BONUS: Wait Wait DNC Dispatch #1

0:04Well, this very official sounding music means Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is at the Democratic National convention in Chicago, Illinois. For some reason, they gave us press credentials. I'm Ian Chilag. I'm a producer on the show. Hi, I'm Emma Choi. I'm also a producer on the show. And I am Peter Sagala, who is usually not trusted to produce anything. True. Emma and I are from out of town. We all arrived here barely in time for the day one gavel drop. There were a number of travel snafus. I'm going to bring up some tape here. This is Emma talking to the person next to her on her flight from Boston.

0:41What's going on? Well, we're on the plane, and we've already had a few delays when we were leaving Boston, but now we were just told that we cannot land because there are politicians coming into the city for the DNC. So we're just circling around like Michigan, it looks like. But yeah, he said basically that we can't do anything about it and we're stuck up here. Emma, can you tell us what, How did you on the plane become aware of the situation that that's why you were circling? Because the pilot came on to the intercom thing and I was expecting him to be like, we're landing now in Chicago. But he said, so the DNC is this week, folks, and just want to let you know that we're holding because there are some politicians planes in the area who are corrupting the airspace.

1:31So we'll be holding for about 20, 30 minutes. And the whole plane went, oh, boy. Is that the technical term for it? Corrupting the airspace? I will never forget that phrase. That's what he said. And I've never heard that phrase before. You know, I'm going to look up here. Corrupting the airspace. The next time we go through turbulence, I want the pilot to say, sorry, we had some corrupt airspace. So I'm Googling if this is an air traffic control term. It's not. Okay. Okay, damn it. I think I just got jiggy with it. It just went crazy. That's so funny. So we finally, we've made it here. We are so excited.

2:07We go over to the United Center, and we get to the line. That was amazing. It was the longest line I think I've ever been in. I took my time. It's a really long line. It's a very long line. And it's one of those long lines where we can at least be grateful. 13 minutes and 55 seconds. 13 minutes and 55 seconds. Wow. But it's important to note that as long as the line is, people behind us will be waiting even longer. We're not even, we haven't made a lot of progress. How long have we been in this line? 26 minutes. 26 minutes, 10 seconds. We have moved, and we can see up ahead where the line... What if the line...

2:47What if we get to the end of the line and it's just the back of the line? Look at that one short story. That can't be it. 32 minutes. 32 minutes. So the first straightaway took us 32 minutes. Oh, it's a paper time. It's become a thing, by the way. Many, many reporters from the convention started by talking about the line. the daily. It was a crazy line because we didn't know where it ended. I mean, so we heard some people were saying that the line was long because there was a protest blocking one of the other entrances. So everybody was sent to one place and that was the problem. It just seemed kind of disorganized.

3:21They were kind of rushed for this DNC. They changed out the candidate a month ago. I read that the platform, the Democratic Party platform, which they released on Sunday night, It mentioned a second term for President Biden 19 times. Oh. Find and replace is not that hard. I mean, it's so easy. That's proofreading, ladies and gentlemen. Damn. It's so important, especially in contemporary American politics. It also predicted Australia would dominate the women's breakdancing competition at the event. And that's true. These are easy mistakes to fix. I understand. It's just looking at the odds going in, you know.

3:57I mean, she was a professor of breakdancing.

4:03it turns out this is that the other story coming out of the big night the first night is how long it went it went so long as it turns out i had this strangely relevant conversation earlier in the day there's a guy named jeff nussbaum jeff is a long-term political speech writer who had worked for democratic politicians for every convention from 2000 through the last one, which of course was a virtual convention. I asked him about preparing the speakers and I found out, and this isn't a surprise when you think about it, the VIPs, the big names like Hillary Clinton or President Biden on the first night, they get to do whatever they want.

4:44It's the mid-level politicians. And the biggest problem with them is keeping them to time. And he told me about like how much of a struggle that is. That's where you run into folks who will say, this isn't me or I'm not doing this or I can't do this. And then you find yourself in a position where you beg. Right. And then you plead and then you escalate and then you bribe and then you threaten. And the bribe is you can have one more minute. And the threat is, OK, do what you want. You're going to do it at 5 p.m. instead of 10 p.m. Oh, I know. I would never have imagined that there was, like, negotiation down to the last minute like that.

5:29Yeah, and apparently some people resist. He told me this story about how I think it was in 2006 when he was working at that convention. Al Sharpton went through the whole process, and then he gets up on live TV at the convention, and he pulls out a completely different speech from his pocket. Just, like, totally cool. Like, now I'm here. You can't stop me. And I noticed last night Sean Fain was reading from a piece of paper. I did, too. Did he do the same thing? Yeah. I thought he was – I read that as just like, man of the people, I'm not using a teleprompter. I'm using my note cards. Yeah. But we could see the teleprompter, too.

6:08And he was – I mean, he said everything on the teleprompter. I was really – and, Emma, you were probably annoyed by me because when we were watching Hillary Clinton's speech, where we were sitting, like you said, we could see the teleprompter. and you could see the little edits Hillary Clinton was making in the speech. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they were tiny things. Like, so there had been this thing a few minutes before where we heard about Kamala Harris's mother and someone had said, you know, I wish she was here to see what's happening. And in Hillary Clinton's speech, which was, you know, we could see on the teleprompter, there was a line that she had written earlier or her speechwriter had written earlier about wishing her mother could see her now.

