BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm the Bill that never gets vetoed, Bill Kurtis. And here is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you.
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SAGAL: Thank you so much everybody. We have got a great show for you today - that's right, something a little different. We are very excited for our guest later on in the show, country music superstar Garth Brooks. Yeah.
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SAGAL: Yep, that Garth Brooks. From now on, there'll be nothing but country music here on NPR.
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SAGAL: Got to keep that government funding somehow.
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SAGAL: Meanwhile, you've got friends in low places - us. Give us a call. The number, 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Now let's welcome our first listener contestant.
Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
LAURA SOREY: Hi. This is Laura calling from New Orleans.
SAGAL: New Orleans? One of my favorite places in the world. What do you do there?
SOREY: I'm a geologist.
SAGAL: You're a geologist.
PAULA POUNDSTONE: Wow.
SAGAL: How can you be a geologist in New Orleans? If you dig down 4 feet, it's just water.
(LAUGHTER)
SOREY: Yep.
SAGAL: So if - you just, like, do different kinds of mud? I mean...
SOREY: Yeah. You're laughing, but that's exactly what I do.
SAGAL: Really?
(LAUGHTER)
ADAM FELBER: Wow.
SAGAL: Now, Laura, let me introduce you to our panel. First up, it's a feature writer for the style section of The Washington Post, Roxanne Roberts.
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SAGAL: Next, a writer for HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher," it's Adam Felber.
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FELBER: Hi, Laura. A pleasure.
SAGAL: And yes, a comedian performing New Year's Eve in San Francisco at the Nourse Theater, Paula Poundstone.
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SAGAL: So Laura, welcome to the show. You, of course, are going to play Who's Bill This Time. Bill Kurtis is going to read for you three quotations from the week's news. You correctly identify or explain two of them, you win our prize, the voice of Carl Kasell on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?
SOREY: Oh, absolutely.
SAGAL: OK. Your first quote is part of a tweet from the president-elect.
KURTIS: Very organized process taking place - I am the only one who knows who the finalists are.
SAGAL: Mr. Trump was assuring us that what is going just as smoothly as things used to on "The Celebrity Apprentice"?
SOREY: Oh (laughter), the transition?
SAGAL: Yes, the transition...
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SAGAL: ...To our new administration.
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SAGAL: One week in, and there are more Republicans being floated than on a Lee Greenwood cruise.
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SAGAL: Donald Trump seems to be watching a lot of Fox News and just filling his cabinet from what he sees there. So, like, Rudy Giuliani for secretary of state, and Sarah Palin for interior and a catheter for commerce.
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POUNDSTONE: You know, I don't know if it's just the way Bill read the quote...
SAGAL: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: ...But when he says I'm the only one who knows who the finalists are, it seems like maybe he's hearkening to his beauty contest days...
SAGAL: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: ...As if maybe some of the whole thing will come down to, you know, the bathing suit competition.
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ROXANNE ROBERTS: Well, that's why Chris Christie was out.
SAGAL: Yeah.
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SAGAL: Now, the most controversial appointment by Mr. Trump is one Steve Bannon. He was named as White House senior strategist or, as they say...
ROBERTS: Emphasis on white.
SAGAL: Yeah.
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SAGAL: So as you seem to be aware, Bannon ran the far-right breitbart.com using clickbait headlines to drive traffic there. Is he going to run the country the same way? Eight Countries We're Going To Invade, One Simple Trick For Getting Rid Of Belly Fat And The Jews.
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SAGAL: Now, Bannon - I don't know if you know this - this is true.
FELBER: I can't believe that would be the same trick.
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FELBER: You know what? I'm Jewish but I'm going to click that link.
SAGAL: Yeah, I know.
(LAUGHTER)
FELBER: I feel like I had this Trump guy all wrong.
SAGAL: Yeah, I know.
FELBER: I'm losing my belly fat. I love this guy.
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POUNDSTONE: You know, this reminds me of that part of "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" when - after he ran away and everyone realized they had treated him badly.
SAGAL: Who's Rudolph in this?
