>> stephen: yeah. >> >> what kind of a guy is he? >> stephen: often shirtless. don't you think it would have been braver of obama and shown more leadership if he had just chosen to be gay for two weeks and gone over there himself? (laughter) >> i don't think that's being true to yourself. >> stephen: but you agree it's a choice? >> a choice? no. >> stephen: it's not? okay. >> no i do not think that. >> stephen: you haven't read the science lately on that. >> oh, i hear people say it's a choice. >> stephen: i hope you heard me just say it just now. >> well, you've had a choice and you're straight. >> stephen: oh, i had plenty of opportunity to gay, baby! (laughter) i had my pick of the litter. that i believe's what they call a group of gay men, a litter of gay men. you have >> you have those twinkley brown eyes. i bet they did pretty well, yeah. >> stephen: i'm working my magic on you. >> you are working the magic. >> stephen: it was said -- it has been said and i think you've admitted that you have been chosen specifically because not only are you a great athlet

thank you. >> stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! >> whooo! whooo! (cheers and applause) >> stephen: folks, thank you so much. thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. as you know, if you watch the show you know i am a huge fan of the heroes that work at the nsa. they have kept america safe. in fact, thanks to them so far there has never been another september 11th, 250 o 1. so believe me, check your calendars. a recent study by the nonpartisan new america foundation backs me up. >> a new analysis of 225 individuals link to al qaeda and charged with terrorism since september 11th says nsa surveillance programs quote had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism. >> stephen: see? (laughter) i don't understand what people like edward snowden are so mad about. he's violating everyone's privacy really that bad if it doesn't even work? (laughter) besides, it does not have to work. it just has to feel like it's working. because if what director of national intelligence james clapper calls the peace of

stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! (cheers and applause) >> stephen: good to have you with us. folks, welcome, welcome one and all. ladies and gentlemen. as you request tell by the energy in this room we are in night three of my superb owl coverage and i am pumped for sunday's big game which to me is football christmas. every year i put out a plate of buffalo wings and ranch dressing in the hopes that tarree bradshaw will come down my chimney. it hasn't happened yet. but i still ready to go ready to go believe, terry! (laughter) with the big game just a few days away america is running out of time to desid which tell they pretended to have liked all along. and folks we've had a lot of fun here at the report. it has been a great week of football guests, analysis and nonlegally analysis of sin mom-- sin nons for the big game. i have really grown to love the old split cow hide as no one calls it (laughter) >> but i think perhaps i'm most emotional about the journey i have taken toward becoming a

thank you so much. >> stephen! stephen! stephen! stephen!tephen. >> stephen: thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. thank you so much for being here, in here, out there. ( cheers and applause ). ladies and gentlemen, colbert nation, one and all, it is the final night of my epic, superb owl coverage. ( cheers and applause ). i'm proud to say, folks, i am proud to say it has brought a lot of new viewers to the show-- mainly owls. at least now someone is watching our 1 a.m. rerun. folks, i'm afraid what i learned this week isn't all sunshine and rainbows because there's an ominous cloud wafting over football. >> a new push to allow medicinal marijuana use in the nfl. >> should the nfl reexamine its marijuana policy? >> we're willing to take a look at medical marijuana if there is proof that it could help some of our players, i think that's something that we should explore. >> stephen: you can't have marijuana in football. no! those players will be so high, they'll foor get to take their percocet. ( cheers and applause ) and folks, folks-- ( c

(cheers and applause) if every -- >> stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! thank you, ladies and gentlemen. let's get to the big story. everybody's talking about it, new jersey governor and future former republican front-runner chris christie is embroiled in a scandal with a side of imbroglio, recently released e-mails reveal high level christie staffers deliberately snarled traffic last september on the busiest bridge in the world, the george washington bridge, named of course, for one of our founding fathers, george w bridge. port authority officials shut down two of the three access lanes in the town of fort lee, new jersey, claiming it was a a traffic study but in fact it was political payback against the town's mayor who refused to endorse christie's re-election bid. critics are blasting the move as petty and unpresidential. >> without does stuff like this. >> it certainly seems petty. >> it seems to petty, so petty. >> i do think that all of that makes him look smaller. >> and that is the first time anyone has ever said that

stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! >> thank you so much. thank you so much. ladies and gentlemen, you are watching the cole bert report and i certainly hope that you are. you know that i love ranking things in lists. in fact, i say lists ranking ranks as my number four passion. right after two fingers of bourbon and three fingers of bourbon. now of course among rankophiles the cream de la cream de la crop is the american customer satisfaction index which ranks customer satisfaction among 190 major brands. is the most trusted ranking of corporate likability next to people magazine's sexiest corporation alive. (laughter) wouldn't mind sprinkling some brown sugar on that. now according to the acsi this year's top customer satisfier was mercedes-benz, the cadillac of cars. so congratulations on the extra effort, mercedes, which of course was a complete waste. because bloomberg business week crunched the data this week comparing the satisfaction ranks with each company's stock price and found that customer service scores have no relevance to stock market returns.

