captioning ypénsored by comedy central (cheers and applause)ñi >> stephen: welcome to the "report," everybody. thankñi you! (crowd chanting "stephen") (cheers and applause) >> stephen: thank you very much. welcome to the "report." thank you for joining us. i just want to answer a question that i get so often from kids

out there.çó how far isñr too far, stephen? (laughter) obviouslyhe answer is four on theñr floor. (applause) however you want to work that out... (cheers and applause) do the math. do the math. (laughter) folks, i don't know about you but i am still coming down from last night's hour-long radio head special sponsored by dr. pepper. i was so moved by radiod he's sensitive indy rock i was up all night binge hoping. although i was surprised to see so much tom york changeded his look since he was on "american idol." (laughter) tonight we have an equally world-changing guest philanthropist melinda gates. the bill gates foundation is dedicated to eradicating malaria and polio throughout the third world and she is here thanks to her sponsoringñi beverage-- potable water. (laughter)

it could use a little high fructose corn syrup. úliughter) of course, bill gates is one of the richest then the world and i have always been a huge admirer of his money. (laughter) so when he started the bill and melinda gates foundation i was inspired to create the stephen andñr melinda gates foundation. (laughter) established in 2006, the stephen and melinda gates foundation has worked tirelessly to find out what we support. (laughter)ñi and tonight i am finally proud to announce that we have done it and i don't care how many angry letters i get for saying this, we're going to help the children.çó (laughter) it's all right to cheer me. (cheers and applause) i'm disappointed how late you are. (laughter) and, folksçó, you can help them, too. just go to stephenandmelinda

gatesfoundation.org where you'll see me andñr melinda flanking or good friend "your face here." just upload a picture of yourself and voila, it's melinda you, and me inçó a freaky philanthropic three-way. for every face uploaded, donors can send $5 to the bill and melinda gates foundation up to $100,000! (cheers and applause)ñi i got to tell you, i don't know where you're going to find that kind of cash. folks, i don't like what i'm hearing people say about rick perry. he has had açó bad week largely because of one moment in thursday's republican debate. >> i think americans just don't know sometimes which mitt romney they're dealing with. is it the mitt romney that was on the side of... against the second amendment before he was

for the second amendment? was itñi is... before he was before the social programs from the standpoint of he was far... standing fun for "roe v. wade" before he was against "roe v. wade." >> stephen: that's what youñi gt when your head speech writer is magnetic poetry. (laughter and applause) and folks, following this debacle, the long fives are out. >> perry did a lot of damage to himself. >> he was not ready. >> yikes, that was the one word headline. >> perry really did throw up all over himself. (laughter) >> stephen: thoughtful analysis, britt, thank you. (laughter) but i'd go even further. perry threw up all over himself then chopped off his own head and crapped down his own neck hole. (laughter) tore up his belly and nailed his intestines to a tree and ranñi around it until he unraveled his own guts. he defiled himself with every

bodily fluid known to man other than santorum. (cheers and applause)ñi it is impossible to overstate the horrific nature of perry's debate performance. i mean, just look at it again. jimmy, i believe we have another angle. >> was it was before... it was before... (laughter) oh, that a gas. and perry's opponents have been quick to capitalize on it. if you notice-- and i swear i am not making this up-- that youtube footage paid for by mitt romney for president. (laughter) at this point there's only one thing to say about perry-- i like this guy. because, folks, this weekend he did not run away from his debate performance, he owned it! >> it's not who is the slickest candidate or the smoothest debater that we need to elect

>> what americans are looking for isn't the slickest candidate. they're looking for an authentic principaled leader. >> stephen: exactly. so what if he's not a slick talker. some of our greatest presidents have been tongue tied on occasions. how soon we forget this. >> fool me once... (laughter) ... shame on... shame on you. (laughter) fool f you fool me, you can't get fooled again! (laughter and applause) >> stephen: is that intelligible? no! that sounds like the fevered ramblings of a syphilitic brain! but he was authentic! so what if rick perry threw up all over himself. george h.w. bush threw up all over himself and the prime minister of japan! (laughter) that is what's called trickle

down! (laughter) a president does not need to be articulate. when the moment of truth comes, he pushes the button. he doesn't convince the button to push itself. he's not the convincer in chief, he's the commander-in-chief. and by "command" i don't mean of the english language. (laughter) and america is clearly on this with... with me on one. (laughter) (cheers and applause) clearly america is with me on this one! cnn's poll after his mumble-mouthed train wreck gives perry an eight-point lead. clearly he needs to show upat the next debate with a mouthful of angry bees. (laughter)ñr and while bachmann has iowa and