POUNDSTONE: Trump.
SAGAL: Oh, I see.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah. Then we've treated him badly. It turns out he had some really good thoughts in his head.
SAGAL: Yeah. Donald, with your brain so bright...
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FELBER: Won't you make this place more white?
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SAGAL: For your next quote, Bill will read you some signs we've seen in the news this week.
KURTIS: Mike Pence likes Nickelback.
SAGAL: And.
KURTIS: Not usually a sign guy, but geez.
SAGAL: Those were signs being held aloft this week by people doing what.
SOREY: The Trump rallies.
SAGAL: Yes, or rather anti-Trump rallies.
SOREY: Oh, (unintelligible) protests.
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SAGAL: Yeah, protesting Trump. Protests have been breaking out all over the country in places like Portland, Ore., and Austin, Texas and other parts of Portland, Ore.
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SAGAL: People are very mad at Trump's selection, but they're also principled. Of the 112 protesters arrested in Portland, two-thirds either did not vote or weren't even registered to vote. Well, you can't stoop to being a voter. Those are the guys who elected Trump.
FELBER: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: They were just getting their signs ready.
SAGAL: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: They didn't have time to vote.
FELBER: It's one or the other.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah. There they were in the basement, spray painting.
SAGAL: That's why they couldn't bother to vote.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, yeah. You know, a lot of the Michaels craft stores have closed down and so it's hard to get a stencil. That's the problem.
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FELBER: This...
POUNDSTONE: But you know what? Trump's bringing them back.
SAGAL: Michaels craft stores?
POUNDSTONE: He's bringing back all the jobs, Peter.
FELBER: All the jobs, Peter.
POUNDSTONE: Every job.
FELBER: Every single job.
POUNDSTONE: Doesn't matter what the job was. He's bringing back Ike Godsey's dry good store. He's bringing back everything.
FELBER: Your paper route from when you were 12. Your paper route is back, Peter.
POUNDSTONE: It's coming back. Everything - it's going to be...
FELBER: The lunch counter at Woolworth's will be back.
POUNDSTONE: That's exactly right.
SAGAL: And...
FELBER: And Woolworth's will be back.
SAGAL: Yeah. Not to say - and segregated again, but that's OK. We'll be back.
FELBER: Yeah, yeah. We're not calling it segregation. We're calling it sorting.
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SAGAL: Yeah, just like at Hogwarts.
FELBER: Yeah.
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ROBERTS: Except the hats - they're pointed again.
SAGAL: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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SAGAL: All right, Laura, here is your last quote.
KURTIS: Long live the peach butt.
SAGAL: That was Time magazine celebrating a real grassroots win for the people this week, as Apple agreed to fix what.
SOREY: Oh, the peaches in the emojis.
SAGAL: Yes, the peach emoji.
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SAGAL: That makes you feel better, doesn't it?
FELBER: Yeah.
SAGAL: For years now, people have happily used the peach emoji to represent a butt, as in kiss my peach. Then, in their new mobile software, Apple revealed a new peach emoji that terrifyingly and sadly just looked like a peach.
FELBER: How dare they.
SAGAL: I know. So Apple responded to all the complaints, and they changed it again. And the new new peach emoji looks even more like a butt than the old one.
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SAGAL: It's basically just a peach with a prominent crack plus a few pimples and a bit of a rash.
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FELBER: Well, you know, it took Apple a long time to get the message. It took weeks because, you know, everybody, you know, at Apple was like, wow, our users are telling us that we're a bunch of horse's peaches. What could they possibly mean?
SAGAL: Apple has embraced, apparently, the dirty produce emojis. For example, the eggplant now comes in regular and circumcised.
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SAGAL: Bill, how did Laura do?
KURTIS: Well, Laura the geologist did perfect - three-0.
SAGAL: Congratulations, Laura. Good luck with the mud.
SOREY: Excellent. Thank you.
SAGAL: Thanks so much for playing.
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STEVE MILLER BAND: (Singing) You're the cutest thing that I ever did see. I really love your peaches, want to shake your tree. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.