hey ladies. enjoying the film? of course not. because this is our movie. and dr pepper ten is our soda! it's only ten manly calories, but with all 23 flavors of dr pepper. it's what guys want. like this... catch phrase! so you can keep the romantic comedies and lady drinks. we're good. >> jon: that's our show. join us tomorrow night at 11:00. president bill clinton will be our guest tomorrow night. here it is your moment of zen. >> before we leave the medicare discussion, defined benefit plan or premium support. >> a defined... you go first, newt.

captioning sponsored by comedy central captioned by media access group at wgbh captioning sponsored by comedy central (cheers and applause) >> stephen: welcome to the report. >> stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! >> stephen: thank you, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the report. great to have you with us. please, we've got to get to the news. it's too good.

folks. frequent shoppers of this show know that i was an early fan of rick perry. and my man's had a rough start. and a pretty bad restart. but now he's ready to re-restart with this great new ad. >> his dad was a tenant farmer. his wife, a nurse. rick perry served in the air force, then came home to farm cotton. a solid conservative, perry's balanced every budget, passedajor lawsuit reform, cut 15 billion in spending. the result: one million new jobs. rick perry conservative leadership that work its. >> make us great again is responsible for the content of this ad. >> stephen: wow! (laughter) i mean who's to the going to like rick perry after that. i'm pretty sure that old lady there is barbara bush. (laughter) whispering i wish you were

my son. great, great campaign ad but that ad was not made by the perry campaign. it was created by the make us great again superpac, an important distinction. you see, a superpac may not coordinate its activities with candidates. so it's merely a coincidence that make us great again superpac head mike toomey co-owns a private island with david carney, perry's top political advisor. i'm sure they're not coordinating on that little private island down there. they're probably doing something innocent like hunting man. (laughter) now folks, everybody knows i'm the head of colbert superpac. (cheers and applause) so to a vote the appearance of coordinating with

republican presidential back runner buddy roemer, when he was on my show, i was forced to wear an isolation bucket on my head. now luckily one group out there found a way to work with a candidate without coordinating with them. then the nebraska democratic party. they've spent over $600,000 on an ad campaign starring senator ben nelson. i assume most of that paid for the trained marmot playing his hair. now normally, folks, to support a candidate state partiesd $240,000. well, it turns out, and i did not know this, $600,000 is more than $240,000. (laughter) so i may have overbid on that rare penny where lincoln's head was upside down. (laughter) but folks, turns out the limits don't apply here because the democrats were functioning as an

independent organization engaged in issue advocacy. in this case, the democrats are not really a political party, something i think we all suspected. but remember, independent groups like superpacs cannot coordinate with candidates. so the democrats claim that the nelson ads are not campaign ads but instead issue ads. you can see for yourself. >> this is totally political. >> they don't get it they put politics ahead of what's best for the country. >> we need to balance the budget. but not on the backs of senior citizens. i'm ben nelson. i approve this message because we need to stop playing politics and find common sense solutions. >> stephen: clearly an issue ad. the issue, ben nelson is pretty great. so i say bravo democrats. you are blazing a campaign trail to be followed by superpac pioneers in their con stogañr money wagons.

of court every lewis and clark nears their beautiful sacagawea. in this case it's karl rove. who is clearly a sack of something. you see-- (cheers and applause)çó >> today, folks, today rove superpac american crossroads filed this actual request with the federal election commission asking for approval to make issue ads with federal candidates just like the democrats explaining while these advertisements would be fully coordinated, they would presumably not qualify as coordinated communications. coordinated and not coordinated. he's like a zen campaign master asking what is the sound of one hand not washing the other. well, folks, you know if karl is in, so am i. so here to tell me how colbert superpac can adopt karl rove's tactics of

adopting ben nelson's tactic please welcome former head of the sec, general counsel to the mccain campaign and my personal lawyer, trevor potter. trevor, thank you so much for being here. (applause) these ben nelson issue ads and the kind of ads karl wants to run they are not campaign ads, right. they are just issue ads that happen to have the candidate in them, who is campaigning for office. just, just, just becaus because-- someone is in my ad doesn't mean we're coordinating with their campaign. any more than if, you know, just because my pe nis is in someone's vagina, doesn't mean we're having sex-- (cheers and applause) >> right? as long as at the end i scream "i approve this message! (cheers and applause)

right? so --. >> you allowed to have this conversation on national television. >> stephen: on basic cable. so is rove going to win here? >> he may well not because what's happened here is the federal election commission is divided between two camps. and they may not have a majority to approve his request. >> stephen: what if i have a candidate in my ad but it really is not coordinated. like i've kidnapped him and chloroformed him and he wakes up in a van and i hand him a statement, he app has to read it, it is an issue he has to agree with and i return him in time to his fund-raiser for dessert. would that be considered coordination? >> that certainly would be better than the facts than the advisory opinion-- . >> stephen: so you are sizing karl rove to kidnap candidates. i understand you must have

