Stephen Colbert

That's right, the Pakistani company Axe Act was selling fake college diplomas, which explains where Bin Laden got his degree in women's studies. Luckily, Pakistani authorities arrested the Axe Act CEO, charging him with illegal money transfers, forgery, and fraud. No doubt he'll represent himself in court. I hear he's got like 20 law degrees. Well, I for one, I'm glad they caught the guy.

Charging people hundreds of thousands of dollars for fake degrees is appalling. I believe that fake college should be free.

It's been too long.

I will tell you, it's it's relaxing for me. That's that's what I want to do on a Saturday afternoon. If I've if I've got a moment and I've got it to myself, especially if there's a farmer's market in town or something like that, I want to go get a. pork belly and just start marinating that or start, you know, you know what? I've got some brioche. I've got eggs.

I've never done an almond bread pudding before. Let's try that with me with the crispy top. Ooh, I'll make a cartouche on the top and sort of steam it in a bain-marie first and I'll take it off. And ooh, what about a bourbon caramel? So like I get and I don't what drives me crazy sometimes is that then I don't eat it.

Right. I love process. I love one thing becoming another thing. Well, it's kind of like doing the show. You get there in the morning and there's, I don't know, maybe nine stories that are generally dominating the conversation over the last 24 hours. We have good pitches on six of them and three of them then dominate the monologue because we've boiled it all down.

We've taken – that's why I like the show Chopped because they take – You have these baskets at the beginning of the show where there's like – you have octopus and licorice and you have smoked salt. Here, make an entree or whatever. That's what doing the show is like. And kind of you have to love process to do a show on a daily basis. And that's related to – food for me.

One thing becomes another thing with a little care, a little love, and a little imagination. And I find it incredibly smoothing. Smoothing. It's also smoothing. It's also bloating. But it's also incredibly soothing to me. And then I'll just try to go give the food away.

I would say often. Well, I'm experimenting. I'm imagining what it's going to be like. Sometimes it doesn't work. Things don't always work out, Terry.

Yeah.

Sure. Iceberg.

Yes. When I was a kid, my, you know, again, 11 kids and also Catholic, so, you know, no meat on Fridays. We had so many Mrs. Paul's or like Gorton's fish sticks. I think it was Mrs. Paul's fish sticks growing up. And my mother, her idea of making you fancy. And I'm sure she saw this too.

the serving suggestion on like on the back of the package with some partnership with Campbell because it would take a can of Campbell's condensed tomato soup and you would just heat up the condensed soup and ladle that over the fish sticks as the sauce.

No, no. No, that's if you're making soup, not if you're making a delicious remoulade.

Oh, exactly. Exactly. I'm a creature of pure sodium by the time I was 10.

But, you know, that also, this is the thing that even I, as a child who just would eat anything you put in front of me, spaghetti with ketchup.

Oh, my God. We got that all the time.

I'm like, I don't understand what's happening. But I would, of course, have to eat it.

And it would be steamed with vinegar.

Seasonally.

I can't speak to your experience because that's your experience, but certainly for the business that I'm in, this is one of the more normative jobs you can have because you know where you're going and you know when you're coming home. And the hours may be long, but at least you can plan your life.

I'm not in Sarajevo shooting Game of Thrones.

Unless they want to cast me. And then to hell with all of this TV stuff. I'm a star.

Oh, that's interesting.

I don't think because our – or I'll just speak for me. I don't think because of who my father was, was I expected to be a model child. I think the same – I mean, first of all, I think we were all 11 children in the family. I think we were all held to the same standard. I think I had a slightly different relationship with my dad than my other brothers and sisters did because I was the last. They –

They used to say, I can't believe dad took you to the carnival. Like, dad hates carnivals. Or I can't believe dad went to the beach with you or something like that. But my father had a sense that, you know, this is his last bite at the apple. And to do those fatherly things with me. Because my father died when I was young. It's not so much I was held to a standard that I had to match him.

It's that when your parent dies when you're young, they become Olympian. Or there's something much larger than life, which of course is how a child sees their parent. But you never get to move beyond that. So as you get older, they also get larger.

