BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. This is not a drill; it's a Bill - 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, everybody. Thank you. Now, this is NPR. And as an official NPR broadcast, we are required by law to do two things. We have to test the emergency broadcast system from time to time, and we also have to occasionally talk about jazz. Now...
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SAGAL: ...Checking that box today, but we're doing it with the delightful Esperanza Spalding. She made a splash five years ago when she won a Best New Artist Grammy that everybody thought was going to Justin Bieber. So just to be fair, today, if Esperanza Spalding wins our quiz, Mr. Bieber will get Carl Kasell's voice on his voicemail.
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SAGAL: But if you win, you get it. So give us a call. The number is this 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.
LEAH KOCH: Hi, this is Leah Koch from Culver City, Calif.
SAGAL: Beautiful Culver City, Calif. What do you do there?
KOCH: I am the co-owner of The Ripped Bodice, the only exclusively-romance bookstore in the United States.
SAGAL: That is very exciting.
KURTIS: We're coming out.
SAGAL: When you said you were the co-owner of The Ripped Bodice, I'm like that's sad. Can't you buy another?
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SAGAL: When you run a romance-novel bookshop, are you - do you feel obligated to have a really great romantic life yourself?
KOCH: I wish that were the case.
SAGAL: Oh.
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LUKE BURBANK: Leah, can I throw you some free business advice?
KOCH: Yes, please.
BURBANK: Open up a store next to The Ripped Bodice called The Covered Shame, where you just sell book covers for books like "Freakonomics" and other things that go over romance novels.
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KOCH: That is a great idea.
SAGAL: Oh...
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SAGAL: ...Brilliant. Well, Leah, let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, it's the host of the podcast Too Beautiful To Live and the public radio variety show Live Wire. It's Luke Burbank.
BURBANK: Hey Leah.
KOCH: Hi.
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SAGAL: Next, it's a feature writer for The Washington Post Style section. It's Roxanne Roberts.
ROXANNE ROBERTS: Hi Leah.
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SAGAL: And finally, an author and humorist whose latest book is "Save Room For Pie," Roy Blount, Jr.
ROY BLOUNT, JR.: Hello.
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SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Leah. You're going to play Who's Bill This Time? Bill Kurtis is going to read you three quotations from this week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain two of them, you will win our prize - scorekeeper emeritus Carl Kasell's voice on your voicemail. Are you - maybe - maybe for your shop, I don't know. Are you ready to play?
KOCH: Absolutely.
SAGAL: All right, here is your first quote.
KURTIS: "Buenas tardes, President Castro."
SAGAL: That was somebody wishing a goods afternoons to President Castro Cuba earlier this week. Who was it?
KOCH: President Obama.
SAGAL: Yes indeed, President Obama...
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SAGAL: ...Very good.
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SAGAL: Tired of constantly accused of being a Communist dictator at home, President Obama went to a country where that is considered cool.
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SAGAL: It wasn't all smooth. President Obama pressured Raul Castro into Castro's first ever real press conference. And during that, Castro denied holding any political prisoners. And he challenged a reporter. He said give me a list, and if I have a list I'll free them - great moment, right? Unfortunately, the reporter in question was from BuzzFeed. So the Cuban regime just freed eight chicken fingers that look like the cast of "Friends."
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SAGAL: Now, this is true - this is amazing - there was this moment at the end of his press conference where President Castro wanted to go over and he wanted to do sorr of a joint victory thing with your arms up in the air, clasping your hands high up in the air with President Obama. So he grabbed President Obama's hand. Obama realized too late what was going on, didn't want to go along with this. So he just let his arm go limp.
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SAGAL: So Raul Castro is standing there waving the limp arm of the leader of the free world. It was like "Weekend At Barack's." It was...
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BURBANK: The president went there, right?
SAGAL: Yeah.
BURBANK: He was clearly sort of signifying really new open relations between the U.S. and Cuba.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BURBANK: Why was he so worried to be seen kind of celebrating with Raul Castro?
BLOUNT: Yeah, I wondered the same thing.
SAGAL: Because I imagine that if you are the president of the United States and the Communist dictator of a tyrannical regime comes over to grab your hand and raise it in a sort of joint victory salute, all you can think about is every image ever, including the one that will be on your obituary.
