>> john: that's our show. please join us tomorrow night at 11:00. here it is your moment of zen. >> a sweet return announcing that twinkies will be back. >> get out your straws and put them in there and suck out all that creamy stuff. captioning sponsored by comedy central

captioning sponsored by comedy central >> stephen, stephen, stephen, stephen! >> stephen: thank you so much. welcome to the report, everybody. good to have you with us. please, folks, we've got to go. sit down. we've got to do the show because, folks, tonight -- sit down, please. folks, i've got to tell you. tonight, we have a huge story and i don't have to tell you what that is. i'm being told i have to tell you what that is. evidently that is my only job. okay. former n.s.a. analyst and current drone bait edward

snowden has gone missing, folks. that's right. this computer whiz has hit escape, control-alt-deleted himself and has avoided being caps-locked up, f7. jim? >> man on the run. where is n.s.a. leaker edward snowden headed next. >> the high-stakes game of cat apped mouse reaches a fever pitch as spy whistle-blower edward snowden remains on the run. >> edward snowden says catch me if you can. a global game of hide and seek >> stephen: yes, a global game of hide and seek. why did we agree to count all the way to 100? and has anyone checked behind curtains in the living room? now, folks, nobody knows exactly where snowden might be. so far there's just been a lot of irresponsible speculation and i want in on it which brings me to my now running segment

♪ where in the world is edward snow-diego? ♪ [ cheers and applause ] >> stephen: if i get it right, i could win a trip to anywhere in the continental united states. oh, i've always wanted to go to queens. better get my shots. now, for weeks now, folks, it's been believed that snowden has been holed up in hong kong. let me show you. okay. for weeks it's been thought that he's holed up in hong kong but yesterday he boarded a flight to moscow. jimmy? jimmy, is this good?

>> it's an ocean, stephen stephen: okay. is that warmer? >> you're back in hong kong. stephen: anyway, it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter where moscow is because snowden may not even be there. he was supposed to be on a flight this morning from moscow to havana, cuba, but a reporter on the flight tweeted this photo of snowden's empty seat. meaning either he didn't show or he was in the bathroom. after all, he is a known leaker. the truth is, snowden could be anywhere, folks, even right here in had this studio. hold on, wait a second.

jay, are you edward snowden? >> no, i'm jay. stephen: are you sure? you're white and you have glasses. >> so are you. tephen: oh, my god! i might be edward snowden. talk! am me: edward snowden? speak up, god damn it. [bleep]. no! okay. story checks out. folks, my job is not easy, as you can see. but lately my job has been kind of fun. you see, barack obama is engulfed in so many scandals, you almost forget he's black. for my money, his most serious scandal is the i.r.s.'s

targeting of the tea party. well, last week those tea party patriots roared back. >> tea party protesters storming capitol hill. railing against the i.r.s. and the obama administration. >> thousands of supporters gathered outside the capitol to stand up against targeting from the i.r.s. and to push back against big government. >> now it's time for the politicians to listen to all of you. you're here. and you're clear. with your message. >> stephen: that's right. you're here. you're clear. and if you happen to be queer, high muss band runs a camp that can cure you with jesus. luckily, folks, one man is getting to the bottom of this scandal: california representative and mafia tribute face darrell issa who interrogated top officials from the i.r.s.'s cincinatti office in closed-door hearings as he

explained on cnn's state of the crowley. >> what we have are people who come in to transcribe interviews and they're saying under penalty of crimes that certain things are true >> stephen: did you hear that? certain things are true. remember, that's under penalty of crimes which means i believe if they're lying they have to come commit a crime. and that's against the law. and issa presented the hard evidence of what he found. >> the administration is still trying to say there was a few rogue agents in cincinatti when in fact the indication is they directly being ordered from washington. my gut tells me that too many people knew that this wrongdoing was going on. >> stephen: yeah, my gut tells me the same thing. i mean this can't just be cincinatti. remember the old saying: what happens in cincinatti, nothing happens in cincinatti.

