>> the klan would kill anybody opinion theyñi love toñi kill blacks, what they really love to kill is what they call the radical republicans. what do you suppose the african american in 1850 could have done with a gun? a little less gun control would

captioning sponsored by comedy central captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> stephen: tonight, a vast government cover-up. turns out the social security numbers they gave us are all different. then how can the catholic church appeal to young people? well, they could try making it the sermon on the mountain dew. and my guest robert caro is here with his fourth book on lyndon johnson. i believe it's l.b.j. and the goblet of fire. chris christie killed a spider. it picked the wrong guy to steal curds and whey from. this is the colbert report.

captioning sponsored by comedy central ( cheers and applause ). >> stephen: welcome to the report, everybody. good to have you with us. thank you, ladies and gentlemen. >> stephen, stephen, stephen! tephen: thank you very much. thank you, folks. please. ( cheers and applause ). folks, as you probably know, i am super tight with media mogul and thing-favoriter oprah winfrey. we have the kind of friendship where you can go years without seeing each other and we pick up right where we left off. or at least i assume we will when we meet for the second time. of course i'm a huge fan of o,

oprah's book club. that's why i started o, c"o"lbert's book club as a tribute and as a theft. >> now, folks, our first book is the great gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald. look for it in bookstores between e.e. cummings and g. gordon liddy. it's clearly a towering pillar of western literature because it is now a 3d movie. and i hope you've started reading, folks, because on thursday pulitzer-prize winning author jennifer egan will lead my book club discussion, and i will be joined by director baz lurhman. like all book clubs we'll open a bottle of chardonnay, talk broadly about themes and then launch into a heated discussion about the neighbor who leaves his trash bin out on the curb four days after pick up. you're already out there to get the mail, alan, how hard is it just to bring it back in?

seriously. unfortunately someone has already ripped off my idea to rip off oprah's idea. this week the b.b.c. world book club is also featuring the great gatsby. well, i'm not surprised. the brits are always copying our best ideas. they did it with the office. da ali g show and downton abbey which everyone knows is based on friends. it's so unrealistic. so unrealistic. there is no way those kids could afford that abbey. so if you're also reading gatsby for the b.b.c., you have to read it once for each club. the american version for mine. for theirs the english version. all the chapters are in celsius. instead of west egg, gatsby lives in east bangers-upon-mash.

now i'll be reading right up until my first book club meeting thursday when i assume we will discuss how this opulent consequence-free lifestyle reaches its inevitable happy ending. folks, i hope you had a great weekend. i did. i spent it at the big annual n.r.a. meeting in houston, texas. not to be confused... ( cheers and applause ). yes, the annual n.r.a. meeting in houston texas not to be confused with the daily n.r.a. meeting that is houston, texas. and this year's theme was accessories. like pink assault rifles and bra holsters. now, fellows can brag about getting to second amendment. one thing i her repeatedly down there this weekend is that obama is coming for our guns. now i'm not one to believe in

farout conspiracy theories probably because the government implanted a chip in my brain that controls my thoughts. but, folks, i've had my eyes opened to some disturbing truths that raise troubling questions like, "what did they know? when did they know it? and what am i talking about? which brings me to my new segment exposing vast government conspiracies, stephen colbert's bat [bleep] serious. ( cheers and applause ). now, folks, i've wanted to do this segment for a long time. but i haven't. why not? we'll look into that next time. but tonight's topic: are they coming after our guns? no. they're coming after our bullets. >> why is the department of homeland security using roughly a thousand rounds of ammunition more per person than the u.s.

army? >> you have a homeland security department that's stock piling ammunition and kind of not telling us why. we don't trust them. >> the department of homeland security is purchasing 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. >> the department of homeland security did buy 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. >> stephen: 1.6 billion rounds? what are they trying to do? film a quintin tarantino movie? nation, follow me down the rabbit hole. if it even is a rabbit and not a ground hog in a costume. the federal government's suspicious ammo hoarding was first noticed by vigilant online conspiracy forums before it was picked up by conservative radio hosts and then eventually made its way out to the farthest fringe elements of our society,