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BURBANK: He should not have been wearing that Che Guevara T-shirt.
SAGAL: That was probably a bad thing...
BURBANK: I think that's sending a really bad visual.
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SAGAL: All right, very good. Here is your next quote, Leah.
KURTIS: "You know, my hands are quite normal, slightly large, actually."
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KURTIS: In fact, I buy a slightly smaller-than-large glove, OK?
SAGAL: Who simply cannot stop talking about his hands?
KOCH: Donald Trump.
SAGAL: Yes...
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SAGAL: ...Donald Trump.
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SAGAL: This week, our dear leader to be sat down with The Washington Post editorial board, where he was given the chance to speak on the record with informed journalists about substantive issues. And he just again went on and on and on about how big his hands are. As you heard, he bragged about how he buys a, quote, "slightly smaller-than-large glove."
BLOUNT: Yeah, what is that?
SAGAL: He was searching for the word - there is a word for that. It is medium.
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BURBANK: He spent the first - I read the transcript - the transcript - he spent, like, the first five minutes talking about the sheet rock that was covering the marble finishes in a building that...
SAGAL: Yes...
BURBANK: ...He's building.
SAGAL: ...Yeah. He was very excited because that day, he was going to go over and show off this building that he had built in Washington.
ROBERTS: It's the new Trump hotel.
BURBANK: But he was turning this important meeting with a very important journalistic institution into an episode of HDTV.
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BURBANK: Like, can't - he does not seem to possess the ability to understand when something is germane and not, right?
SAGAL: Oh no, he gets along great with the Germanes.
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SAGAL: He has buildings in Germania.
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BURBANK: If I'm not mistaken, I think actually his fourth and fifth wives were both your Germanian.
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SAGAL: Also this week, he got into this bizarre spitting match with Ted Cruz. He blamed Cruz for this ad that had a nude picture of Melania Trump, his wife, right?
ROBERTS: And I will say this, she looked very, very good in that picture. It was a very good - it was a tasteful nude.
SAGAL: Yes.
BLOUNT: Did she have any expression on her face at all? I've never seen...
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BLOUNT: She tends to look kind of blank, doesn't she?
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ROBERTS: She...
BURBANK: That's called PTSD.
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SAGAL: All right, Leah, here is your last quote. It's from the head of a once-great company.
KURTIS: "Today, we're introducing a watchband made from a whole different material."
SAGAL: So what company, instead of announcing some new amazing device at its annual meeting, was reduced to bragging about their vinyl watchbands?
KOCH: Is it Apple?
SAGAL: It is Apple, yes.
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SAGAL: You know how it is, like, every spring they have this announcement of this amazing new thing. Well, this year, instead of anything exciting or new, Apple's big announcement offered the same stuff but smaller now. Two years ago, they introduced the big iPhone. Now they have a small iPhone, so their products are going to get bigger, then smaller, then bigger again. They're not innovative products. They're just middle-aged phones on a dieting binge.
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BURBANK: They do have one phone though that is slightly smaller than a large iPhone...
SAGAL: Yeah.
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BURBANK: ...Which I think is going to be...
SAGAL: It's slightly smaller, yeah.
BURBANK: ...A very big seller.
SAGAL: And it is exciting that they finally have a phone small enough for Donald Trump to use. And that's...
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BLOUNT: I've been wearing a vinyl watchband for years. I'm an early adapter, yes.
SAGAL: Yeah, you were. You were ahead of the curve.
BURBANK: Do you think that they're - 'cause, you know, like, the sort of fun tradition for a lot of people was to sleep outside...
SAGAL: Yeah.
BURBANK: ...Various Apple stores to be the first in line to get the new thing. Do you think there was one person in America - one person lonely enough to sleep overnight outside an Apple store to get a new watchband?
SAGAL: I know. But it's funny, they're bragging about the watchbands they're selling. It used to be the most admired company on the planet. Now, they're basically Zales.
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SAGAL: Bill, how did Leah do on our quiz?
KURTIS: She did great - 3 and 0. She's a winner.
SAGAL: Oh, congratulation Leah and good luck with that bookstore.
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SAGAL: Thank you so much for calling and playing.
KOCH: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.