time travel does not exist. >> not so fast stephen colbert. >> stephen: who are you? >> i'm the time traveling brandy thief. i have appeared on your show in the past. [laughter] >> stephen: great. in the past. that's impossible. >> oh, is it. then where did i get this newspaper dated yesterday. >> stephen: oh my god. so you're tell meek tha tellingl does exist. >> i think you'll find the answer in the bottle of brandy under your desk. >> stephen: there's a bottle of brandy under my desk. >> not anymore, ha ha ha. >> stephen: brandy thief. >> while we're at it colbert, is this your car. >> stephen: i never picked a card. >> pick a card. oh my god. it is. [applause] >> you see stephen what you failed is a study disproved time travel may have done the opposite. >> stephen: are you suggesting we may all be time travelers, that the present is in fact just a future of people riding the time stream from the past? >> uh, yes, yes. maybe i don't know. i'm getting a little confused about whose from the future and whose not. what year is it? >> stephen: 2014. >> thank god, i jus

. >> stephen, stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, steveen, stephen! >> thank you, ladies and gentlemen, good to have you with us. in here, out there, all around the world, stuff. you watch the show. i certainly hope that you do. because you one thing i said over and over again is that i love west virginia. it is my favorite of the directional virginias. step it up, eastern south. that's right, folks. i was so concerned when the liberal media made a big stink out of a merely large stink. jim? >> some 300,000 people in west virginia are facing now a fifth day without tap water after a chemical spill contaminated their water supply. >> the only appropriate use is toilet flushing. so flushing your commode would be appropriate but don't make baby formula with it, don't brush your teeth with it, don't wash with it, don't shower with it. >> a group of west virginiaians whont who can't shower, brush their teeth or feed their babies, you've got your next hit. folks, the leak's toxin is something called 4 4-methylcyclohexane methanol

>> (laughs). >> stephen: shut up! >> sorry! >> stephen: you seem like a lot of fun.ere kids, happy halloween. here's your apple!" >> (laughs) or maybe you need a burst of energy and the sugar gives you the energy, which means you could have a cup of coffee. that would do just as well and you can replace that cookie habit with a coffee habit. in my case it turned out when i was going up to the cafeteria to get a cookie that's when i saw my friends from the "new york times" and we would talk and gossip. the socialization was the reward driving the habit. >> stephen: so you didn't even know that was what was driving -- >> i had no idea. >> stephen: i don't like this theory and i'll tell you what. i'm sure it's a great book and everyone should buy it, but every moment of my life is a moment of clarity and choice. i'm not one of the mindless jellyfish being pulled along in the tide of human affairs. i wake up in the morning. i say to my heart "continue beating." (laughter) every moment of my life is a choice because god gave me free will. it sounds like anti-free will. bu

stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! >> thank you ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much. (cheers and applause) good to have you with us, ladies and gentlemen. let me be the first to say happy new year. and of course ladies and gentlemen-- merry christmas. okay? merry christmas, folks. it's never too late or too early. (laughter) good to have you with us, folks. and by with us i mean still living. because 2014 is all to a frigid start, folks. it was so cold on new year's eve that the ball went back up. it happens. it happens, now folks, if you are listening to the sound of my voice, first of all open your eyes. now if you are listening and watching from anywhere east of seattle, washington, i hope you walked your windows, stocked your soup cupboard and put that to obese relative to slice open and call inside. because this is no ode cold snap this is a monster. >> this is essentially a hurricane t swirls and it swirls at a hundred miles an hour that is our polar vor wex opinions polar vortex. >> polar vortex. >> yeah, po

