>> stephen: tonight steve be colbert holds a rally in south carolina. with any luck i'll have an exclusive. and my guests bruce bueno de mesquita says can predict what world leaders will do. i will ask him what animal putin is going to wrestle next. congratulations giants and patriots, way to stick it to those dwarves and traiters this is the colbert report captioning sponsored by comedy central (cheers and applause) hey, what about that. yeah. thank you so much, everybody.

come on. >> stephen, stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! (cheers and applause) >> stephen: thank you, my brothers. (cheers and applause) >> stephen: thank you my friends. welcome to the report. good to have you with us. folks, i hope you all had a great weekend. i sure did. down in my home state of south cackalacky. more on that shortly. but first let's get to the primary. newt gingrich crushed mitt romney on saturday. after disappointing showings in iowa and new hampshire, newt's campaign looked terminally ill which is generally when he moves on to something better. (laughter) now newt, newt triumphs with 40% of the vote to mitt

romney's 28%. a gap so wide you could fit newt's head in it. (laughter) and gingrich sealed his victory in last week's debate by going after america's most dangerous enemy, debate moderators. first on monday he laid the smackdown on juan williams. >> speaker, gingrich, you recently said black americans should demand jobs, not food stamps. can't you see that this is viewed at a minimum as insulting to all americans but particularly to black americans. >> no. i don't see that. >> stephen: whooo! no. he doesn't see that, juan williams. which you would understand if you and your homeboys

weren't so high from smoking food stamps. then, i said t i know. then at thursday's debate newt feasted on the flesh of john king. >> your ex-wife gave an interview to abc news. she says you asked her, sir, to enter into an open marriage. would you like to take some time to respond to that. >> no, but i will. (laughter) >> it is a subject of conversation on the campaign. i get your point, i take your point. >> john t was repeated by your network. you chose to start debate with it. don't try to blame somebody else. you and your staff chose to tart this debate with it. (applause) >> stephen: after a kill-- (cheers and applause)

after a kill that big newt doesn't have to eat again for two weeks. but folks, there was another huge winner on saturday. herman cain. (cheers and applause) now i urge south carlinians to vote for me by voting for herman cain. and when all the votes were counted, we came in number 1 percent. whooo! we are the 1%. (applause) eat it, others and statistical anomolies. we made it to integers. and folks, the colbert bump is reconfirmed. herman cain got only 45 votes in iowa, and 160 votes in new hampshire but in south carolina he raked in a massive 6,324 votes.

(cheers and applause) that is more than perry, huntsman and bachmann combined. that means we beat everyone who was no longer trying to win. (laughter) but folks, now that the results are in, i have a major announcement to make. i will give the other networks a moment to break into their programming to carry this live. (laughter) that ought to do it. okay. my fellow americans of south carolina, while your turnout on saturday was historic, unfortunately, and no one could have predicted this, herman cain did not win the south carolina primary. so it is with a heavy heart and a spastic colon that i am resuspending herman cain's suspended campaign. also i am hereby officially ending my exploratory

committee to run for president of the united states of south carolina. i know, i know. of course, i want to thank the exploratory committee members for their service. dr. henry kissinger, pat buchanan, criss angel mind freak, bagger vance, grima wormtongue, roscoe the superintelligent ferret, 1.5 times as intelligent as a normal ferret so like a dumb raccoon. chuck todd, and a roll of quarters. so now that my exploretation-- exploration has come to an end. who knows what i am going to it maybe i will be like herman cain and hit the road in a bus with my face on it. maybe i'll hit the road in a bunch of tiny cars each way different part of my face on it we'll figure it out. me and all that delicious money. because since i am no longer a possible candidate, i am officially offering to retake control of the

definitely not coordinating with steve stephen colbert superpac. to give it back to me, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome jon stewart. (cheers and applause) jon? bhas's jon? jon? where's jon? he's at the daily show? jimmy, jimmy, open up the satellite link to the daily. jon, jon, what is going on? remember, remember when you gave me the superpac, remember how we didn't coordinate that you would give it back to me if i decided not to run? >> jon: i do remember not coordinating that. >> stephen: well, jon, i am not running. so let's sign the transfer papers. did trevor send them to you. >> jon: oh, yeah, trevor sent-- oh, you know what, i think he did, hold on-- boom, there's your papers. >> stephen: come on!

jon! give me the money back. it's my money. >> jon: fueling my zeppelin, stephen, i got to go, sorry, i can't talk right now. i got to go. >> stephen: stewart! we'll be right back. jon, get him back. get him back on the phone.

