BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. Hey, Steve Bannon, let me be your triumph of the Bill.
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KURTIS: Bill Kurtis. And here's your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill.
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SAGAL: Yes, I'm excited. You're as - I know. I know. I feel the same way. And you know why? Do you know why I feel the same way? Because our guest this week is the amazing Mavis Staples. She is going to...
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SAGAL: ...Be here with us in just a little bit. She's going to be here. But first a message to our president - we know you listen.
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SAGAL: Sir, we appreciate you giving us so much material. We really do. But would you mind slowing it down a bit? We only get an hour a week. Right now we feel like Lucy and Ethel trying to deal with all the chocolates.
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SAGAL: You know that scene? You remember that scene, trying to deal with all the chocolates coming down the conveyor belt. But in our case, it's not chocolate.
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SAGAL: So we can't waste any more time. 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.
KATY SACHSE: Hi, Peter. This is Katy Sachse, and I'm calling from Bothell, Wash.
SAGAL: Bothell, Wash.? I don't know where that is. Where's that?
SACHSE: Yeah, why would you? It's...
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SACHSE: ...I don't know, 15 miles north of Seattle.
SAGAL: Oh, I see. So you're Seattle adjacent. And...
SACHSE: Yes.
SAGAL: ...What do you do there?
SACHSE: I am a Lutheran pastor.
SAGAL: No kidding?
SACHSE: Yeah, no. No kidding.
SAGAL: Yeah. Yeah. Really?
FAITH SALIE: Katy, I don't know if this is OK to ask a pastor, but did - growing up, did people call you Foxy Sachse?
SACHSE: (Laughter) That's my husband's name. You'll have to ask him.
SALIE: Ah.
SAGAL: Oh. Well, welcome to the show, Katy. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First, as you heard, it's the host of "Science Goes To The Movies" on PBS and the author of "Approval Junkie." It's Faith Salie.
SALIE: Hi, Katy.
SACHSE: Hi, Faith.
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SAGAL: Next, it's the host of the public radio variety show "Live Wire" and the autobiographical podcast "Too Beautiful To Live." It's Luke Burbank.
LUKE BURBANK: Hiya (ph), Katy.
SACHSE: Hi, Luke.
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SAGAL: Finally, it's a features reporter for The Washington Post. It's Roxanne Roberts.
ROXANNE ROBERTS: Hi, Katy.
SACHSE: Hi, Roxanne.
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SAGAL: So, Katy, welcome to the show. You're going to play Who's Bill This Time. Now, as a public service this week, we're going to cover every single thing Donald Trump did, which means Bill Kurtis is going to read you 84 quotes from the week's news.
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SAGAL: If you can correctly identify or explain two of them, we'll be grateful 'cause we have no idea what's going on. Are you ready to play?
SACHSE: Yes.
SAGAL: All right, here's your first quote. It's a man talking on the phone this week.
KURTIS: This is the worst call by far.
SAGAL: That was our president yelling at another nation's prime minister and possibly starting a war with whom?
SACHSE: Australia.
SAGAL: Yes, Australia in this case. Very good.
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SAGAL: We also would have accepted Mexico because apparently our president threatened them, too, this week. But frankly, we would have accepted any country - Belgium, Botswana - because who the hell knows what he did in the five minutes since we started this show?
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SALIE: I don't think we should under - we don't want to make enemies of anybody. But Australians - you know, we think they're so friendly, but we could just end up in an international scrum or something.
BURBANK: Have you seen Australian rules football?
SALIE: Right.
SAGAL: Yeah.
SALIE: That's what I'm talking about.
BURBANK: Not to be messed with.
SAGAL: I know.
SALIE: And I don't know what wallabies are, but they could get us.
ROBERTS: Oh, no, no. Wallabies are adorable.
SAGAL: Wallabies are our friends.
BURBANK: We've only been at this a couple of weeks, but it really has been for me 14 or 15 moments of feeling like I just emerged from a long-term coma.
SAGAL: And then desperately tried to go back into it.
BURBANK: I'm just in a restaurant, I look up at the TV and it says, like, you know, U.S. officials - we don't want war with Australia.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BURBANK: It's like, did I just come back to consciousness in the year 2080?
SAGAL: Yeah.
SALIE: I mean, are we going to talk about Iran?
