Offline with Jon Favreau - Samantha Bee on Laughing at our Political Hellscape

Episode Date: April 3, 2022

Today, Jon is joined by Samantha Bee. Previously The Daily Show’s longest-ever correspondent and now host of the Emmy-award winning Full Frontal on TBS, Sam Bee has been talking politics — and cracking jokes — since the early years of the Bush administration. She joins Jon to talk about how she’s burned out from our worsening political discourse and offer some motherly advice for future Oscars attendees.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

we are headed into another midterm season uh we'll be talking about it i know you guys will be talking about it how do you personally keep doing this show without getting burned out by politics i'm definitely burned out by politics i'm sorry there's like i'm definitely burned out i hate everyone everyone's bad there's no there's there secret. I mean, everyone's terrible. That's all I can really bring to it. I don't want to talk about it anymore. You are in the wrong line of business. I'm in the wrong line of business for sure. I'm Jon Favreau. Welcome to Offline. Hey, everyone. My guest today is Samantha Bee, the Emmy Award-winning host of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee on TBS. Most of you are probably familiar with Sam Bee.

Before Full Frontal, she was the longest-serving correspondent on The Daily Show, which she joined in 2003. That was the same year I joined my first presidential campaign. So the two of us have had front row seats from slightly different perspectives as to how the internet has transformed the media, our politics, and the way we talk and laugh about both. I've always thought that Sam, Jon Stewart, and the entire Daily Show cast delivered not just the funniest media criticism, but the smartest. It's part of what inspired us to start Crooked Media in the first place. So I wanted to ask Sam about what she thinks has changed over the years. Basically, why everything that we thought was bad about media and politics in the early 2000s has become so much

worse. And even though we booked her a while back, when I watched the internet explode over a comedian getting slapped at the Oscars for telling an offensive joke, it wasn't lost on me that I'd soon be talking to a comedian for this show. One who's even told a joke that led to the kind of online outrage cycle we've become way too familiar with. What followed was a hilarious conversation with Sam about burnout from covering politics, our disdain for cable news, her now infamous Ivanka Trump joke, and of course, we talked about what happened between Will Smith and Chris Rock at the Oscars, just like every other podcast this week. As always, if you have

questions, comments, or complaints about the show, feel free to email us at offline at crooked.com. And if you wouldn't mind, please rate, review, and share the show. Here's Samantha Bee. Samantha Bee, welcome to Offline. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to have you. You and I last spoke when you were kind enough to have me on your excellent podcast, Full Release with Samantha Bee. Thank you. Thank you.

It was a few weeks after the 2020 election. We were both, I remember, so excited to leave behind the rage and anxiety of the Trump era for the calm waters of the Biden years. And here we are. How does it feel? is it everything you hoped it would be just a dream it's a dream world and uh everything turned out exactly as we had both hoped and uh no no no looking back do you aren't you shocked at what a baby you were even two years like i'm like was i a baby did i not understand things i did i did listen a little bit to our interview from then just preparing for this and i was about to cringe because i thought we would both make a bunch of predictions that didn't come true but we were good we were like really we should be worried about an attempted coup though i don't think he'll succeed which you know again okay is what happened

is what happened um we didn't have very high hopes i don't know that we thought things would be this bad they're so they are so bad they are so bad correct um yeah your your show full frontal is now in its seventh season congratulations thank you thank you um thank Before that, you were the longest serving Daily Show correspondent of all time from 2003 to 2014. I joined my first political campaign in 2003. So you and I have been thinking and talking

about politics for the same number of years. When you guys were skewering George Bush and Fox News and the Republican Party every night during the daily show years. Did you ever think that politics could get this much worse? No. Next question. No, like I just don't, I had no idea how bad things could get.

I mean, it was bad. It was bad. That was a bad time and that war in Iraq was a nightmare and a disaster as we know and we knew that in that moment but you know I didn't really understand how low the discourse could go it's a bad it's a bad out there i've been wondering that too because in terms of like world shaping events it does seem like the iraq war back then was on par with some of what we're seeing today but everything that like you just mentioned the discourse everything feels worse and like i remember when when john stewart left the daily in 2015, there were some pundits, there were a couple pieces like this that said, you know, the nightly mockery of Fox News had run its course because Fox was losing audience and influence just like most cable news.