(cheers and applause) >> stephen: welcome back. thank you so much. nation, welcome back, everybody. folks, the establishment may have thwarted my campaign for president of the united states of south carolina. but there is one moment they can never take away. last friday's rock you like a herman cain south-cain-olina at the college of charleston. it gave me some of hope to see so many students so willing to skip class on such short notice. (laughter) though the campaign is over, don't let it be forgot that once there was a spot for one brief shining moment that was known as cainelot. jimmy? >> stephen colbert is having

a rally today in south carolina. >> stephen colbert roll mood south carolina. >> herman cain an stephen colbert are taking south carolina by storm. >> the rock me like a herman cain south cain-olina primary rally. >> give it up tore the man, mr. herman cain! >> stephen: whooo. (cheers and applause) >> stephen: i'm going to let it shine, let it shrine shine ♪ ♪ let it shine ♪ this little light of mine ♪ ♪ what's up buddy ♪ i'm going to let it shine ♪ ♪ let it shine ♪ let it shine ♪ what a beautiful day the lord has given us. what a beautiful state.

what a beautiful town what a beautiful low country. (cheers and applause) >> stephen: but folks, i am not here to pander. because i know i don't need to pander to the most beautiful people in the world. (cheers and applause) >> stephen: can i get an amen. >> amen! >> stephen: you're good. before i introduce the man we've all gathered here to see introduce me, i want to solicit the other candidates in the racive. think people are hungering for a positive campaign. so i'm to the going to go after this man's opponents. i won't be saying things like the only difference between mitt romney and a statue of mitt romney is that the statue never changes its position. and it will be wrong to say that if you guess ron paul's real name he has to teach you how to spin straw into

gold. not going to do it. and i am not going to answer the gotcha question am i interested in an open marriage. though i am flattered that newt gingrich asked me. so it is my great honor to introduce to you the herman with the plan, the plan so fine they named it 9, 9, 9, the man of the flat tax, the indiana jones of opportunity zone, the herman, the her-myth, mr. herman cain! (cheers and applause) >> thank you very much, mr. colbert. and i will also like to thank all of you for being here. >> i know he is a pokemon

word. i believe the words go like this. i didn't say i was going to say it. to be all these thing, not because i told you ♪ ♪ to ♪ but believe in yourself ♪ america ♪ my brotha from another mother mr. stephen colbert! (cheers and applause) >> stephen: that man has got a beautiful voice. all i can add to herman's eloquent quotation from pokemon is got to catch them all. my fellow americans, a lot of people have asked me why

are we here? what is this about? in fact herman canned me that on the bus coming here just now. the pundits have asked is this all some joke? we've all heard it, haven't we? i say if they are calling, being allowed to form a superpac and collecting unlimited and untraceable amounts of money from individual unions and corporations and send that money on -- spend that money on political ads and for personal enrichment and surrender that superpac to one of my closest friends while i explore a run for office, if that is a joke, then they are saying our entire campaign finance system is a joke. and i don't know about you, but-- offended by that. (cheers and applause) we fought a great civil war to ensure that all people are people. as abraham lincoln said at gettisburg, give me some

money. the experts say he can't win. they have been wrong before. not this time. this time was spot on. but just because you lose, that doesn't mean you surrender. we here must highly resolve that these unlimited funds should not have been donated in vein. because if corporations are people, people with a constitutional right to influence our elections, then i promise you government of those people, by those people, and for those people shall not perish from this earth. thank you. god bless you. (cheers and applause) >> and god bless herman cain. get up here herman. come on. >> this little light of mine ♪ ♪ i'm going let it shine ♪ let it shine

♪ let it shine ♪ thank you, everybody. this little light of mine ♪ ♪ i'm going to let it shine ♪ ♪ this little light of mine ♪

