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SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, Sarah Gonzalez here with a teaser for another NPR show because it has a very Planet Money type of guest and we thought you might enjoy it. Our regular Planet Money episode will still show up as usual on Wednesday, but NPR's news quiz, wait, wait, don't tell me, got Secretary of the Treasury and former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen to take their Not My Job quiz. They've shared that segment with us along with a few exclusive outtakes just for Planet Money listeners. I'm not gonna spoil it, but it does involve her shocking skill at Candy Crush, possibly taking Psychedelic Mushrooms and Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Here's host Peter Sagal and panelists on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.
SPEAKER_07: And now the game we call Not My Job. Janet Yellen is a preeminent economist, a former chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisors and Chair of the Federal Reserve and is now the 78th Treasury Secretary of the United States. That means she signs all of your dollar bills and fun fact, she gets to read all your Venmo receipts.
Secretary Yellen, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you.
SPEAKER_05: Thank you Peter, thank you very much.
SPEAKER_07: So it's a great honor to have you here. I know you were in Chicago to speak to the Economic Club, but we have some questions that I don't think those business leaders might have had for you, such as what is it exactly that you do? Because honestly, I don't know.
We just assume that you write the checks like when we buy a missile. I honestly don't.
SPEAKER_06: That is one of our responsibilities. Really? And we've borrowed now $34 trillion and it's our job at Treasury to finance those cumulative deficits and to make sure that our debt is safe and liquid and attractive to Americans and all around the world.
SPEAKER_07:
All right, more questions about your job. Inflation, was that you?
Not me, are you kidding? Not my fault. No, no, not you. That's the Fed's job.
SPEAKER_06:
SPEAKER_07: That used to be you.
SPEAKER_07: Now we wanted to get a little bit back into your background. We were told that one of your secrets to your success is that you always over prepare, including a story we heard about how you prepared to smoke dope for the first time in college. Yeah.
Can you please inform us how you prepared for that particular challenge?
SPEAKER_06:
Well, you know, I had never smoked marijuana before. It was the summer before I was going to college and my roommate said she hid some marijuana
and we should have a party and smoke marijuana. This of course was this renowned party school Yale.
SPEAKER_06: Well, you know, I worried about that because I had never smoked anything in my life. You know, as you said, I liked to be prepared. I always try to prepare when I can. And I thought, how can I prepare for this experience? Well, why don't I buy a pack of cigarettes and try to smoke them and see if I can inhale because I was told you can't really enjoy marijuana unless you inhale.
SPEAKER_00:
SPEAKER_06: So I bought a pack of cigarettes. I started smoking them. Oh, horrible. It was a horrible experience. I couldn't inhale. I was coughing. I thought, well, I'm not prepared. I have to work harder at this.
SPEAKER_06: So I bought some more cigarettes and all week preparing for this party, I smoked cigarettes. Well, then I went to the party, had some smoked a couple of marijuana cigarettes, but I never did that again. But you know what happened to me was within a couple of months, I was up to three packs a day as a smoker.
SPEAKER_00:
SPEAKER_02: Really? Wow. It took me a decade to quit.
SPEAKER_07: Is that why President Obama invited you to join his Council of Economic Advisors? He had someone to sneak out back of the Oval Office and you know. Well, I quit.
SPEAKER_06: You quit. He can quit.
SPEAKER_07: We are also reliably informed that among your enthusiasms, in addition to a macroeconomic policy is mobile games.
SPEAKER_06: There is some truth in that. There's some truth in that.
SPEAKER_07: Okay, specifically, in case everybody wants to know, Candy Crush.
SPEAKER_06: Yes, well, Candy Crush is a new game I've taken up only a year or so ago. It started when I had a Blackberry, if anybody still remembers what they are.
SPEAKER_06: And they had a game called Brick Breaker and I'd never really used my phone to play games, but I started becoming addicted to Brick Breaker on my Blackberry.
SPEAKER_06: And actually, somebody was writing a book about me
and they heard that I was interested in games
and had played a game. They said, did you play Candy Crush? And I go, Candy Crush? Are you kidding? I wouldn't play a game like Candy Crush. I played Brick Breaker and I won.