6:53You could see that line and she changed it to, I wish my mother could see me now and I wish Kamala Harris's mother could see me now. I'm paraphrasing. But like, she just, she's sort of like, okay, I have a little callback that just happened five minutes ago. And me as somebody who writes things that you, Peter, read sometimes. Yes, yes. No, most of the time. It was really, I really loved seeing those little edits and I was elbowing Emma every time. Did you see? She said they instead of them. And I was so excited about it. But that's the thing I learned the most last evening too is the difference between a politician and a really great speaker.

7:29Because there are some people like AOC, Hillary, like electrified the cloud. And I was like, how many people were in that room? Like tens of thousands of people. It was incredible. And then my favorite woman of the night was a book report lady with a huge – first of all, to bind a copy of anything is to glorify it a little bit. She didn't have to bind it that nicely. This was a giant bound copy of Project 2025. It's a kind of book that Gandalf would open and blow dust off to find the lore of the ring.

8:03My other favorite part of the night was, I think, more fun than the candidates and the people on stage were the people at the convention. They were so freaking weird and awesome and specific. We met so many cool people. Ian, for example, we were just walking through the hallway finding our way in, and Ian, you found this guy who was quite dressed up. Hey, what's your name? Hey, my name's Angelo. And where are you from, Angelo? I'm one of the delegates from Northern Mariana Islands. Okay, and can you tell me about this outfit? I'm dressed like Where's Waldo? Because every conference should have a Waldo in the audience, am I right?

8:37Basically, we're at DemCon, right? I mean, it's like I go to conferences. I'm sitting in big conference rooms. It's like celebrities are walking around. I'm, you know, taking selfies with people. It's like a comic book conference, but for politics. He was from the Northern Mariana Islands. Yes. And the newest U.S. territory. But, like, he flew such a long time to be here. That's crazy. And he had more costumes planned for the rest of the week. Yeah, yeah. He said this was, like, the least exciting of his outfit. You should try to find him every night. Where are the Northern Mariana Islands on the floor?

9:11He said he had a coconut tree costume for tonight. Yeah. Really? Yeah, that's what he said. Oh, I missed that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was so – this is such a good idea because you're – you know, if you're there and you're a delegate, your friends are at home watching on C-SPAN or whatever to try and see you. And you're like, you know what? I'm going to dress as Waldo. Yeah. I was on a group chat with my family, and I was like, I just talked to this guy who's dressed as Waldo, and my wife Emily, five minutes later, screams to the group text. I saw him when I saw him. He answered the question of where he was.

9:48I think that's so exciting. People's fashion choices. It's so interesting. There's different people. People chose business. Like, people were wearing suits. People chose comfort. Like, we were wearing sneakers. And then there were people there to be looked at. Wearing, like, heels. Wearing, like, tight stuff. How was that? There was an amazing person we saw just when we were walking in who had that perfect Kellyanne Conway costume. Yeah. We did see our first celebrity sighting was Kellyanne Conway. Oh, that was her. Oh, that, okay. That explains how good the costume was. It was quite good. And she was being escorted.

10:18I don't know. She was walking out with a coterie of people. And it occurred to me later, was she being escorted out? No. I don't know. I think it was her producers. I think she was there for something. She was chatting amiably with the person next door, so she wasn't complaining. And it is true that all the – I thought this was kind of cool – that the big networks all have what I guess are normally luxury boxes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where people pay big money to sit and watch concerts or sporting events, and they all have their logos out. And so Fox News is twice as big as everybody else. NPR has a standing desk in the corner.

10:49Yes, NPR has what they call an Apple box. It's just a small wooden box that you can sit on. They were swapping back and forth. No, NPR is up in the radio area. Apparently another thing the press is complaining about, in addition to the lines, are the poor facilities. And they're saying the RNC did this better. Let me say, because we should wrap up and get back in there. Right. The facilities, I think Emma found the best part of the Democratic National Convention. Do you want to talk about the pub that you found? Oh, my God. So, you know, it's in the United Center where the Bulls play basketball.

11:23And so there are, you know, there are all these little areas and concession stands. Excuse me. Hi. Is this a bar only for mayors? Yes. It's called the Mayor's Pub. I love mayors. It's only for mayors. There's a thing called the Democratic Mayor's Association. There is a bouncer. There's a bouncer. There's two bouncers. Who tried to see if you were a mayor? If you were a mayor. Yeah. Do you have to have like a sash and top hat like on a Paw Patrol? We couldn't get in. None of us being mayors. Yeah. This is the most exclusive club in America. Like, it's not just who you know in there. You have to be elected by general election to get into this pub.

11:59I love the idea that tonight, after his speech, former President Barack Obama will need a beer, will head up to the mayor's pub, and then will say, sorry, sir. Sorry, sir. Have you ever been or will be a mayor? I was a community organizer. I'm sorry. This is the mayor's pub. I was president. Sorry, you overshot it. You have to just get it exactly right. The mayor's pub. It's pretty cool. I want to get in so bad. Well, presumably the mayors can bring a plus one, right? It's for mayors and their guests. So my one goal for this convention is find a mayor, become their friend, and get into the mayor's pub.

12:31They'll be there all week. Let's make that our goal. So we're going to head back into the convention and try to get into the mayor's pub. We have a couple more days of this. Another question I want to answer, how do you prove you're a mayor? You get a special ID. That's like a golden ID. Yeah, a badge. Do mayors get a badge? You have like the key to the city that you hold on to before you present it to people? That's collateral. Yeah. All right. Well, these are questions we're going to answer. We're so excited to spend a little more time at the DNC meeting these dignitaries and weirdos that make our country great.

13:01I'm going to call that a sign off. I would just go far as to say is they make our country. OK. OK. Thank you all. Thanks for sitting through this. Peter, Emma, Godspeed. USA! USA!

13:20Thank you.