congress. jim? >> 360,000. that's how many rounds of hollow-point ammunition the department of homeland security plans to buy. it's already bought more than two billion. congress demanding answers as to why they need all those bullets. can someone answer, please? hello! >> stephen: please? hello? who's there? dolores? get me klondike 6-4,000. this isn't even attached to anything. what's happening? now, folks, leading... leading... leading. ( cheers and applause ). leading the congressional charge is senator james inhofe, if this is james inhofe and not a ground hog in a costume. senator ground-hofe here

recently introduced a bill that would ban federal agencies from buying more ammunition if it currently possesses more than its monthly averages during the bush administration. yes, not including the ammo that ended up in the faces of the friends of dick cheney. folks, i know, i know, it's a sad story. isn't it? i know, i know. it's so sad. he was fine. folks, senator inhog's bill couldn't have come at a better time because there are some very disturbing theories as to why the government wants all that ammo. >> some predict a government arms race against americans. >> i suspect that just in case our fiscal situation, our monetary situation collapses, and following it the civil society collapses, that is the rule of law, that they want to be preparedded. there is no other explanation for this. >> stephen: yes. there's no other explanation.

i mean, the government is buying up ammo so that following the economic collapse, they can outgun the american people. and they need it because right now all they've got areñr tanks, airplanes, helicopters, predator drones, nuclear missiles, and laser cannons. but if i get my hand on a box of shotgun shells, it is go time, uncle fatty. oh, and there's only other only one explanation for the government buying all this ammo. >> sub ter fusion. the regime is buying up all the ammo so that the guns that you do have are useless. >> stephen: that's right. if obama can't take our guns, he'll make sure you can't put anything in them. after that, he's going to come after rush by buying up all the hookers and canned frosting.

( cheers and applause ). now, folks, a lot of news outlets including fox news say that they have debunked the bullet conspiracy theory, but i say it's already started. because out of fear of government hoarding, ammo sales have skyrocketed making it harder to find ammo which can only mean that the government is hoarding it which means we have to buy more ammo before the government gets it all but there's none left because we bought it. oh, my god. it's too late. the feds already have us outgunned. well, they're not going to take me alive. [bleep] i'm out of ammo. i'm still alive and rich and happy. you win this round, obama. if that is you. oh, my god.

well, that's it for tonight's bat [bleep] serious. join me next time when i ask the question, did big foot help lee harvey oswald build stone henge? we'll be right back.

( cheers and applause ). >> stephen: welcome back, everybody. thank you so much, folks. please. folks, you know, you've watched this show. you know i never rush to judgment. i live in judgment to cut down on my commute. this is tip of the hat, wag of the finger. ( cheers and applause ). folks, as television's foremost catholic, i'm always looking out for the hottest trends hitting the catholic church. that's why i'm giving a tip of the hat to the catholic diocese of brooklyn for reaching out to a hip new audience. >> you may have seen these on

phone booths and papering gym walls in queens and brooklyn. they are advertisements of a sneaker-wearing jesus. the ads call him the original hipster but it is not a slam much it's an attempt to get people to church. >> stephen: yes, jesus was the original hipster. after all he was into christianity way before it went mainstream. i don't know how i didn't see this sooner, folks. an unemployed 33-year-old who home-brews his own water into wine, and thinks he's god's gift to humanity. that's like every other guy in brooklyn. ( cheers and applause ). and jesus was ironic as it gets. when everyone else went swimming, jesus was like, nah, i'd rather go for a walk. even his death was ironic. sup, romans, yeah, i was dead for a while. but then i got bored, yolo. next i'm no fan of drugs, folks.

they're immoral. hey, drug mules, swallow that hero win without a condom. family values and sadly, folks, there's a new drug threat on the horizon and it's coming from inside the house or possibly the kennel. >> a vet in southern california is advocating the use of medical marijuana for pets. that suffer from chronic conditions. dr. doug kramer, a vet guru, says he believes animals can benefit from the active ingredient h.t.c. in marijuana just the same way that humans do. he says his own dog benefited from the use of medical marijuana. >> stephen: there was a vet who had a dog and bong-o was his name-o. so, a wag of my finger at stoner dogs. jokes,... folks, we can't let

our dogs ride the mary jane train. or else in no time they'll be sleeping all day, eating whatever they find, humping anything that moves... oh, my god, it's too late. that explains why dogs always freak out when someone comes to the door. they're paranoid it's the cops. (dog barking) wait. what's that? (dog barking) lassie, what happened, girl? (dog barking) timmy's fallen down a we will? but you can't save him because you're baked out of your gourd and your friend skinny lou is coming over to watch adult swim? bad girl. we'll be right back.

