Colbert Doubles Down on Comey’s ‘86’ Reference to Food Service: I Was a Bartender, You Would ‘86’ a Drunk Customer

COLBERT: “It has been a bit. The world has changed a bit since the last time you and I spoke. Last time you were here for your book, talking about your own experience in the FBI and in law enforcement, the Justice Department, leading up to you being fired by the president, eventually being played by Jeff Daniels in the book (sic) of the same name. You’ve got a new book. We will get to this in a second, but the new book is a novel, a crime novel called ‘FDR Drive.’ There it is right there. You stirred up a little controversy recently. I was going to say you landed in some hot water, but it’s not hot water, it’s just water. I don’t know if you do this on purpose just to get attention but you — is this Instagram?”
Comey: “Instagram, yeah.”
COLBERT: “You ‘grammed this. You were walking down the beach. What happened? You were ealking on the beach and you saw this on the beach?”
Comey: “Yeah, my wife and I, Patrice, we were walking on the beach and saw those numbers and shells on the beach.”
COLBERT: “You didn’t do this. Somebody else did this.”
Comey: “Yeah, somebody else did it. We were on a walk preparing for this week, the rollout of my book. She looked at it and said, ‘Why did someone put their address in the sand?’
(Laughter)
We stood at it — looked at it, trying to figure out what it was, and she had long been a server in restaurants and she said, ‘You know what I think it is? I think it’s a reference to restaurants when you would 86 something in a restaurant.’”
COLBERT: “Like off the menu.”
Comey: “Yeah. I said, ‘No, I remember when I was a kid, you would say 86 to get out of a place. ‘This place stinks, let’s 86 it.’”
COLBERT: “I was a bartender, you would 86 a customer if they were getting drunk. Like, ‘Let’s 86 them, give them a low-proof alcohol or something like that.’ Yeah.”
Comey: “So I said, I think it’s a clever political message. She said, ‘You should take a picture of it.’ I said, ‘Sure.’ And then she said, ‘You should Instagram that.’ And boom.”
(Laughter)
(Cheering and Applause)
COLBERT: “Well, the president does not think it was clever. He said, ‘A child knows what that meant. That meant assassination.’ They said, like, the Secret Service is going to call you. Have you been called by federal authorities?”
Comey: “Yeah. It doesn’t mean that to this child of God, but I saw that he said that. The Secret Service called me that night. I talked to a duty agent and then they asked me if I would come and be interviewed, and I said, ‘Of course.’ So I went and met with them and I said, told them like this interview, and I hope and expect that’s the end of it.”
COLBERT: “Like this interview? Is this like talking to a Secret Service agent?
(Laughter)
I’ve got to back off of my guests if I feel that federal to them. Did they explain why 86 47 was so bad? It’s better than 69 47. What did they say? Did they say, ‘We get it, go home?’”
Comey: “All they did was act like pros, and they are pros, just said, ‘What did you intend? What did you understand? Why did you do this?’ And I gave them the same explanation, which is the truth, and I would expect it to go away.”
COLBERT: “Okay. Well, congratulations on the attention. There you go. That is a hell of a viral campaign.”