So as your view of the world or what you believe is asked of you to be an adult, at least for me, my father inflated ahead of me and became even grander in a way. If there was any standard placed on me, it was placed on me by myself. My mother was not asking me to be a certain person because of who my father was. I did it to myself because of the person I perceived my father to be.

And I actually don't think I'm very far off. I think he was an extraordinary man. But I think that's self-imposed on my part.

And for me, because I wanted to know my father, even though I was robbed that ability to move beyond the childhood view of him, because I wanted to know him, I grabbed onto the little things that I did know about him. For instance, my father's idea of fun was to read philosophy. He really, would enjoy sitting down with Jacques Maritain or Léon Blois or other French Christian humanists.

And so that's what I read. I read a lot of books. I knew that he had lived a life of the mind, so that's what I wanted to do. It was important to be smart. My father was a dean, an assistant dean at Yale Medical when he was 29. He was a full dean at 31. at St. Louis. And so he was this academic superstar, which I never was, but he was this academic superstar and a deep thinker.

And I aspired for that in hopes of knowing him. And often it was religiously based. He was Jesuit educated and my mother and my father both profoundly dedicated to their Catholic faith in different ways. My father more intellectually and my mother more sort of mystically in a way, though she also read a great deal, but more Dorothy Day.

And I think I was most influenced by the little bit I knew that I used as a thread to pull on to try to understand him. Yeah.

This is the God machine.

Sure. Conan was there. Jimmy Fallon was there. Chris Rock was there.

Well, first, if I could just back up just slightly here, I'm willing to talk about my own faith if my guest asks me about it. I don't like to proselytize. And I'll make any jokes about the Catholic Church. You know, I don't – they deserve a lot of them. And I am deeply Catholic in that it is combed into my being, but I don't know how deeply devout I am.

I know people who are really deeply devout and I wouldn't want to – I just don't want to confuse myself with someone who is a very devoted Catholic, a devout, I mean. But I have become friends with Father Jim Martin over the years, who's sort of like the Broadway priest in New York. And he's the editor of America Magazine. And he was the chaplain of the Colbert Report on the old show.

And, you know, we've become dear friends over the years. And he just wrote me one day. I actually got the email right before I went on stage at the Late Show one night saying, hey, the Vatican has asked me to put together a list of like 20 comedians because the pope wants to meet with some comedians. Would you mind helping with that? And I was like, yeah, sure. Sure.

So I put a list together of 40 comedians. They sent me back a list of 15 or 20, something like that. Like they'd made their selects of my selects and with a few of their own. And Jim Gaffigan and I called everybody on the list and we said, hey, we don't really know what this is about, but the Pope wants to meet comedians.

because he thinks that comedians do something valuable in society and he just wants to meet us. Now, I thought we were going to go to Rome and like hang with the Pope. I don't know why I thought that. I thought that maybe we'd like sit there and we'd have coffee or tea with the Pope and he would ask us some questions, then we would get a photo and leave.

It turns out that these were comedians from all over the world. It was like from 60 countries. And the pope had a meeting in the Apostolic Palace with us. There was – I think altogether it was like 110 comedians. And we all didn't know what was going on. And we all sat there and the pope came in and he gave –

A beautiful speech about comedy that we did not understand at all, that we read later, that was about how – Because it was in Italian? It was in solamente in italiano. And it was about how comedy, I think, eases people's day. And it is like the social lubricant.

And it's okay to make fun of God and the church and the pope and all that kind of stuff as long as, like, you do it with a smile and there's some intention to make people feel better. And what struck me was – It's like your philosophy.

Yeah, I would like to think so. And what struck me is that we're in this room, which is about the size of the Sistine Chapel. And it's actually down the hall from the Sistine Chapel. And it's more Rococo than it is, you know, late Renaissance. But it's beautiful. It's like you're in another Sistine Chapel. And we're all sitting there in our Sunday best, as it were, waiting for the pope to come in.

But comedians are all iconoclasts. We're all people who have a pretty jaundiced view of authority. And I know that some of the people there weren't Catholic or weren't meaningfully Catholic, at least by their own description, anymore. And the minute the pope came in, we all leapt to our feet. Like, the iconoclasm went out the door.