and that's what issa said. but he refused to release the full transcripts for a very good reason which he also refused to release. but on on tuesday, congressman elijah cummings released the full transcript to the press. and it proved conclusively that issa was right. to not want the transcript released. jim? >> a cincinatti-based i.r.s. manager who describes himself as a conservative republican told congressional investigators there was no evidence that the white house was involved in targeting conservative groups. >> stephen: god damn it. so this scandal is not connected to obama. i don't want to hear that. i want to hear tonight's word. [ cheers and applause ] truthinews.

nation, listen. i don't know about you, but i do not watch the news to see what i don't want to hear. and i shouldn't have to. these days there's a news channel for everyone: conservatives have fox. liberals have msnbc, and the elderly who lost the remote in 1988 have headline news. now, cable networks have one cardinal rule. that rule is to tell their viewers what they want to hear. speaking of which, tune in tomorrow for my special report "have you lost weight?" and, folks, television news isn't only saying what you want to hear. they're letting you hear you say it. >> we want to hear from you. 'd love to hear from you via twitter. >> we want to know what you think. >> don't for gfer get to vote. here's your chance to help us create a food lovers map of the

world. >> we did a bill o'reilly dot-com poll but it does indicate what my viewers believe. 75% of them said factor was fair in its coverage. >> twitter online and then we'll figure it out tomorrow >> stephen: just like anchorman walter cronkite used to say: and that's the way i think it was. i don't know. we'll figure it out tomorrow. the point is cable news is increasingly putting the "me" in media. especially the good folks over at cnn. on the same day that the full i.r.s. deposition transcript clearing obama was released, cnn's headline read "shifting i.r.s. polls contradict key deposition." take that. key deposition. cnn has the poll. a poll that says half of americans think obama did it anyway. now, folks, years ago i gave you something called truthiness, ignoring what the facts say and instead going with what feels

right in your gut. well, you know what happens? folks, you know what happens when you put a bunch of those guts together? i'll tell you what happens. what happens is you turn truthiness into truthinews. with truthinews, cable news networks have only one obligation. their obligation is to report whatever the american people already think. if only truthinews were around in the last century we could have seen great headlines like dewey defeats truman? you tell us. and 63% believe titanic is still unsinkable. luckily, now truthinews is here to usher in a new standard of broadcasting. first, we ask you what you think the news is. then report that news you told

us back to you. then take an instant twitter poll to see if you feel informed by yourself which we will read on the air until we reach that golden day when we are so responsive to our viewers that cable news is nothing but a mirror, a logo and a news crawl. and that's the word. we'll be right back. dtwc

>> stephen: welcome back, everybody. thanks so much. folks, you know, if you keep up on the daily news like i do, we all know that the news is filled with depressing stories of crime, war and death. it's everywhere you look.

last weekend's food section had a recipe for genocide by chocolate. and it's so rich it violates article two of the godiva convention. that's why from time to time i like to bring you the news from the sunny side of the street. this is tiny triumphs. [ cheers and applause ] folks, when it comes to the ku klux klan, i am no fu flux fan. for one thing, white after labor day? no. that is a hate crime against fashion. but yesterday i saw a story that made me realize that today's k.k. is not your father's klan. and yes, i'm implying your father was in the klan. jim? >> we have seen death rays in science fiction movies. but the f.b.i. chargedded two upstate new york men, eric

feight and glen crawford, a self-described engineer and klan member with building a workable death ray. >> stephen: yes, the klan has a workable death ray which means i can finally use this graphic i had made six years ago ago. >> laser klan! [ cheers and applause ] >> stephen: i had it made for when george lucas was here. he asked me not to use it for some reason. now, nation, i don't want to sensationalize this story but... >> laser klan ♪ stephen: it was an spencive graphic.

i need to show it as much as i can. nation, the most amazing thing about this technological breakthrough in racism is that it might have actually worked. >> the murderer's plan allegedly called for attaching an industrial grade x-ray machine to a specially designed triggering device stored in a truck. the weapon would be mobile shooting concentrated doses of radiation on unsuspecting targets who would die within two weeks. >> stephen: yes, the only other way to inflict your target with a dose of raid that deadly to call them on their cell phone. now i'm not sure how authorities uncovered the klan's radiation can none, but they might have been tipped off by their new robes. now, folks, don't get me wrong. these guys are deranged lunatics who have no place in society. but as with every ku klux klan death ray story i encounter, i

