How bad was Samantha Bee’s hateful attack on Ivanka Trump? Even the journalists at CNN condemned it as “disgusting,” “incredibly offensive” and “vulgar.” On Wednesday night, the TBS talk show host spewed sexist venom at Trump, excoriating the “feckless cunt.”
Host Poppy Harlow began Thursday’s CNN Newsroom segment by playing a clip of Bee yelling: “Do something about your dad's immigration practices, you feckless cunt!” (TBS bleeped the actual word.) An appalled Harlow accurately described this as “way over the line” and “incredibly offensive.”
Media reporter Oliver Darcy agreed: “It was a really disgusting remark.... This comment is extremely crass and critics are rightfully upset.” Refreshingly, both Darcy and Harlow brought up the contrast to Roseanne Barr's awful remarks and her (very justified) firing:
This does come in the same week as Roseanne being fired for making racist remark. So, critics are saying, you know, “If you’re going to condemn that, why aren’t you condemning this?"
Darcy contacted TBS for a response:
I reached out to TBS. TBS hasn’t said anything so far. We’re still waiting for a comment from them. I asked if she'll be disciplined in any way, or if there’s going to be any statements. So, we're still waiting to see what happens and how they react.
How will TBS respond? Does the station believe it’s okay to call a woman a “cunt” just because you disagree with her father? Given how notoriously anti-Trump CNN is, consider just how bad Bee’s remarks must sound in order to get the above response.
A transcript is below. Click "expand" to read more.
CNN Newsroom
5/31/18
10:49
POPPY HARLOW: Way over the line. Comedian Samantha Bee going after Ivanka Trump using an extremely vulgar term. Listen to this.
SAMANTHA BEE: Let me just say, one mother to another, do something about your dad's immigration practices, you feckless [ bleep ]! He listens to you.
HARLOW: That's the c-word, incredibly offensive. Let me bring in CNN money senior media reporter Oliver Darcy. So, set the stage for us here. It’s never okay to say something like that about someone. What was she even talking about? What was the context here?
OLIVER DARCY: Yeah. It was a really disgusting remark. She made this in the context of trying to go after Ivanka Trump for her father's immigration policies and there has been a lot of discussion in the national discourse over the past few weeks about children being separated from their parents at the border. And so she was making a comment about a photo that Ivanka Trump had posted on Instagram, I believe, where she was holding her child and saying, “Why don't you do anything about the immigration policies that your father has implemented that are tearing up families at the border?” That being said, obviously, this comment is extremely crass and critics are rightfully upset and saying that this is not something that should be used while discussing politics and —
HARLOW: Ever.
DARCY: Right.
HARLOW: What is TBS saying? Her employer?
DARCY: I reached out to TBS. TBS hasn’t said anything so far. We’re still waiting for a comment from them. I asked if she'll be disciplined in any way, or if there’s going to be any statements. So, we're still waiting to see what happens and how they react. This does come in the same week as Roseanne being fired for making racist remark. So, critics are saying, you know, “If you’re going to condemn that, why aren’t you condemning this?
HARLOW: The point she was trying to make completely gets drowned out by her using a term like that.
DARCY: Right. All the headlines are focused on this vulgar term she used. I'm not really sure how effective this was. If she was trying to make a larger point about immigration policies and trying to make a serious point. Right? Because people are now focusing on this vulgar remark. That said, people are now talking about it. I think that might have been perhaps something she was looking for.
HARLOW: She used this word before. Talking about other people and other commentaries?
DARCY: She has used this word before in her monologue. So it is not something that is unusual for her to do. I think the way she used it, though, in this case, particularly, against the President's daughter is just raising a lot of eyebrows and it is —
HARLOW: Do you feel like as someone who covers the media, constantly, where have the lines gone?
DARCY: I think, you know, there really don't seem to be many lines these days. I think we saw with Roseanne. Obviously, you can't make racist remarks online.
HARLOW: Thing is, she did it before and kept her job.
DARCY: Yeah. So it is like where are the lines? The President made a lot of inflammatory remarks from the campaign trail to the Oval Office. So it seems like a lot of these areas are dissolving.
HARLOW: You know what? What one person says never makes what another person says okay. But it’s important reporting. Thank you.