That obviously couldn't have been more wrong. What do you think has happened over the years? Well, we are all, I mean, you know, referencing the name of your show, we are extremely online. So that is different. I mean, we're online at a level that, you know, is unmatched. So that has changed. That has changed the calculation for sure. And Fox News is so, it's been around for so long now. It's just infected. First, it infected our grandparents. First, it came for our grandparents. Now it's generational. You know what I mean? Yeah. No, I wonder that too. I wonder if it's, Fox probably has around the same audience, but ever since the advent of

Facebook, that's where Fox puts a lot of its greatest hits. And then that affects a whole bunch more people. And now we've got a whole bunch of YouTube channels and right-wing radio has become right-wing podcasts. And so I just feel like the right-wing media empire has probably grown a little bit. Oh, it's mean it's massive i think it i mean i don't know if i'm right about this but i feel like it looms large over the other side of things i mean it's huge it's just bigger it feels more comprehensive for sure that silo feels very large the silos feel very large so much of so much of what you all did at The Daily Show was media criticism that wasn't just funnier, but smarter than anything I'd ever seen. It's part of what inspired Crooked Media. Why do you think, even with trust in media as low as it's ever been, so much of the media has either not changed or gotten worse since John yelled at those Crossfire hosts all those years ago.

Those feel like pastoral times. You know, we have a profit-based system of news reporting and gathering. I mean, it's a profit-based system, and you't avoid falling into the traps of like needing views and clicks and like that's i mean i think it's as simple as that if you tune out those streams of content you actually get a much better feed but you have to really work hard to to tune it out yeah i wonder why we have to work so hard to tune it out you have to work really really hard i mean part of me thinks that so much of this, like you said, is it's online now and everything. When the entire world of politics and media is online and everything happens faster, louder, noisier, nastier, it seems like it's harder to tune it out because all journalists and all people in the world of politics are online especially Twitter and so to tune it out is to also

avoid all of the news which seems like a quite a difficult and also it makes it very difficult I actually think it makes it very difficult to focus on the news it makes it very difficult to dig into stuff. It makes it difficult to hold people's attention on one story for more than about two 24-hour news cycles. It's super fickle. Something happened at the Academy Awards on Sunday night, and it really overshadowed a very, very interesting and disturbing story about a different power couple, Ginny and Clarence Thomas. We probably should return to that conversation and keep talking about that one. That's so funny because we covered Ginny and Clarence Thomas on Pod Save America on Tuesday's episode.

And we purposely, we woke up and we're like, I don't want to talk about the Oscars. Yeah. And I was like, you know what? I think we can get away with it because it's Pod Save America and we talk about politics. But we did after talking about Ginenny and clarence thomas we came up with the title for the episode that was keep your wife's name out of my evidence oh that's great keep my wife's name out of your evidence um so we got we we sort of decided to swim into the content stream right because sometimes you have to go go where it is but what i saw um i saw right after

the oscars i saw conan o'brien tweet uh just saw the will smith slap anyone have a late night show i can borrow just for tomorrow um that's funny is there any part of you that wishes you had a nightly show so that you could cover and talk about that i'm gonna cut you off i'm gonna let you finish that question the answer is no are you kidding are you crazy you were happy because i know you have a once a week show so i was like i wonder if she's happy or like damn that could have been my monday night no oh yuck that's i'm so happy actually to have some space between between me and sunday night so i don't have to what makes you so what what makes you happy so I don't have to.

What makes you happy that you didn't have to cover it? Because I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. And then I brought it up, so I started talking about it. You started it. And I acknowledge that. But it is actually really nice to have a little bit of space between the big thing

that everyone's talking about, and it's nice to do a show on Thursday so that we can just kind of process that and put it aside and see if it has if it has legs or like if we like have to you know sometimes you feel like you have to talk you have to be a part of the conversation the cultural conversation I'm very grateful to not always have to do that. I will tell you where my head went as I watched the whole thing unfold. First of all, my wife, Emily, was like, these Oscars are really boring. I'm going upstairs to watch something else. I'll see you in a bit. Literally three minutes before it happened.