some ethics or values. is there anything we can do to get rid of those? >> a little more money, maybe. (laughter) >> stephen: so you are a lawyer. (laughter) okay. so trevor-- okay, trevor, i want karl to win. what i can do? is there anything i can do to help him. >> well, you could submit a letter to the federal election commission urging them to approve his request and explaining why it would be a good thing for other superpacs like yours. >> stephen: where would i get a letter like that. >> right here. >> stephen: okay. but -- >> there you go. >> stephen: its he even on the cole pert-- colbert superpac letterhead. are you good. this is a letter to the fec saying i want karl to win. and i do just sign here. >> correct. >> stephen: okay. just sign right there. okay. and now this gets sent to the fec and this is going to be then attached to his request. >> right. it would be part of the public record and when they're looking at his requests, they would be

reading your comments . >> stephen: so when they consider his case my comments will be part of that case. >> that's true. >> stephen: wow. well,. >> you're welcome, karl. (cheers and applause) now i can include any visual aids to go with this, trevor? >> sure. >> stephen: i can so, i can include, say, my idea of an issue ad including a federal candidate, perhaps someone running for president that is representative of the kind of ads that karl and i want to do. >> you could give them that as an example. >> stephen: all right, i think i will. ladies and gentlemen, please help me in thanking trevor potter! (cheers and applause) trevor, thank you so much. jimmy, let's show them the kind of ad karl and i are talking about. >> hi. i'm presidential candidate buddy roemer. god, i wish i weren't in this ad. see, i didn't pay for it.

colbert superpac did and superpacs are not supposed to coordinate with candidates like me. but because this is an issue ad, about superpacs not coordinating with candidates, i can be in it, as long as i don't say, vote for me. superpacs can justify doing anything they want and they have a lot of money, folks. they built this fake set, with fake books. filled with real money. hell, they even bought colbert a unicorn. >> stephen: all perfectly legal. >> i did not approve this message. >> stephen: to narnia. >> this message-- approved

-- . (cheers and applause) >> stephen: welcome back,

everybody. welcome back. folks, folks, it's no secret. we all know the media is liberal. that's why they show us only katie couric's colonoscopy and not sean hannities. released tapes. i want to see the chunks of colmes he's got stuck in there folks, any time a conservative figure is in trouble, the media whips itself into a feeding frenzy. so it's time for another installment of blood in the water. (applause) >> shark shark. shark, shark, shark, shark. >> stephen: folks, the latest republican found bobbing in a pool of his own chum is texas state representative larry taylor who is being attacked just because at a hearing last thursday he had harsh words for insurance companies who didn't pay the claims of disaster victims in a timely

manner. >> your job is to pay the clients. don't nitpick, don't try to jew them down-- . >> stephen: yes. i think we can all agree that's probably a bad term. i mean come on, this is the 21st century. if a republican wants to criticize in a way that's acceptable, don't say jew them down. say muslim them down. or gay them up. or mexican them sideways. now folks, i want to be clear here. i am not defending what representative taylor said. but there's no need for the media to pile on him like a bunch of cheer keys on a bottle of fire water which is a phrase i regret using. now i would just like to point out, i would like to point out how quickly taylor corrected himself, jim? >> your job to pay the client, don't nitpick, don't try to jew them down or-- that's probably a bad term. >> stephen: now to analyze,

how taylor responded just so fast. let's head over to the bigot-o-tron 9,000. (cheers and applause) welcome, welcome to the bigot-o-tron 9000 where nothing is black and white. it's negro and cracker. now folks, larry taylor will be represented by this photo of him. now science tells us that the brain has two lobes. the right side of the brain houses the ethnic stereotype lobe while the left side of the brain contains the knowledge that there is a camera pointed at him. apparently, apparently the connection between these two sides was at some point severed. (laughter) one imagines during an industrial accident where

let's say a saw blade went out of control and penetrated his skull cutting the corpos colossum so when he said the probably bad term "jew him down" over here, this side didn't know and could not stop it from emerging from his mouth, whereupon it entered his left ear, thus triggering the medula-i-[bleep]-up-allotta. >> also, also i know how to draw snoopy. (cheers and applause) and that is the miracle of biology. taylor has since issued a

written apology saying i inadvertently used a phrase that many people find offensive. i regret my poor choice of words. you see, he inadvertently used a phrase that many people find offensive. meaning that some people enjoy that phrase, and he simply assumed he was talking to those people. (cheers and applause) so get off his back, media. the less on here is we all just need to be more sensitive to the fact that some old ethnic slurs are no longer acceptable. so you can't say don't make me go dutch. or don't welch on a bet. or give me a brazilian.