>> stephen: welcome back, everybody. my guest tonight has written a book called the dictator's handbook. why bad behavior is almost always good politics. sounds like a gingrich fan. please welcome bruce bueno demesquita. (cheers and applause) hey, mr. bueno de mesquita. welcome. >> pleasure. >> stephen: are you a game theorist, a professor of politics and director of the alexander hamilton center of political-- at it nyu, the author of the book the dictators handbook. >> i am. >> stephen: first of all, what is in a dictator's handbook. did you write a book for a dictator doesn't every page say great job, boss. don't kill me. >> not so much. what the book's pain point is, is that dictators and democrats aren't really very different from each other. they want to stay in power. they will do what it takes

to stay in power. >> stephen: so you admit obama is a dictator. >> he would like to be. >> stephen: do you think obama would like to be a dictator. >> i have no doubt about t of course. it would be much easier to be president if you didn't have to have an election, be popular, get votes it would be much bet ferr you had 20 people decide how to run the country. >> stephen: as a game theorist you have applied game theory to political science. the cia's own study has shown that your predictions are twice as accurate as the cia's predictions as to what will happen geo politically. soviet union's demise you predicted. khmer rouge holding elections, iran seeking nukes you predicted. how did you do it? what is game theory. >> so game theory is a way of understanding how people compete with each other. just like playing chess. you look ahead. you work out what the other guy is going to do and was's the best move i can make if that is what he will do or if that is what he will do. how do i steer the game to work out the way i want it to work out. >> stephen: that's why i throw off guys like you by

bursting into tears and just sweeping all the players off and go into my room. >> in my consulting life i have used getting somebody bursting into tears as a strategy to solve a litigation, as a matter of fact. >> stephen: really? >> yes, yeah. >> stephen: so how do you use that to find out what is going to happen with the soviet union. >> so you what want to do is you want to realize people are self-interested. you want to know where they stand on issues that they have to make decisions about. you want to know how focused they are on those. how much time are they willing to put into really try to influence it how much they value getting an agreement even if it's not what they want as opposed to being resolved, going down in a blaze of glory in favor of what they want and how influence could they be. if you know those things you can work out pretty well, what people's interests are. how they anticipate what you will do, how you anticipate what they will do and how to solve the game. >> stephen: what am i going to do next? >> well, unfortunately, i have no wisdom. i have a computer model so if i had a little bit more time with you i could construct a data set and i

could probably work out what you are going to do, what i am going to do in response, what your audience is going to do and so forth. but-- . >> stephen: i predict i'm going to ask you a question. >> that is undoubtedly true but not an interesting prediction that is kind of the sun will rise in the east and set in the west. >> stephen: we don't know. >> which question,. >> stephen: we don't know what the sun is going to do tomorrow. >> well, you're less confident about that than mi. >> stephen: it could be exploding on the other side of the planet right now. >> it could be with a very, very, very low probability. i-- . >> stephen: that is in my computer model. >> that particular one is not. >> stephen: not in your computer model. you don't have all the variables. >> not all the variables, that's right. >> stephen: who do dow this for. >> well, i do it for private companies. i do it for the intelligence community. i do it for myself in buying a car and so forth. >> stephen: really? >> yeah. >> stephen: what car did you buy? >> i just bought a bmw 528 xi. >> stephen: wow, because you

ran the probability of which car would get you laid? what would be-- what was the probability there? >> no, i-- i worked out what the strategy was to get the selling, the seller at the other end to sell it as cheaply as possible. >> stephen: and did it work. >> it did work. >> stephen: now let's talk about important stuff. we have a big game going on right now. it's called the republican primary. >> yeah. >> stephen: who, gingrich takes south carolina. who fakes the whole enchilada. without gets nominated. >> gingrich gets nominated. gingrich has a much better strategy than romney. he's got more charisma. >> stephen: isn't that strategy called scorched earth? >> it is scorched earth which you may recall worked really well in the south. >> stephen: not for the southerners. >> not some of for the southerners and it is going to work for gingrich. he's to the going to win the presidency but he is going to get the nomination that is not model-- that is

personal opinion, my opinion is not worth much. >> stephen: have you ever pitted your skills against the magic eight ball? >> funny you should ask. my students years ago gave me a magic eight ball as an alternative to the game theory model. >> stephen: who was more accurate. >> it turns out it's close but the game theory model tends to win. >> stephen: i will buy one and test your next theory. thank you so much for joining me. >> thank you so much. >> stephen: bruce bueno de mesquita, the book is the dictator's handbook. we'll be right back. hehe

>> stephen: that's it for the report, everybody. good night.