Oh, I did that too. I was asleep. was in bed i was i think i was in bed reading and fell asleep reading and jason came in and tried to wake me up and i was gone just absolutely gone so but my first thought as i watched it unfold was well first of all i couldn't believe what was happening but then it's like okay i don't think we have to talk about this on pod save america i do have a show calledline about the internet and internet culture. And I am interviewing a comedian this week. Right. So I saw an Associated Press headline afterwards that read, comedians react with horror at Will Smith's Oscars lab.

And the story was about comedians worrying that some people will now think it's okay to get up and hit them for telling an offensive joke. Do you share that anxiety? What was your reaction? I don't share that anxiety. You don't think someone's going to come at you? It was so stupid and fucking ridiculous. But I definitely, it's so funny because we did, I did watch a little bit of it. I watched Amy's monologue, which was great.

And I was watching a little bit of it with my kids before i kind of peeled off and was like i gotta go i gotta go read and we watched the bit where um the host one of the hosts was uh like patting down all these men on stage and like called all those actors up and was like patting them down and i was like ha i was like hey kit you know you're always like trying to impart a boring lesson to your children when you're watching TV with them. You're like, just so you know, this is all fun and all, but don't put your hands on people.

I was like, you know that, right? Don't put your hands on people. They were like, we know. I'm like, and nobody puts their hands on you. They're like, we get it. I'm like, this is a structured bit, but let's not put our hands on other people. And then this big slap, I'm like, well,

well, that underlined the premise of my boring lecture. Don't put your hands on people, my God. You know, that's sort of where I came from too, because I'm a new parent now, and I kind of saw it through the lens of being a new parent. And I'm like, I don't know, this is pretty simple to me, which is I would want Charlie to know you don't know this is pretty simple to me which is i would want charlie to know um you don't hit people um and also you don't tell jokes that are like uh particularly cruel about other people and that's

it and both things are bad to do and then now we can move on i don't know yeah i don't being too i'm really trying to like not clutch my pearls i I'm like, mommy said bad things about me. I can't deny that. Like, whatever. It's comedy. It's the Oscars. It's a pre-written bit. You know, it's...

Anyway, don't put your hands on people. Is it a super good lesson for everybody to rehear? Even very powerful, multi, multi, like powerfulllywood narcissists don't do that thanks the hollywood of it all really got me too even more than the incidents itself because it was just really strange how easy it was for everyone to like downplay it and move on to the point where then like will smith is like dancing with his os Oscar to get and jiggy with it at the after party. And I was just like, this is a very online era thing in that it was a controversy that burned hotter but also faster than ever before.

And it's just like huge freak out and then we're all moving on. And it was like so very Hollywood and entertainment that everyone's just going to be like, no, we're going on with the Oscars, nothing happened, it's fine. All I'm saying is I don't think it was easy so very hollywood and entertainment that everyone's just going to be like no every we're going on with the oscars nothing happened it's fine all i'm saying is i don't think it was easy for a lot of people like i don't think it was easy for i think people were freaking probably a lot of people were like really quaking and just like yeah i don't know what to do like paralyzed with fear but beyond that it really really makes me understand why people hate hollywood like boy oh boy very hateable yeah myself included i'm like oh for fuck's sake like

can you be consistent for one but the answer is no so that's why that's why we peel off and go to bed and read a book during the Academy Awards, folks. Like, that's a choice you can make. That is a choice. I made it. It's a good choice. I highly recommend it. In general, tiptoeing away from this controversy,

how often do you feel constrained as to what you can joke about because you might get criticized for offending people or crossing a line? I don't think that we feel constrained. The only real area in which, where we do feel constrained, I guess, or we feel the bumpers

is when you're trying to mention companies. Hey folks, that's business. But you know, the show is a business, our shows are businesses and you do come up, that I think is the most, that's the governor on us because we always want to make fun of companies but it's pretty hard to you can't make jokes about your advertiser you can't it's not you can't do it on a podcast to be honest like you yeah you actually do have to be mindful of that when you're um building a show and jokes because they're not going to make it in and you