SPEAKER_07: But, wait a minute, you were like, a woman of my distinction played Candy Crush? Oh no, Brick Breaker is the only game that we've got. Something as silly as Candy Crush.
SPEAKER_06: Please, please, don't you know who I am?
SPEAKER_06: And then, exactly.
And then I thought, well, you know,
maybe I should just look and see what the thing is. Sure, what's the arm? Have a puff, you're not gonna get addicted. I'm not gonna get addicted. You know, I'll just play a couple of levels. Sure. See what it's like, these candies, you know, that you're breaking up with bombs and things like that. Yeah, this morning I hit level 6,180. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah. Yeah. I'm assuming that's good.
Yeah. Yeah. Somebody said you're actually internationally ranked, which I find hilarious. Is that true? That is not true. That's not true, okay. You're not getting recruited by professional candy crush. Do you have a secret for candy crush?
SPEAKER_02:
You have marijuana cigarettes. Yeah. If he gets stuck, it always helps.
SPEAKER_06: I know, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: That was Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me with Janet Yellen. After the break, the outtakes, where Secretary Yellen gets put on the spot about why Harriet Tubman is not on the $20 bill yet.
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SPEAKER_00: We're back with more from Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me's interview with Janet Yellen. We've got a few questions they asked her that didn't make it into the final version of their show, but we are going to share them here exclusively for Planet Money listeners. In this segment, it is host Peter Segal, and you'll also hear from panelist Dulce Sloan.
SPEAKER_07: There was another thing that happened. We actually mentioned it on this show where you were in China at a state dinner or an official dinner of some kind, and the story was that they served you a dish that involved psychedelic mushrooms. Yes. Right. Did that in fact happen? And if it did, well, how was your trip?
Well, we had a great trip, of course.
SPEAKER_07: You had a great trip, of course. The mushrooms were great. Fabulous trip.
SPEAKER_06:
So we went out to dinner after arriving
at a restaurant that serves Yunanese food.
And the person from our embassy who recommended this restaurant,
there were about a dozen of us, and he ordered all of the dishes for a table. And there were some delicious mushrooms.
SPEAKER_06: We went home, had our meetings. Next thing I knew in Chinese social media, it appeared that I had been to this restaurant.
SPEAKER_06: First, they said that we had ordered poisonous mushrooms.
They said, but they're poisonous only if they're not cooked properly. And of course they were cooked properly.
SPEAKER_06: But then later it turned out it wasn't that they were poisonous, it's that they're psychedelic unless they're cooked properly, which they were.
SPEAKER_06: Before I knew it, this was at news. Before you were naked lying in the roof of your building.
SPEAKER_07: Wow.
SPEAKER_02:
Well, we had great meetings with the Chinese.
SPEAKER_06: I don't think that was part of it,
SPEAKER_06: but the mushrooms were good. We didn't notice any.
SPEAKER_07: I'm just imagining after that dinner saying, you ever thought about the fact that money is just really paper?
SPEAKER_04: What?
SPEAKER_07: Dulce Sloan would like to ask you a question.
SPEAKER_05:
Uh-oh. Hi, money lady.
Howdy. I have just one simple question.
I have here a $20 bill.
How come Harriet Tubman's face isn't on it?
SPEAKER_07: Whoa.
SPEAKER_05: I'm working on it. I'm gonna have that happen.
SPEAKER_07: All right.
SPEAKER_07: Promise. We've been waiting.
I did it!
SPEAKER_07: I fixed it. Me! You did it. It's gonna happen. Thanks to you. Give me the first one.
SPEAKER_05:
Thanks to you, Dulce. In the next term, we'll all be calling 20s tubbies.
SPEAKER_07: Janet Yellen is the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States of America, and among the top 2% of players globally,
Uncanny Crush.
Secretary Yellen, we are so honored to have you with us. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Secretary Janet Yellen, everybody.
Give it up for her.
SPEAKER_00: That was Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on NPR's weekly news quiz show, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Go listen to the full segment, including Janet Yellen taking the not my job quiz on last week's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. We've put a link to listen and subscribe to that in our show notes. And stay tuned this week for more regularly scheduled Planet Money coming Wednesday. I'm Sarah Gonzalez. This is NPR. Thanks for listening.
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