believe you've got to look on the bright side. we may think of these guys as back woods, racist hatemongers but it turns out that some of them are urban, enlightened hatemongers because they offered this weapon to jewish organizations to kill muslims and other enemies of israel. folks, i believe this is what martin luther king was talking about when he dreamt of a day when people of all creeds and colors could sit together at the table of brotherhood to discuss microwaving arabs. but it is a little embarrassing for me because i never thought these ignorant bigots could ever be smart enough to build a death ray. it turns out i was just blinded by my own prejudiced. i judged these klansmen on the color of their robes and not on the content of their radioactive murder machine. and for that, i must take a moment right now to say, can you clucks clan, i apologize.

i can't imagine that anyone could ever take that out of context. we'll be right back.

>> stephen: thank you very much. welcome back, everybody. my guest tonight has a new book called "far from the tree." the kindle edition has never even touched a tree. please welcome andrew solomon. [ cheers and applause ] andrew solomon, thanks for coming on. >> thank you stephen: all right, sir. you are a writer and a lecturer on politics and culture and psychology. the author of the noon day deem

onwhich won the national book award. good for you. >> thank you. stephen: your new book is called far from the tree. parents, children and the search for identity. all right. who is looking for their identity here? the parents or the kids? >> they're all looking for their identity. >> stephen: but i've got kids. i know who i am. i'm stephen colbert. >> the story of the book is that parents have children thinking what they're going to do is reproduce themselves >> stephen: it's called reproduction. >> indeed stephen: have you tried it? very gratifying. i have. yes, i have. highly pleasurable. but everyone... >> stephen: go ahead, yeah. the reality is that you have kids, and they turn out to be full of surprises and full of differences. i have yet to meet anyone who has not occasionally looked at their child and said, where did you come from? >> stephen: what are you talking'. >> the question all parents ask their children.

i figure out how parents respond to having children who are dramatically different. parents with down syndrome or schizophrenia, parents of criminal, parents of people who are transgendered and of prodigies who are also quite overwhelmed >> stephen: you're dealing with some heavy stuff in this. you're dealing with heavy stuff. >> but i have to say all of these stories which appear to be so full of darkness ended up being stories that have an awful lot of light in them >> stephen: a lot of hope in here and there are parents responding in really beautiful ways to the challenges posed by children they didn't expect. hiding it from my kids so they don't see what the standard is. >> i'm hiding it from my kids too >> stephen: why do you say exceptional? why exceptional? some of these kids you would have just called special. of. >> we're trying to come up with terms all the time to define them. what is the word that conveys both this is really difficult

and not what i wanted and this became the joy of my life. >> stephen: were you an exceptional child? >> i am. stephen: are you a schizophrenic or anything like that? i see no obvious exception. >> schizophrenia hasn't surfaced yet but i'm the gay child of straight parents. that threw up some challenges for my parents. i remember when i was a kid and we went to a shoe store and the salesman said at the end of our little talk that my brother and i could each have a balloon. my brother wanted a red balloon and i wanted a pink balloon. my mother said i think you'd really rather have a blue balloon. i said i wanted the pink one. she said that my favorite color was blue. now my favorite color is blue and i'm still gay. [ cheers and applause ] >> stephen: people who have exceptional children sometimes say to people who just had

exceptional children welcome to holland. what does that mean. >> there's an essay written by a writer for sesame street in which she said that the experience of having a disabled child is like planning a trip to italy, learning the language, getting the guide books, making the reservations getting on the plane and being told we're landing in holland. you can imagine the dutch aren't so crazy about this comparison. but her idea... >> stephen: they're so... they're exceptional this their own way. >> exactly. stephen: so you go to holland and then what happens? >> it's not what she says. you get to holland and think i want to go to italy. all my friends are going to italy. but you haven't landed in a terrible place. you've landed in a country that has tulips and windmills. it even has recommend brants. she said the experience of having a disabled child is not what you were looking for but it is ultimately something in which there are rewards. i would think of someone i got to know who said the enterment

of a son who had died tragically. let me bury here the rage i fel to have been twice robbed once as a child i wanted and once the son i love. >> stephen: thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. stephen: the book is "far from the tree." andrew solomon. -x