know it and you can make like one million jokes about pf janks if you want to try actually I think we can't make jokes about pf janks that might be one of the only places we can um but you will find probably without much thinking of it that it's actually very it's it's kind of loaded if you want to mention a product or a company when you're on television and that is true for all all across all of television so it's not like it's not a constraint that surprises or horrifies me that's just reality yeah and it's fine um it's fine um but constraints about jokes that we would want to tell I mean we are quite an

opera you know an equal opportunity offender I think but um we're certainly not trying to punch down yeah that's a good rule it's really it's the rule is mostly just like don't punch down be very careful but we don't we don't as people punch down anyway like we don't to have that impulse to do that or if we if it if it like if it starts to creep in where you're like oh no i feel i i'm feeling sad for this person or i feel like this is not this isn't the right. And sometimes you make a mistake and for sure that has happened, but I try to correct that quickly. But it's more like if you stay in the spirit of punching up

to the people who are trying to make the rules that you will have to live under that will crush you, then it's a free for all. And I think that's as it should be. I mean, during our our podcast we read the ads and we certainly make fun of our advertisers right but there's a there's a limit i mean there's a limit though we used to do a lot of we used to do a lot of blue apron ads and at one point we just started making up the recipes and love it had some pretty crazy recipes and at some point

we were like hey you know if you can make fun of us we like your sense of humor maybe don't like make up weird recipes from blue okay i was like you know what that's totally fair you're an advertiser we won't that's a fair fair ask even still that's kind of that's like really walking a line because it's really an homage to that's right to a product you really what you really can't do is take a product, like let's say someone, let's say a beet-based, this has never happened to me, so I'm saying this because I feel completely safe, a beet-based male potency supplement, like a beet and spinach related testosterone enhancer. It advertises on your show.

Obviously, they're seeking me because I'm like the best advertiser of that. You can't eat, but you can't in your promo say, this product is trash. This doesn't work. Are you crazy? This is a beet. We're about to cut to a commercial break. For Beats? Beats supplements?

I'm so sorry. It's a male enhancement supplement, though. A male dominance enhancement. Everyone knows Beats are the real deal. You had what I imagine to be a super fun experience with all of this when you called Ivanka Trump a name. I'm sure she's heard more than a few times over the last few years. What was it like to go through that? Aside from not fun.

It was not fun. It was not fun. I don't really, I mean, this is going to sound ridiculous. I don't regret it. It was a good overall, like with a distance behind me, it was a good overall experience and a good learning lesson for me. And probably one of the first times that I realized that people were kind of like listening to the things that I had to say and that sounds nuts but you know I think especially when you come at well I guess I can only speak for myself but you know I I came at this

show from a long history like a long career of just sort of trying to be heard and trying to scratch out a living and trying to like make my mark on a little piece of the Daily Show and like you're kind of eking out all these moments for yourself and that's you know there's like a lifetime of that and then all of a sudden you have a much bigger platform and it actually is pretty hard to get used to the thought that so many more people are seeing you in a different way and you've sort of become an established player in this world it's actually a it's kind of mind-bending and that was my first realization of that moment which was very good it was a good realization for me it was an ugly

moment that definitely the like the winged monkeys are unleashed into your life. That's what I was wondering, yeah. And so that was scary, but it's not unusual. You know, we definitely go from zero to death threat in about four words these days. So. So it's something you ultimately get used to. You sadly, and it's actually very, you can't really even talk about it.

You can't really talk about it because it reminds people that they can do that. And it's very easy to do that. So I really don't talk about it too much, but it wasn't a delightful era. We got through it and it was fine but i definitely felt like oh it was like walking through it's like a little bit of walking across hot coals i guess you come out the other side you're like well i'm changed i'm different now am i better i don't know maybe a little bit definitely tougher yeah i mean one of the many frustrations of it i imagine is it was in the context of you making an argument about um trump's family separation policy like taking kids away

from their parents at the border and that seems to be i don't know a much bigger issue with greater human consequences than a name the name that you call much bigger much bigger and then yet the focus is the name and what was just acutely painful to me was and i didn't really i didn't i didn't tap into the news cycle for sure i wasn't like show me everything people are saying about me, but it just leaked in. I mean, it was like on the front page of the post. It just kind of got to me. Like I started to really, I was hearing it. And what was the most, I guess, acutely painful thing was that so many news outlets, it went on for days.