We all just leapt to our feet and started applauding and, like, screaming. I thought, wow. That's the effect the Pope has on 110 comedians. Like it was it was it was almost like an autonomic response because you've spent all this. It's like the location. It's the it's the red shoes. It's the white outfit. It's all the it's all like the guys with the sashes around you.

The Pope's gentlemen who all look like butlers and everything. We were all I was sort of shocked that we we all kind of gave into it immediately. Yeah.

I did. I did. I memorized something in Italian. I went up and I said, you know, Sancte Padre, you know, Holy Father, my name is Stephen Colbert, and I am the reciting – I'm the voce recitante. I'm the reciting voice for your memoir, Life, because he had released a memoir of his life in the spring.

And I had gotten a call from my manager to say, baby doll, you're not going to believe who wants you to do their audio book. Right. And I'm like, who? And he goes, just guess. I'm like, I don't know. Barbra Streisand. No. And he goes, the f***ing Pope. And I go, does it pay? And he goes, you better believe. So anyway, so he negotiates with the Vatican for my contract. And I read the Pope.

So I just said, I read your book. You know, I thank so much. I was reciting voice for your book. And he said, ah, I kind of used his hand to guide me to the side. So that was it. That's all I got. It wasn't that. It was very nice. And he gave me a rosary. We all got rosaries blessed by the Pope.

Well, most of the book is comfort food.

There's a lot of butter.

I've got so many in there. It's probably the red rice. You know, growing up on the coast of South Carolina, just anywhere in the South, there's so much red rice. And it has its roots in Jolof rice of West Africa. But it's super... jammy and a little spicy and salty.

And I had it almost every day growing up at Stiles Point Elementary School on Michael Drive on James Island, South Carolina, which is still there. And there were just barrels of it being cooked every day by those lunch ladies. And I never got tired of it. And right before this book, I actually found a way to make it based on an Alison Roman recipe.

that I said, ooh, that sauce she's making for the pasta actually has the flavor I remember as a child from this red rice. And I tried it and it worked. And that discovery of being able to get that flavor back from my childhood, those carefree years is what that rice gives me.

Yes.

And that's what COVID did. We were back there in Charleston on that island with our families, with the people who had taught us to make these recipes. and made these for us when we were children, and with those ingredients from that field and that creek. And it was a terrible time that had in it this gift to us for us to slow down, go home, and remember.

Which we had been so afraid to do, or at least I had been afraid to do, because I was so nervous the first time Evie was on that she wouldn't have a good time. It's actually made it to air, her going, oh, my God, you're trembling. I'm like, I'm afraid this is going to be a bad experience for you because I'm bossy.

And an enormous amount of work, and I just could not be more – I could not have more admiration for the people who do this for a living because we had no idea what a huge undertaking is to do all these books. A lot of detail in a cookbook. Oh, my God. Three years to do this.

You really do. It makes a difference.

Yes, by a lot of people.

Six ways to Sunday. It went through us. We'd make it many times. And then through our niece, Lucy.

Our niece, Lucy Wickman, was fabulous. She helped test it, everything.

And then all of that would go on to Chris Styler, who is a professional test kitchen, essentially. And he would say, is this what it's supposed to look and taste like? And we'd go, no. And then he would say, then you need to rewrite this recipe. Yeah.

I would say often. Well, I'm experimenting.

How does it feel to be sued by a former president for defamation for just doing your job?

The man barked out one appalling claim after another. But don't you worry. the Democrats came ready to fight back with their little paddles, okay? That is how you save democracy, by quietly dissenting or bidding on an antique tea set. It was hard to tell what was going on. I'm just kidding. That was very cool, Democrats. In fact, I made my own sign.

Can anyone here tell me, what would happen to the illegal alien from El Salvador if he came back from the United States? Does anyone here know? Does anyone want to guess? Any of you. He could be with his family. What? Any of you know the answer to the question? Legally, what would happen if he came back here? Does any of you know? Any of you? Do you really believe the Supreme Court?

I'm talking now. Do you really believe the Supreme Court doesn't think he should be retired? Why was it you now? You're done.

