On Thursday’s episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen interviewed a congressman, talked about Putin and interviewed Philip Mudd

Stephen began the program by discussing Russian President Vladimir Putin and how his words made him angry. Putin wrote an anti-American opinions article in The New York Times. The Drudge Report ran a picture with their article about Putin. The picture was a promo shot from The Colbert Report which replaced Stephen’s head for Putin.

Stephen joked about how Putin had a long history of stealing his photos. He then stated that he didn’t have time to talk about his anger so he stored it in a blue cooler.

Stephen then told the viewers to get a number two pencil and a sheet of paper to prepare for a pop quiz. He discussed the two stars of Hello Dolly. This was a lead in to discuss Stephen’s ‘Better Know a District’ segment. In this episode, he chose a district in Washington state.

The district he chose was the seventh district, home to Seattle. The city averages 140 rainy days a year and, as Stephen commented, “226 cloudy days a year, so don’t forget to also pack a noose.”

Starbucks opened its first coffee shop in Seattle in 1971. Stephen interviewed the democratic congressman representing the seventh district, Jim McDermott.

The congressman stated that the seventh district was an interesting place because it has drawn people from all over the country.

Stephen noted that Sir Mix-a-Lot was from Seattle. He asked the congressman if he liked big butts. He continued by reading lyrics from ‘I Like Big Butts’ and phrasing it as questions. The congressman does not like big butts.

Congressman McDermott is famous for refusing to say “under God” during the pledge on the floor of the House of Representatives. He said that the problem with the pledge is that it leaves the American people to wonder which God that they were praying to. Stephen disagreed.

The congressman said that he believed in freedom of religion and allowing people to worship whomever they wanted. Stephen said he agreed with the fact that people should be free to “worship Jesus in any way they want.”

After revealing that Congressman McDermott used to be a psychiatrist, Stephen asked if he enjoyed working with the mentally disturbed or if he would rather go back to being a psychiatrist.

Congressman McDermott famously drafted legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which has now been repealed. Stephen congratulated him on “ruining marriage.” Stephen asked if the congressman was gay married and he said no.

After asking repeated questions on the congressman’s sexuality, Stephen then said that, in order to prove that he didn’t hate gay people, that the two needed to make out.

After Congressman McDermott rejected the idea, Stephen asked if he thought he was fat. And the congressman was awkward. Stephen then threw salmon with the congressman. Cool.

Stephen opened up his rage cooler and discussed the topic of Putin’s opinion article with The New York Times. He shamed the paper for letting Putin publish “propaganda” and assumed Putin was only writing to fill in for Maureen Dowd.

Stephen told The New York Times that Putin killed journalists and, in the United States, “we don’t kill journalists, we simply make them starve in a dying industry. “ He then parodied the paper’s use of Putin’s article by pretending that they used to let other world leaders post in the paper.

He broke down Putin’s article and said how terrible it was.

Stephen interviewed Philip Mudd about his book, “Takedown: Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda.” They began with Mudd talking about the changes in the Al Qaeda over the past few years but when Stephen asked about Homeland, Mudd was not amused.

Mudd said that he didn’t own a TV and told Stephen that he enjoyed books. The two got into a tiny argument. I’m a twenty-something girl, so, to me, it was ‘side-shade.’ But when Stephen noticed that his guest was getting unhappy, he switched the subject to Syria.

Because, who doesn’t like to hear about Syria?

It was a decent episode of Colbert, though his overuse of gay jokes in the ‘Better Know a District’ got a little old. His interview with Mudd was really awkward but it seemed to workout after they stopped talking about TV.