welcome back, everybody. my guest tonight is the pulitzer-prize winning author of the passage of power about l.b.j.'s prize to the presidency. i haven't finished it yet so nobody tell me how the vietnam war ends. please welcome robert caro. ( cheers and applause ). thank you for coming on. nice to meet you. what an honor. now you are the two-time pulitzer-prize winning historian

who is about to receive the j. anthony lucas prize for nonfiction at columbia university. congratulations for that. ( cheers and applause ). >> thanks. stephen: i've got to get me one of those. now you have spent the last 40 years working on your... would you call it a biography or a history of l.b.j.? >> it's neither its about a man but mostly about political power. how this political genius uses different kinds of political power like the last book of how a president takes over in a time of assassination and becomes president and uses political power in an instant. >> stephen: the entire series of books is called the years of lipped onjohnson. the fourth volume out in paperback right now is the passage of power. this is him as the v.p.? >> as the v.p. and then all of a sudden there's a gunshot in dallas and he's p. >> stephen: okay. why lyndon johnson? what fascinates you about

johnson? what does he have to say to our age now? >> well, what he has to say is what he says to his advisors. as soon as he becomes president he has to make a speech to congress. they say, "don't fight for civil rights. it's a lost cause. you'll never get it through. it's a noble cause but a lost cause. don't fight for it." you know what he says? he said, "what the hell is the presidency for then?" and he sets out to pass... ( applause ) and he sets out to pass civil rights bills, the voting right bills, medication bill, education bill. he changes the country. >> stephen: all those things, medicare, voting rights, civil rights bill, head start, right? all those things -- did this book start off as a series of spooky stories to scare republicans around a camp fire at night? because all of those things are things they'd like to get rid of at this point. >> yes, they certainly would. the thing was the other side,

you know, all these things like head start, we think maybe they failed. but the reason we think they failed, stephen, is that they never got adequately funded because the other side of lyndon johnson was vietnam. he escalated that war until there was not enough money for anything else. >> stephen: in the fog of war, bob mcnamara, secretary of defense robert mcnamara says that kennedy likely would have deescalated that involvement in vietnam. but when johnson came in, the recordings of him saying i know that you and the president were saying that you were going to deescalate that war, i think that was the wrong thing to do. johnson does this to himself, right? he loses his funding for his programs by escalating the vietnam war himself. >> not totally deliberately but that's the way it happened >> stephen: he didn't mean to do it to himself. that was just sort of a 50,000 dead people oopsy daisy. >> well, that's a good way of putting it. >> stephen: very few people would say that.

thank you. i appreciate it. you're very kind. ( applause ) you're very kind. >> you know what he said? he said this bitch of a war is killing the woman i love, the great society. >> stephen: do you think that the great society, those programs, will last long enough for you to write the next book about them? because they are under fire by the american people. they're failed. the great society has failed this country. >> well, people think they've failed >> stephen: i know they've failed. >> well, let me ask you a question. do you really think a poor kid growing up in a housing project without parents or without a father and a mother who is working all day has the same chance to start in kindergarten as a white kid, a white kid whose parents read to him all his youth? doesn't he need help? doesn't he need a head start?

( applause ) >> stephen: first of all, you said as a white kid. okay. that's the problem with the whole '60s ethos of let's help people of different colors because i don't see color, okay. i've evolved beyond racism. i'm not a racist. all right. i don't know whether you're white or black. i assume you're white because you've written four volumes on lyndon johnson. okay. >> (laughing) stephen: teddy roosevelt said walk softly but carry a big stick. johnson was known for his big stick. okay. what did he... he had a nickname for his penis, didn't he? >> i was hoping you wouldn't ask that. >> stephen: you shouldn't have told me. ( cheers and applause ) mr. caro, two-time

pulitzer-prize winning author mr. caro what was the nickname l.b.j. had for his penis is. >> jumbo. he had a great respect for it. when he was president he liked to urinate off the back porch of his ranch. one night a secret serviceman said, mr. president, you want to look out for rattle snakes. he said rattle snakes, it is part rattle snake. >> stephen: mr. caro, on that high note... ( cheers and applause ) robert caro, the book is the passage of power. we'll be right back.