The differences are subtle, but really significant. Like when I go get pizza, they ask me, you know, what kind of sauce I want on the pizza, if I want like sweet and sour sauce or Chipotle sauce.

They give it to you and they say, what kind of sauce do you want on it? And I said, what do you mean? I'm from New York, we don't do that.

The night that Trump was elected in 2016, I started looking into becoming a Canadian citizen and I moved here in 2020 full time. I gave up my apartment in Brooklyn, moved to Toronto.

And it's bullshit. You actually did it. So I wrote, I actually did it, becoming Canadian because of Trump. Is that the book where you admit that you killed OJ's wife? No, it's not the, no. It's not? I didn't.

Austria was the first country that Hitler took over when he was expanding. And it was very similar to Germany, the way Canada is similar to the US. And they just kind of absorbed it. And that was the beginning of Hitler's expansion.

I'm not saying at all that Trump is Hitler. He's not. But if Trump is 10% as bad as Hitler, that's bad enough.

I would never, ever in a million years allow my daughter to compete against a biological man.

Even my hat has a hat.

He was a strange dude. I remember he would take a bottle of glue and then he would pour the glue on his arm, let it dry, peel it off, and then eat it.

I was watching the announcement, like everybody else, live on television. And as soon as I saw it, I said, I have to join this campaign.

Our next health story should be of particular interest to our teen viewers. Who suffer from crippling glaucoma. For centuries, marijuana has been used as a self-prescribed remedy for the terminal disease known as being alive. But last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments as to whether state initiatives permitting the drug to be used medicinally violate federal law.

It's a case that figures to settle once and for all the legality of medical marijuana and thereby affect the lives of no fewer than .0001% of American marijuana smokers.

The federal government maintains, however, that marijuana, or as it's known on the street, funny pot cigarettes, is illegal, period, and has severely criticized prescribing the drug to those freewheeling, long-haired, hippie AIDS and cancer patients just trying to score a free high off Uncle Sam. Those people are sick. Seriously, they're sick and they need help.

Robert McGinnis of the Family Research Council has come out strongly against medical marijuana.

Robert McGinnis. Speaking out strongly and poorly against miracle marijuana. Medical marijuana. Which is a miracle. Now, the upcoming Supreme Court debate could even be a hotter button issue than Americans not sleeping enough. That's why it's the subject of tonight's Even Steven. You just made me vomit in my own mouth.

The medical marijuana initiatives in California and New Mexico were approved by the voters solely to help seriously ill patients for whom marijuana offers the only relief from pain. Who could deny an 80-year-old woman a moment of respite from her tortured existence? But I suppose there are a few sick individuals out there who get off on other people suffering, Steven.

This marijuana is medicine, Steven. I'm pro-people, not pro-pot. Oh, come on, Steve.

Steven, just because I support medical marijuana, it's ludicrous to imply that I'm a dope fiend. That's like saying because I support the repeal of the marriage tax penalty that I'm into wife swapping.

Fine. Let's. What you're suggesting about my access to sweet Malaysian skunkweed is just as ridiculous as if I said, hey, Stephen Colbert, why don't you and your wife come over some night this week and we can exchange partners?

You're not listening, Steven. You're in a fantasy world where I smoke pot and could get my hands on some very kind bud. But we would be wife swapping this Friday. Have I made myself clear?

And I'm Steve Carell, and this has been Even Stephen.

I'll be with the people that I love.

In a world where one man loved it.

He's about to get more than he bargained for. I'm pregnant.

The Stephen Colbert trailer commentary. Winner of the coveted bomb door. Suck my... Coming to The Daily Show three minutes ago.

Well, last night in Los Angeles, Academy voters finally answered one of Hollywood's age-old questions.

The answer? Sort of. The action-adventure epic Gladiator took home Best Picture honors at the 73rd Annual Academy Awards. But keep in mind, the direction, screenplay, score, editing, cinematography, set direction, and supporting actor apparently could have been better.

The evening saw no clear winner, as the major awards were split between a handful of films, primarily Traffic, Gladiator, the Chinese language martial arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and to a much, much, much lesser extent, Space Cowboys. Gladiator's Russell Crowe walked away with Best Actor honors, and he had a few people to thank.