three years from now, a 2011 ford fusion is projected to be worth more than a 2011 toyota camry. any thoughts on this news? are you sure? i'm absolutely positive. fusion is projected to hold its resale value better than camry.

welcome back, everybody. my guest tonight, says western dominance will end in our lifetime. that's right, america's going to be replaced by a cheap chinese knockoff. please welcome niall ferguson. cheefers plaus (cheers and applause) hey, mr. ferguson. thanks so much for coming back. good to see you. >> nice to be back. >> stephen: you have been on the show before. >> i have. >> stephen: now you come back as a doom crier. don't you? >> well, in the sense that i think we can shape up and pull ourselves out of the death spiral, i wouldn't say i was a doom crier sses yes,

you are. >> i'm ringing at larm bell. >> stephen: i have seen you speak. you think we can pull ourselves out of a death spiral in the west but you think it's unlikely that we will. >> yeah. (laughter) about right. >> stephen: on that cheery news let's get to your book. niall ferguson, civilization, the west and the rest. okay, let's get down to nuts and bolts. what's the rest and what's the west. >> the west starts, an 1500 york spans to the new world, and expands further, and gets to australia. and so america is part of the west. >> stephen: it is. >> and the rest is everything else, simp el as that. >> stephen: that's it. >> yeah. >> stephen: china is the rest. >> china is the rest. >> stephen: is russia the rest. >> russia is interesting because we thought in the cold war of it as the east. >> stephen: right. >> but actually it was another european empire that expanded into asia. >> stephen: it's kind of the north. >> the north as well. >> stephen: you know there is a south too. you want to throw that in

the calculation. >> brazil is part of that. >> stephen: right. >> that's why i use the word the rest. i don't say the west and east because we want to include these other places in that notion. so the west dominates everybody else. that is the essential point. >> stephen: it is fairly complicated. >> no, it is very straightforward. it's very straightforward. the west dominates the rest. >> stephen: why do you think the west is failing. >> because the things that made the west leap ahead economically and in terms of life expectancy and power, were six institutions that essentially we monopolized for about 500 years. >> stephen: what. >> competition, the scientific revolution, the rule of law based on representative government, and private property rights, modern medicine, the society and the work ethic. we monopolized those institutions and ideas for about 500 years but we don't any more. because other societies have copied them. and meanwhile evens if they, if you like, downloading our killer apps, we are in the process of deleting them and that's the problem.

>> stephen: i didn't follow all of that. (laughter) >> we can do it again. >> stephen: the question is, when, when will we all be locked in a factory making ipads for chinese children? >> so the year's economy is the biggest in the world since 1872. >> stephen: number one. >> and will be overtaken, the imf says it will be overtaken by china in five years from now, 2016. >> stephen: what if, and i'm not suggesting this, what if we attack them. (laughter) because we still make weapons, my friend. we still make weapons. what if we blow them up real good? >> yeah. >> stephen: i'm not saying, obviously i would be a monster to suggest that, but if. >> this thought did cross douglas mcarthur's mind at the time of the core yen war. >> stephen: really. >> i doubt when will do it now for one very obvious reason, that we owe them about $2 trillion. >> stephen: that's a perfect

reason to attack them. because it would make-- they may come for their money eventually and say yeah, you and what army. >> but are you right in the sense that there is likely to be more conflict between china and the united states as china overtakes the u.s. in economic terms. >> stephen: something that bothers me about you. (laughter) is that you're not american, okay. you're a brit, okay. and you're passing judgement on the united states of america. pass all the judgement you want on england and scotland and wales and small parts of ireland and europe and australia and new zealand, bus i don't like a guy with that kind of, pardon me, speech impediment passing judgement on my country. >> yeah. >> stephen: what does a british guy know about america. >> we kind of invented your

country. [bleep] are you talking about [bleep] are you talking about. >> you grew newspaper charleston, carolina. >> stephen: not carolina, south carolina that is what you know about america there are two of them. >> it was carolina-- i know-- i know-- . >> stephen: go ahead, come on. >> it was carolina when we founded it in 1670. >> stephen: yes, and we kicked your ass out. we made the lord proprietor sail out his boat. >> it would haven't existed if we haven't come. if the spaniards had come and colonized this part of parker we would be having this conversation in spanish. so you do owe us something. don't you. come on. >> gracia. >> stephen: niall ferguson,