roomny is strong in new hampshire, my home state of south carolina loves rick perry-- andñi that's the proble, folks, because south carolina is the third primary state but arizona governor january crewer has announced she is moving their primary up to february 28, south carolina's date! well, governor brewer has messed with the wrong stephen colbert. this one!ñr she says she's doing it so that southwestern issues are addressed by the candidates in a meaningful fashion. oh, yeah, it's time for america to have a serious debate on whether it's cactuses or cacti. (bleep), jan! this is about the money!ñi studies have shown thatñr presidential candidates spend up to 75% of their campaign budgets on the first few primary states. buying ads, transportation, lodging. it's an orgy of spending and south carolina is supposed stop the lucky pierre in that monetary ass pile. but arizona is muscling in. and now michigan has passed a

bill moving their primary to february 28 and florida wants to move theirs even earlier than that! now, florida going earlier makes sense. when your average voter is 93, every second counts. (applause) well, folks, south carolina voters refused to be treated like second-class citizens. state republican chair chad connolly told "u.s.a. today" "we're going to be first in the south and we're not going to share our date with anybody, especially a state that breaks the rules." yeah! south carolina has proven that unless you play by their rules they will take their state and go home! (laughter and applause) well, i say i say in all that campaign cash is attracting all the early primaries, let's make sure south carolina gets all that campaign cash by letting the cash decide the primary. just do away with the voting and give all our delegates to whoever spends the most money! on primary day, campaigns just

hand in their receipts. (laughter) that way, unlike electronic voting, at least we'll have a paper trail. (laughter) to protect your interests, south carolina, as long as we're deciding presidential bids, shouldn't we give our state to the highest bidder? we'll be right back. (cheers and applause) [ "chopsticks" plays ]

♪ don't you two know any other songs? [ music stops ] [ "chopsticks" plays in a higher octave ] [ crunch ] [ male announcer ] take a cheetos break with cheetos.

(cheers and applause) snung thank you very much.

welcome back, everybody! nation, it's two out, bottom of the ninth, bases loaded and i'm holding a spear gun. this is the score report. (cheers and applause) ♪ whoo! ♪ (laughter) folks, i love nascar. it answers the age-old question "what if my box of tide could go 200 miles an hour?" (laughter) according to the "new york times," nascar's begun employing an ambitious set of green initiatives that includes collecting used fuel, planting trees to offset carbon emissions and deploying sheep to keep the infield grass short. (laughter) sheep? this is america! when we need to keep grass short we hire mexicans. (laughter) oh, such silky coats. (laughter)

folks, the al gorification of auto racing must stop. i don't want nascar recycling or making their cars more fuel efficient than their current four to five miles per gallon. (laughter) wasteful burning of fuel is nascar's best selling point. if anything, the cars get in the way. i'd pay good money just to watch corporate sponsors flaming vasts of gasoline. (laughter) the winner is which ever team's black plume blocked out the sun first. next up, folks, football season is upon us and unfortunately the scaredy pant wetters at the n.f.l. are instituting a new policy at the stadiums. >> n.f.l. fans now have to endure a little more security on the way into stadiums across the country. guards are now doing full body patdowns. >> stephen: yes. full body patdowns. which may take a while because some fans have some very full bodies to pat. (laughter) now, the move comes after a fan

produced a stun gun in the stands at a jets/cowboys game and zapped some fellow spectators. big deal! everybody tailgates! he was just grilling inside the stadium. plus, if the n.f.l. disarms all the spectators, what are we supposed to do for entertainment when there's a lull in the violence on the field? now security personnel will be searching fans from the ankles to the knees as well as the waist up. damn! (laughter) you should never carry a weapon between your knees and your waist! you'd have to craft some kind of i don't know, hip-mounted gun-carrying harness! (laughter) now, to make matters worse, folks, security guards will also be looking for booze: i'm sorry. but i need booze for any event that lasts more than three hours. that's as true for football as

it is for jury duty. (laughter) fear not, nation, fear not. team colbert has you covered. you can pass the screening and get your drink on thanks to my patented new shoesçó stephen colbert's... (cheers and applause) stephen colbert's birk stalk. go ahead, pat me down from the ankles up. once i'm inside it's party time. (cheers and applause) oh, and and off my beer.

dad, a big giant bee! get it! hang on, pumpkin. aw! bad call, dad! hey, sweetie. guess what, the bees came back and i broke the phone... no, no that was unrelated. you know what, why don't you call it to see if it works?

pretty sure it's broken. probably right. looks like we're in new phone territory. when it's on your mind, it's on ebay.

(cheers and applause) >> stephen: my guest tonight is here to talk about how imimprove our public schools. tonight she'll be sitting at the cool kids' table. please welcome melinda gates! (cheers and applause) so nice to meet you, thank you very much for coming on. >> glad to. >> stephen: now then, melinda.