, how are you. >> i'm doing well. >> stephen: you're that guy i like. >> oh, good. >> stephen: i love your movies, man. >> thank you, thank you. >> stephen: i love your movie, i love new those movies. >> yeah, well i tend to be in the movies that i'm in, so. >> stephen: but i like new those movies. >> i ten to be in the movies that you like that i am in. >> stephen: i understand. but here is what i don't get about actors, does that mean i like you? >> i done know. >> stephen: all right. something about marry, tropic thunder, okay. >> those are the two. >> stephen: now, but right up there, man, right up there. but now you've got this secret life of walter hitty. >> that's right, yes. >> stephen: this is a beautiful movie. >> thank you, thank you. >> stephen: a little clip here. >> let's see, i bathed in arctic mountain water. >> i'm walter hitty. >> cheryl, millhoff. >> where have you been. >> testing the limits of the human experience. >> perhaps i can contact you, possibly through my-- poetry falcon. >> poetry falcon, i like that (cheers and applause) >> stephen: yeah, those guys a m

stephen: spoiler alert. left out the spoils your mood. >> ya, i mean the -- the, it's a funny book in a way. >> stephen: hilarious. hilarious. is it your favorite hemingway? his greatest book. >> i think this and then the short stories called the "nick adams stories." it's autobiographical. they take a character, nick, from his boyhood through world war i. >> stephen: i read that "old man in the sea" that's super short. did i a book report in sixth grade. >> how did you do? stephen: i got an "a." i don't want to brag. in that book, you know there is an old man. there is the sea. >> ya. stephen: is frederick the old man, you know in this book, and is kathryn her name begins with a "c." is she the sea? is there a parallel or is she the marlin? >> i -- you know that's hard to make a connection between these two books. >> stephen: i did it i did it twice. i should of been the guest on this show. michael, thank you so much for joining me. michael chabon, the book is "telegraph avenue" we will be right back. [chee

stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! >> thank you, ladies and gentlemen. thanks so much. you know, folks, thank you for watching the show. >>. >> stephen: i don't think i have to tell anybody what this show is all about. but i know as an american it is every citizen's duty to fight for freedom. that's why i have been so inspired by the rag tag group of rebels in the ukraine. which is attempting to break long-standing political ties with the russia. now both of these countries are some of our most important trading partners as they contain the world's largest tragic reserves of alcoholism. now i got to tell you, truth be told, i'm not entirely clear on who these rebels are or where the ukraine is. but folks, i do know i am on their side. because let's face it, nobody rriots like the slob. first of all let's just talk courage. look at this priest, right in front of the thick of the action holding up a cross. i'm not sure which side has the vampires but that's kind of cool. (laughter) and the protestors have got some balls. even though they are outmanned and

stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! (cheers and applause) >> stephen: ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much. oh, oh, you can tell these people-- thank you, folks. let me-- folks, i got a very important question to ask every single person in here and watching out there in america and around the world. are you ready for some foot and ball! (cheers and applause) >> stephen: i don't blame folks, because this year they are playing the game right here in the heart of new york city, east rutherford, new jersey. that's right. the excellent contest of top yardage is coming to my home turf and i cannot wait until the best team from one side meets the best team from another side. and runs to the most points of victory. (applause) i can hear you. folks, i can hear you out there. i'm sure some of you may be asking, you may be asking, stephen, why are you talking so vaguely about this sunday's tight man pants clash. (laughter) well, greg, it's because despite my love of america's pastime, the nfl is notoriously let i believe us to

. >> stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! (cheers and applause) it came to pass, sit down, everybody. it came to pass, the people cried out for freedom and it was my name. nation, you watch this show, i have always said that america is the greatest, best country god ever gave man on the face of this earth. under god indivisible like a rock it gives you wings, usa, number one. this is why frankly i'm disgusted that at bomba administration and usa tourism have teamed up to beg for the world's approval in this new ad ♪ land of dream ♪ ♪ dom and find your land of dream ♪ ♪ come and find your land of dreams ♪ ♪. >> multiracial band,hindu festivals, what kind of ad for america is that? where are the toddler pga epteds, where are the guns, where is the lap band surgery? (cheers and applause) great campaign, obama. when i'm pushing my way through times square i always think why can't we have more drunk euro teens taking photos with a crusty bootleg elmo? besides, america does not need a commercial. it makes us seem desperate like jam

stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! (cheers and applause) folks, i think i know the answer to your questions already. folks, i certainly hope all of you had a great weekend. i for one am still recovering from yesterday's nfl play-off action. i watched so much football yesterday i got a contact concussion. but now we know who's going to the big show, the big dance, the rodeo mass grande t will feature nfc champ the seattle sadbirds versus the afc champs the dep ver horse goats, who last night defeated the new england space kites-- new england could not denver's bold strategy of scoring more points. what a performance by peyton manning, the denver's qb or quick boy, boom. this season has a league record for screaming the word only what. >> . only aha!, only aha!, only a-- omaha. >> every time he said that yesterday a group of companies in o ma what nbc doity thatted $800 to manning he foundation for at risk youth. he said it 31 times. that is $24,800. >> stephen: folks, it was worth every penny to omaha businesses because