He also thanked the riverboat captain, who apparently just dropped him off. As for Best Actress, it came as little surprise that Julia Roberts took home the trophy for her work in Erin Brockovich. You know, interesting side note, the producers imposed a 45-second speech limit, but Ms. Roberts took five minutes. She used it well.

My name starts with R. There's four minutes and 40 more seconds of that. Bon appetit. In keeping with The Daily Show's ongoing commitment to the disabled, we'd like to present a translation of Robert's speech for the hearing impaired.

I learned that from Children of a Lesser God. Like any respectable news organization, we pour unlimited resources into our Oscar coverage. So we're going to take you out live to Los Angeles where chief entertainment correspondent Nancy Walls is still at the shrine standing by on the red carpet. So, Nancy, a big night last night. You had the best seat in the house, I imagine.

Thank you, Nancy, that sounds great. This year's show had a decidedly international flavor, with Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon taking home a cluster of awards. It's safe to say that the Oscar stage has never before seen such a multicultural parade of influences and a wonderful assortment of strange new tongues.

Dylan's satellite performance live from Australia came on the heels of performances by other international superstars, most notably Icelandic pop goddess Björk Gudmundsdottir, acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and Philadelphia 76er center Dikembe Mutombo. He wasn't actually there. I just like saying his name.

Further adding to the international flavor, the Irving Fahlberg Award this year presented to Italy's 81-year-old producing legend, Dino De Laurentiis.

De Laurentiis went way over his time limit because he kept interrupting himself by saying, let's take another look at my wife.

Last night's ceremonies were watched by almost a billion people around the world. It's what makes the Oscars special. Our own European correspondent, Steve Carell, watched the spectacle from war-torn Macedonia, where he is stationed. We have him on the phone live. Steve, are you there? Hello, Steven. What image will you keep with you from last night?

So I take it you didn't get a chance to watch the Oscars.

Thank you, Steve. You be careful over there.

I'll get somebody on that.

Well, there's a sense of increased optimism, but that could be attributed to the Fed's restraint on interest rates. Stephen, I don't mean to interrupt. Who was that? Oh, he goes by the name of the underwriter. You don't want a piece of that, John.

Stewart, hey, Stewart, look, I've heard every single thing that you've been saying about me. I hope, my friend, that you are prepared for a world of hurt.

Mm-hm. How did you interrupt my moment of zen? How? Oh, please, please, Stuart. You know me better than that. I can do anything I want. I am all-powerful. Settle down, Obi-Wan. You're not all-powerful.

Is he... Real, real tough talk, Stuart. Why don't you shut your mouth and bring it, pal, huh?

Well, you know what? It's funny you would mention that because I actually came here to give you an invitation. Really? Yes. How about you show up this Monday night on Monday Night Raw at Newark at the Prudential Center. You got the guts, Stewart.

What are you going to do when John McCain and all his McCainiacs run wild on you?

Well, John, the WWF IPO is creating quite a buzz. Investors are looking for product branding and long-term growth.

Steven, wait, I... Steven, what? Is everything okay down there? It's nothing, John. Some of the Morgan Stanley foreign debt guys are, uh, they're trash-talking.

What? Oh!

On the Sacramento Kings on Monday, the team canceled a planned Lunar New Year promotional giveaway celebrating this, the Year of the Monkey.

Can't say I do, John. There's a fundamental hypocrisy at work here. Our society says if you're 18, you're old enough to vote or to die for your country. If you're old enough to do those things, you're certainly old enough to toss a ball through a basket for enough money to forever skew your view of reality.

If you're old enough to get into a PG-13 movie, you should be allowed to play the hoops.

All right, different example. If the elders of your synagogue pronounce you a man, you're certainly mature enough to play the ball.

John, what do you have against 13-year-olds? I was old enough to be tried as an adult at 13, so don't tell me an 18 or a 19-year-old isn't mature enough for the NBA. You were in a prison at 13. No, no, no, John. I was tried at 13. They never found the weapon, man. It's amazing how far a little cash-a-roo will go in the criminal justice system. Corruption. Here's the point, John.