>> yes, stephen. >> stephen: as you know, you and i are the sole members of the stephen and melinda gates foundation. >> so i hear. >> stephen: and i'm not seen you as many of the board meetings. >> haven't you been e-mailing me? that's how we do these things. >> stephen: i have and i have been getting cease and desist orders from your staff. we'll get to the matter of your dues later. (laughter) but first your husband and you are the leaders and creators of the bill and melinda gates foundation. am i pronouncing... bill? >> you got that right. >> stephen: okay, you have many goals, some of which are eradicating malaria and polio in africa and also to improve education in the united states. >> right. >> stephen: which is a greater sdmaj eradicating disease or improving america's schools? (laughter) >> well, it's interesting, we often talk about this because

eradicating diseases is really, really difficult. but i think the thing that we will be at for a lifetime because it is so hard is trying to improve the u.s. public school system. and we do both, though, because we believe in the developing world you should be able to grow up and live a healthy life and most people don't get that start in life but in the u.s. people generally grow up to live a healthy life but they need to have a great education system and we don't have a great education system today, we really don't. >> stephen: now, why not? because we throw a ton of cash at our education system. >> we do. >> and you guys-- and i don't mean to be crass-- have even more cash. (laughter) are you just throwing good money after bad here by donating to our school system? >> well, the u.s. states spend about $500 billion every single year on the public school system. we are putting in about $5 billion basically over the next few years. but allñr philanthropic money cn do is be a catalytic wedge. we can look at the places where people haven't answered the

questions or asked some of the questions and say what is it we really need to do to fix this? and one of the things that we learned is that having an effective teacher at the front of the classroom is the single-most important thing that we can do in the public school system. >> stephen: how do you figure that out because... (applause) thank you. (laughter) how do you figure out who's a good teacher and who's a bad teacher? because teachers test but they don't want to be tested. >> yeah, and this is exactly what we ask ourselves. we said how do you know whether the teacher is being effective in the classroom and so we got 3 teachers signed in six different school districts to allow us to videotape them and to start to take.... >> stephen: at school. >> atñi in the classroom. (laughter) >> and we started to look at what is it that they da do? if their kids are doing well on the test at the end of the year, what is it they're doing in the classroom? we're starting to learn some interesting things. the research is not finished yet

but some of the things we've learned is that they manage the classroom really well. they get the things to think very critically about that english essay they're writing and if the kid doesn't explain it they go back until the kid does get it. if you measure the teacher on a multiple set of things it's predictive of whether that kid is going to do well on that test. >> stephen: what about the plan going forth in wisconsin right now which is to decertify the teachers and cut their benefits. does that help the kids in any way?ñr >> i think across the mesh school system, we're seeing even right to work states are not getting kids prepared and getting ready to go on to college so we need to do things to support these teachers. one of these things over 40 states haveñi signed up to do is to have standards that say this is what a kid needs to know in algebra by the end of ninth grade. this is what they need to know about english language art and once you that you can open up the market to get lots of great

curriculum that any teacher then can go look up on the internet or look up in a book to create their own curriculum to teach kids in creative ways. >> stephen: you and your husband have pledged to give away 90% of your wealth to charitable endeavors. (cheers and applause) it sounds good but how are you going to put food on the table? (laughter) and then the table on a veranda and ther have rabb da on the peninsula. why aren't you leaving things for your kids? don't they deserve the same life that you have? >> well, bill and i just really feel like, you know, the resources that have come from microsoft from what this creative with that company should go back to society. we feel like we benefited so much by living in the united states. we feel so lucky to have the education we have and so we want to change things in the united states and in some places outside the u.s. >> stephen: but you're looefg

your children only 10% of $60 billion! get out in the world! make your own way! >> we actually haven't put a number on what we're going to leave the kids. >> stephen: can i put a number on what you could leave he? because i have to tell you it must be such a burden to have to give this money away and not know exactly who to give it to. you remember andrew carnegie he gave away all of his money? remember andrew carnegie? he gave away all his money and look what it did to him. (laughter) you don't want this to happen to you, melinda gates. (applause) >> let me save you from that! give me your money. i promise someone will get it eventually. personally i want to thank you for supporting donors choose because i'm on the board. (applause) and besides the hundred thousand dollar challenge you put out to my fans you have been supporting donors choose for years and it's

a great organization. i encourage everyone to go on line, go toñr stephenandmel linda gatesfoundation.org and upload your photo.

(cheers and applause) >> stephen: good night, ice breakers mints with icy-cool flavor crystals. ice breakers. stay cool.