GARLIN: Yeah, we're number one in old people.

SAGAL: That's true.

(LAUGHTER)

GARLIN: It's what we're known for.

SAGAL: It's true.

GARLIN: That and a good shmear (ph).

SAGAL: That's true.

ROCCA: But don't you think - I mean, I actually think that Donald Trump may solve the North Korean problem because, you know, Kim Jong Un is used to acting like a crazy person and scaring us.

SAGAL: Right, yeah.

ROCCA: They're probably sitting there in Pyongyang going, oh, my God, this guy's actually crazy.

SALIE: He's really crazy.

(LAUGHTER)

SALIE: I also kind of like that these two crazy leaders could have a hair off, right?

SAGAL: Yeah.

SALIE: I think just this week Kim Jong-un announced that it is against the law to copy his hairstyle in North Korea.

SAGAL: Really?

SALIE: But I just feel like you take the two craziest hairstyles in the world, now that...

SAGAL: And give them nuclear weapons.

SALIE: (Laughter) Exactly.

SAGAL: This - actually, this next detail is probably my favorite part of this whole horrible saga. Vice President Mike Pence - remember him? - went to the DMZ, the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, and he went out and he looked north, across the however many miles. And he said - and I am actually quoting the vice president - quote, "I thought it was important that people on the other side of the DMZ see our resolve in my face," unquote. Yeah, nothing makes the North Koreans quake in their boots like a guy who is afraid to go to an Applebee's with a woman not his wife.

(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)

SALIE: And he's standing - in this photo op, he's standing there in this bomber jacket with a look of intense constipation.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right, your next quote is somebody's fairwell statement as he left his longtime job on TV.

KURTIS: It is tremendously disheartening that we part ways due to completely unfounded claims.

SAGAL: Who left his job with the same grace, charity and humility that characterized his tenure in it?

KOERNER: (Laughter) Are we talking about Mr. O'Reilly?

SAGAL: We are. Bill O'Reilly, of course.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL, APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: He was the highest-rated host in cable news until just a week ago. But you can't do that and be a serial sexual harasser. Well, you can do it for 20 years, but that's it.

(LAUGHTER)

SALIE: You know, I was on Bill O'Reilly twice.

SAGAL: You were?

SALIE: The show, not the man.

SAGAL: Of course.

(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: No, I mean, Fox News is run by the Murdoch family. They had no choice when they learned the terrible truth that the terrible truth they'd known about for two decades had leaked to The New York Times.

SALIE: You know, I feel like we have to hand it to him, to Bill O'Reilly, though. I mean, he was...

ROCCA: Oh, hand what to him?

(LAUGHTER)

SALIE: He was - he was the best. He was the best at Fox News. And there are a lot of sexual harassers there, and he was the best.

(LAUGHTER)

GARLIN: Oh, at sexual harassing.

SAGAL: Here, Joe...

KOERNER: Yes, still with you.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: You're in the no spin zone.

SAGAL: Yeah. Joe, here is your last quote.

KURTIS: Damn near everybody, damn near all the time.

SAGAL: That was Wired magazine summing up a report this week that revealed, well, that we all do what while driving?

KOERNER: Text.

SAGAL: Yes, use our phones.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: A new study, the most detailed ever done on the subject, looked into how many people use their phones while driving. And the answer is all of us. We're all doing it. And for all those people who just took out their phones to tweet at us that you never do that, put your phone down and keep your eyes on the road. Everybody does it. Might explain why traffic accidents are increasing and why so many games of Words With Friends and with somebody playing the word, ah.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: We're going to soon have self-driving cars.

SAGAL: Yes.

ROCCA: So there will be no problem.

SAGAL: Is that the drive for self-driving cars? So we can all just stay on our phones the whole time while we go from one place to another?

ROCCA: Yeah.

SAGAL: That's the reason? Do you - I'm going to ask you guys to be honest, do you ever do this? Do you ever fiddle with your phone while driving?

SALIE: I don't have a car, Peter. I'm not rich like that.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Yeah.

SALIE: Do you do it, Jeff Garlin?

GARLIN: I have done it. And then right when I do it I catch myself. And then I don't do it for like an hour.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Yeah.

GARLIN: That's what I do. I'm like, don't do that. You know, by the way, you know, I use my phone on Bluetooth in my car.

SAGAL: Yeah.

GARLIN: And you know that it's just as bad whether you're holding it to your ear or doing it on Bluetooth - same effect.

SAGAL: Yeah. It's much more distracting than even having a conversation with someone in the car.

GARLIN: Yeah.

SALIE: They say that it's like driving drunk, when you're on - when you're talking on the phone while you're driving.

SAGAL: Yeah, it's true.

GARLIN: See, that I wouldn't know. I don't drink. But I do get dizzy when I use my phone.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Do you say - when you're on your phone, Jeff, do you say things that you really regret the next day?

GARLIN: I get blackouts. I don't remember using my phone.

ROCCA: I wonder if Vin Diesel texts while he drives.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: I haven't seen any of those movies. Do they text while they're driving?

SALIE: The fast and the responsive.

SAGAL: Yeah. Meanwhile, Bill, how did Joe do on our quiz?

KURTIS: He got all three right, so he's a winner.

SAGAL: Joe, thank you so much for playing.

(APPLAUSE, SOUNDBITE OF JIMMY BUFFET SONG, "VOLCANO") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.