We need to get these kids in the NBA, because if they're anything like me at that age, they're going to need a lot of cash. Go Wizards!

Shaquille O'Neal, everybody.

I am soft, by the way, but yeah.

Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Yes. Now, they hurl frogs and locusts at you while you're... Exactly.

That was the original. That was the original.

Stephen, happy St. Patrick's Day to you, boy. Sure and begora, my friend. How are you, John? Wow. I didn't even know that was in there.

Thank you very much.

There's a war going on out there. But there's also another battle being fought between the government and the members of the press. How much does the public need to know? Here to answer that question are Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert with Even Stephen.

Now, obviously, the crisis in the Middle East is continuing to dominate the news. Here to bring some much-needed perspective on that situation, our senior pundit team, Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert, with Even Stephen.

Pass!

For more insight on the death tax issue, we turn to resident political pundits Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell with Even Steven.

Guys, I'm sorry. I'm just starting to think that this religion thing, we're not going to settle it in three minutes. So if you could just wrap it up and find some common ground, that would be great.

750.

The run for the Republican nomination has George Bush and John McCain mired in a cesspool of mutual character assassination. Tonight, our two senior pundits go head-to-head on the issue of negative campaigning in Even Steven. Do you think that you're an idiot?

You're debating, and I think you've definitely crossed the line, Stephen, and I don't mean to interrupt, but... Oh, don't you, John?

You know, scholars and historians may well debate Bill Clinton's presidency for centuries, but here to do it in two and a half minutes, our own Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert with Even Steven.

With the recent rejection of two pieces of legislation dear to President Clinton's heart, campaign finance reform and the nuclear test ban treaty, many observers are wondering whether the Republican-controlled Congress is deliberately trying to diminish the president's legacy.

And what better way to understand the issue than to have two pundits of violently opposing viewpoints disagree with each other?

Media punditry. The very words mean almost nothing. With that in mind, two of our senior news analysts square off on the issues we deem important. Once again, Even Steven with Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell. Do you think that you're an idiot?

Okay, okay.

Tragically lost in the hoopla of this year's political campaigns has been Halloween. It's being celebrated tomorrow evening here with their thoughts on this important national holiday. Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert with Even Stephen.

On to more pressing and important issues. The United States Senate is in the middle of a heated battle over legislation calling for a patient's bill of rights. Lost amidst the partisan bickering, however, is how this bill really affects the average American. So here to partisanly bicker over how this bill really affects the average American, Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert, and even Stephen.

When the world's two largest monotheisms learn to accept each other, perhaps live in peace? It's a difficult question. The only way to find an answer is to turn to Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell, and even Stephen.

While Dan Rather has shied away from breaking down the stem cell debate, we here at The Daily Show will do no such thing. Here to shed some much-needed light on the topic, Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell with Even Steven.

Mr. President, thank you for your time. It's interesting that you brought up Harvard because when people think about Harvard, what they're basically talking about is they're asking, what do you say to those who view your actions as an attack on academic freedom rather than a defense of fairness? What do you say to that?

Sorry to interrupt. I'm gonna need to see some ID.

Last year, I defined the concept of wikiality. When Wikipedia becomes our most trusted reference source, reality is just what the majority agrees upon.

Proud Boys USA is here. What's up? What is up? Proud of your boy. Proud Boys.

All right, 2024 has been a great year for Kendrick as he lands on top of the Billboard charts.

Support for Today Explained comes from Thrive Market. Yes, you want to eat healthy food, but in this economy? Thrive Market says they're like your favorite health food store, but online and thus way more affordable. The site is super easy to shop, I'm told.

You can filter by diet, you're gluten-free, you're paleo, you're keto, you're low sugar, you're vegan, so you're not wasting time reading all the labels anymore. They say their shipping is fast and carbon neutral, and when you sign up, they say you get to pick a free gift worth up to $60 with your first order. Our colleague Claire White has tried Thrive Market. I wonder what her gift was.

Here's Claire.

You can skip the junk without overspending. You can head over to thrivemarket.com slash explained to get 30% off your first order and a free $60 gift. That's thrivemarket.com slash explained thrivemarket.com slash explained.