Who's Bill This Time

Transcript

BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm legendary anchorman Bill Kurtis...

(LAUGHTER)

KURTIS: ...filling in for Carl Kasell. And here's your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Bill.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much. We do have have a fun - I hear you. We've got a fun show for you today. We've got Buzz Aldrin, one of the first two men on the moon. He'll be joining us to play our game later on. But first, we just want to dedicate our show to our hero, our inspiration, Kanye West.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: This week, he gave an interview to the New York Times about his art, and everything he said just spoke our truth, as well. Like what is Kanye West's and really our life motto?

KURTIS: Complete awesomeness at all times, awesome truth and awesomeness, beauty, truth, awesomeness. That's all it is.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Just - let's just meditate on that, shall we?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And while we're doing that, give us a call. The number is 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!

WYN JONES: Hi, Peter. This is Wyn, and I'm calling from Cincinnati, Ohio.

SAGAL: Hey, how are things in Cincinnati?

JONES: Cooler finally. It gets over 90 Monday.

SAGAL: Oh, wow.

LUKE BURBANK: Well, we're entering the cold season, so you should be good when...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Well, Wyn, welcome to our show. Let me introduce you to our panelist this week. First up, a comedian and director whose latest movie is "Willow Creek." It's Bobcat Goldthwait.

JONES: Hi, Bobcat.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Next, a contributor to "CBS Sunday Morning" and host of "Entertainment Weekly's" daily "News & Notes" show on Sirius XM, Faith Salie.

FAITH SALIE: Hi, Wyn.

JONES: Hi, Faith.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: And lastly, the man behind the "Too Beautiful To Live" podcast, Luke Burbank is here.

(APPLAUSE)

BURBANK: Hey, Wyn.

SALIE: Hi, Luke.

SAGAL: Well, you are going to start us off with Who's Bill This time, Wyn. Bill Kurtis right here is going to read you three quotes from this week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain just two of them, you'll win our prize, Carl's voice on your home answering machine, that would be Carl Kasell of course. Are you ready to play?

JONES: I am.

SAGAL: All right. Now, your first quote comes from a man who had a house in Hawaii, a well paying job, and a girlfriend.

KURTIS: I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't allow the government to destroy privacy.

SAGAL: That was a man named Edward Snowden talking to The Guardian newspaper this week. Snowden is now hiding out after doing what?

JONES: After revealing the government's - oh shoot.

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: The government's Hotmail password.

JONES: The Verizon data dump.

SAGAL: Yeah, the NSA data, the NSA government snooping.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: It was Snowden, a 29-year-old IT guy for the NSA, who revealed that the U.S. government is basically keeping track of all of our phone calls every day, not that there's anything wrong with that. USA, USA, USA.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHANTING)

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: Well, that's a first for a public radio audience.

SAGAL: Absolutely.

BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT: Definitely.

(LAUGHTER)

SALIE: You know what? You - this guy has to be a patriot to leave behind a pole-dancing girlfriend in Hawaii.

SAGAL: Well, that's the thing. As Faith said, the girlfriend that he left behind, Lindsay Mills, is an accomplished ballerina and, quote, "pole artist" who moved to Hawaii to live with him. Two months later, he flees to Hong Kong and becomes the world's most notorious whistleblower. So we're figuring this wasn't so much a noble act of civil disobedience as it was the most elaborate breakup the world has ever seen.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: Yeah.

SALIE: He fled with four computers and a Rubik's Cube, people.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: Why does that...

SAGAL: What does that say to you, Faith?

SALIE: I just love that fact. I mean, you're thinking I'm going to leave my homeland forever. What do I want to take?

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: The girlfriend?

SALIE: No, my cube.

GOLDTHWAIT: Rubik's Cube.

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: I think something that he sort of couldn't have seen coming was that this is apparently not registering very much for the Chinese people.

SAGAL: How so?

BURBANK: I mean, granted Hong Kong and China are together but a little separate. But on the Chinese equivalent of Twitter this week, it was not even in the top 10 of the stories people were interested in. This is a real thing.

