PASADENA, Calif. -- Kathy Griffin's primetime chatfest on Bravo returns at 9 p.m. (CT) Thursday for a second season and this time, the unpredictable comedienne's hour-long talk show will air live.

Her first guests are Lisa Kudrow, Jane Lynch and Liza Minnelli. The Oak Park native said she'd welcome Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on a future episode.

"Of course I would have Rahm Emanuel on," she said. "Plus his brother [Ari] is my agent. I think I have to invite him."

What would she ask him?

"I would ask why he almost forcibly moved me away from [Fox News Channel President] Roger Ailes at a [White House] Correspondents Dinner," she said.

At the dinner, President Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett asked Griffin if she knew Ailes.

"Being a liberal I said, 'Oh yes, I know Roger Ailes and I know his game,'" Griffin said. "Roger Ailes said, 'You used to come on 'Fox and Friends.' I said, 'That was before you turned so far right.'"

That's when Rahm stepped in.

"Rahm took my shoulders and said, and I quote, 'We're not doing this now,'" she recalled. "He stopped the conversation. He's got a little big of the old school Dick Daley in him, the 'moxie' as my mother would say.'"

Griffin's mother, fan-favorite Maggie, will be back this season, too.

"She's 92 years young and enjoying a box of wine as we speak," Griffin said.