SAGAL: Oh, yeah. Well, this is the funny thing. So we managed to annoy Australia and Mexico just after alienating the entire Muslim world because of the Muslim ban. And the best moment, you know, in a ridiculous, chaotic week was when Sean Spicer, the president's spokesman, denied that it was a ban and the press corps incredulously pointed out to him that his boss, the president, had just called it a ban on Twitter moments before. And Spicer was like, come on. Are you going to believe that lunatic?
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SAGAL: Katy, your next quote is also, by strange coincidence, from the president of these here United States.
KURTIS: If you remember, I wasn't going to do well with the African-American community. And after they heard me speaking and talking about the inner city, we ended up getting substantially more than other candidates.
SAGAL: That was our president praising himself.
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SAGAL: As would be appropriate because he was marking the beginning of what on the 1 of February?
SACHSE: Black History Month.
SAGAL: That's right.
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SAGAL: Australia and Mexico were not the only countries our president managed to freak out this week. There was also the U.S. At an event to mark the beginning of Black History Month, the president managed to brag about his election again. He also praised Frederick Douglass - you know, the escaped slave and Civil War-era abolitionist - as, quote, "somebody who's done an amazing job that is being recognized more and more, I notice," unquote. Now, this led people to wonder if maybe the president didn't quite know who Frederick Douglass was.
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SAGAL: And maybe he even thought Frederick Douglass was alive today.
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ROBERTS: See, I'm so confused about things because...
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SALIE: You?
ROBERTS: Yeah, easily confused because I'm sitting here thinking, OK, let's just give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he skipped over the part where Frederick Douglass has been dead for - what? - yeah, hundred-some years. OK.
SAGAL: A hundred and twenty years, roughly speaking.
ROBERTS: But there are people around him, right? Doesn't somebody put a note next to Frederick Douglass' name that says dead?
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SAGAL: I think what happened was - is as we all know Donald Trump likes to ad lib. It's very hard to keep him on the script. So I'm sure when he got to the name of Frederick Douglass amidst the historical African-American luminaries that he would then look up and say something to the effect of, Fred? Is Fred here right now? Stand up.
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SAGAL: All right. Katy, your last quote is from a participant in the Westminster Dog Show coming up this year.
KURTIS: Meow.
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SAGAL: Bill was brilliantly, brilliantly imitating one of the first-ever what to participate in the Westminster Dog Show?
SACHSE: A cat.
SAGAL: Yes, a cat.
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BURBANK: Thank you, Katy.
SAGAL: If you weren't already convinced that the apocalypse is upon us, then hear this. The most prestigious, snooty dog show in the world, the Westminster, will now allow cats. They will not be competing against the dogs, of course. That would be unfair to the dogs 'cause everybody knows cats cheat at everything.
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ROBERTS: I - now, any regular fan of the show will know that I am a relentless defender of all things cat.
SAGAL: And yet we still allow you to come back on.
ROBERTS: I know.
SAGAL: I don't understand why.
ROBERTS: I know. I love cats. I'm a...
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ROBERTS: I was actually a little disappointed in Bill's less-than-vigorous meow.
BURBANK: Wouldn't be the first time.
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ROBERTS: But even I...
SAGAL: Well, you know what happens to people at a certain age.
BURBANK: Yes.
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ROBERTS: But...
SAGAL: Yes?
ROBERTS: I don't get this. I don't - I...
SAGAL: Well...
ROBERTS: ...Just don't think that - I know they're supposed to be doing, like, little agility things and stuff like that. Honestly, there are certain things that just don't need to happen. Cats do not need to be at Westminster.
SALIE: Why are they doing it, Peter?
SAGAL: Well, they - apparently there have been sort of cat-related events around it before, but now they want to bring the cats into the official event itself. The cats...
SALIE: In other words, they were pussyfooting around it before.
SAGAL: Exactly.
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SAGAL: To be fair, we should say that dogs at Westminster are show dogs, meaning they don't actually do anything fun like herd sheep or catch Frisbees. They just sit there and they look pretty and they wait for their humans to cater to their needs. So basically, it's all cats anyway.
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SAGAL: Bill, how did Katy do on our quiz?
KURTIS: I want to hear Katy's sermon this Sunday...
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KURTIS: ...Because she got a perfect score.
SAGAL: Well done, Katy. Thank you so much for playing.
SACHSE: Thank you.
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SAGAL: Bye-bye.
SACHSE: Bye-bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE METERS SONG, "GOOD OLD FUNKY MUSIC") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.