SAGAL: Really?

SALIE: Truly?

BURBANK: Yeah, because think about this. You go to somebody in China, you go, you will not believe this: The government is looking at what you are doing.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

BURBANK: They were fairly nonplused.

SAGAL: Yeah, I understand. Wyn, here is your next quote. It's one of those short bios people write for themselves on Twitter.

KURTIS: Wife, mom, FLOTUS, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, glass ceiling cracker, TBD...

SAGAL: That was someone who made front page news just by joining Twitter this week. Who was it?

JONES: Sounds like Sarah Palin.

(LAUGHTER)

SALIE: Well, the key description there is FLOTUS.

SAGAL: Yes.

JONES: OK, Michelle Obama.

SAGAL: Pre-Michelle, post-Lady Bird.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Yeah, significantly post-Lady Bird.

JONES: Hillary Clinton.

SAGAL: Yes, Hillary Clinton, very good.

(APPLAUSE)

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Newsflash, middle-aged woman goes on Twitter and says nothing interesting.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: This is news because everything Hillary Clinton does is seen as a move toward the White House. For example, the last thing she said: TBD. It stands for to be Democratic nominee for president.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: It's one word now.

SALIE: I can't wait for her selfies.

SAGAL: Oh, that'll be awesome.

BURBANK: She's also getting a lot of grief about the opening of her bio because I believe it starts by saying wife and mother.

SAGAL: Yeah.

BURBANK: It doesn't put her...

SALIE: She changed after it was posted because it did say mother, wife, and then she changed it to wife, mother.

BURBANK: Meanwhile, Bill says it's complicated.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: I think she's handled herself really well in a lot of sort of tough situations. So I would like it if she can maintain her poise even now as she's entering the world of Twitter. Like I'll be sad if next week she's in a Twitter beef with Amanda Bynes.

SAGAL: That would be...

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: Now, you know, Snowden's girlfriend, she was also a glass ceiling cracker.

SAGAL: She was.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: There was that one incident at that particular club.

GOLDTHWAIT: She didn't measure the pole and her head.

SAGAL: Yeah. Here, Wyn, is your last quote.

KURTIS: I never gave them bleeping information. Nothin'. Nothin'. I bought bleeping information. I didn't sell it.

SAGAL: That alleged mobster was striking down allegations he was an FBI informant. His high profile trial began in Boston this week. Who is it?

JONES: Whitey - it starts with a B.

SAGAL: It does. Hey, this is the mob. You just need the nickname. That's fine. It's Whitey Bulger, yeah.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Whitey Bulger, very good.

GOLDTHWAIT: Wow.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: The trial of the legendary mobster who was the inspiration for Jack Nicholson's character in "The Departed" started in Boston this week after a lengthy jury selection process. Prosecutors had to find 12 people in Boston who weren't related to or threatened by the defendant.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Now Whitey Bulger's brother, of course, was a leading politician in Massachusetts and thus the black sheep of the family.

SALIE: He was a politician with the last name Bulger?

SAGAL: Yeah.

SALIE: That rivals Anthony Weiner.

SAGAL: It does.

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: He's 83 years old, right, Whitey Bulger is?

SAGAL: Yes, he was on the lam for many years. Yeah.

GOLDTHWAIT: Eighty-three years young.

BURBANK: Yeah, apparently. What do you really do to a guy who's 83 years old? OK, we're going to put you in a place where they bring you three meals a day...

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: They let you occasionally for exercise. It's where most 83-year-olds are at this point, right?

SAGAL: That's the funny thing...

GOLDTHWAIT: And it's slightly bigger than your apartment in Santa Monica.

SAGAL: He had disappeared for so many years that of course he got quite old. So now it's weird. It's like you have this guy who's accused of all these crimes, and he looks like your grandpa. The only difference is that when he plays I Got Your Nose, he really had your nose.

(LAUGHTER)

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

KURTIS: She got two out of three, which is a win, Wyn. Congratulations.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Oh, very nice. Wyn, thank you so much.

JONES: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.