It was just nice. It was at least three or four days where it was- Which is a long time these days. That's a long time these days. That's a long news cycle. And I heard from people who were like, I'm in Guatemala, what happened? Like people in Hong Kong were like,

we're hearing all about this. We don't, anyway. But like real legitimate news outlets just kept having like panel discussions where they were like, you know know and it's a real shame because You know it really takes the focus away from the family separation policy And then that's you know we should you know and people should be paying attention to that. I was like you're the fucking news You don't have to cover a bad word anymore. It's date. We're on day three

So like actually that's your fucking job so do it people should be covered people should be covering that but um but anyway we're out of time and we'll see you tomorrow for another panel on what sam b said about ivanka oh my god like i acknowledge okay like it was a moment but it's's a word and a moment and a feeling and a thought about a person. Who gives a shit? Like, things were really happening. That story was heating up. And it took all the oxygen out of it for a couple of, I mean,

I'm sure there were news outlets still covering it, but for the most part, our fine journalistic outlets were really on top of the whole me of it. It was so dumb. I mean, one of the consequences of all of us living online, I think, is that Twitter and online news in general tend to sort of flatten the news. And so you lose a sense of perspective of what's important and what's not. And so if you're scrolling through your timeline, you know, commentary about the slap is right after like, oh, and Vladimir Putin just, you know, leveled Morap pole. And it becomes hard to sort of distinguish. I'm sort of wondering, how has all of us being very online

changed your job with the show over the years? Right. I mean, I don't know that it has. Well, I guess it has changed our job in a way. I mean, we came into this environment as it was. It wasn't like a slow evolution of suddenly the internet, you know, the internet is very, there's this thing called the internet, folks, like we were in it from the start. so we were already very accustomed to it I don't think that it I don't think that it it's been helpful and a lot it's been

helpful to a certain extent like it is very I do one of the only social media things that I am on is Twitter and And it is just a obviously hot, burning trash fire. But I love the speed. I love the speed of, I have a good news feed. And I love the speed of things. Like I definitely feel like I understand what's happening in the world in real time, which I do appreciate. All the other stuff i could definitely live without um so in in some ways it's been sort of helpful to keep us to keep us in the in to keep us very current i you know most of the people i work with live online much more than i do i actually don't i don't really engage online and I'm not on multiple platforms.

Like I'm just not on them at all. And that is by design. So they live online a lot more than I do. I'm sure it's killing everyone slowly from the inside. When I was interviewing Stephen Colbert for this show, he said he's on his phone maybe six hours a day with his little his little phone thing because he's trying to you know sort of consume all the news so that he knows what to talk about each night he said like you he's not engaging much as his staff is posting are you how often

are you on your phone and do you feel the same even though you have a weekly show do you still feel the same need to like be constantly up weekly show, do you still feel the same need to be constantly up to date? Are you constantly scrolling on your phone? I definitely like to know which way the winds are blowing. I like to know what the news is, and I like to know how attitudes are shifting, like how the story is changing. It's not that that's going to inform the show,

but I like to know. I like to be aware. Yes. So that is helpful. I don't know if I'm scrolling. I would not say that I'm scrolling six hours a day, but I get in a habit of it and my kids really notice it and they correct me if I'm doing too much of that. Oh, they correct you. I'm very much, they do. They're like, this is, they're like, hello, hello.

They're just like snapping their fingers. They're like, we're right here. Can you please parent us? So I get into a habit of it from time to time, but then I try to cut it off and not starve myself of it, but be a little bit more judicious. One thing that is, I mean um we have slack in our offices and that actually i'm constantly on slack and that is that does so your staff is feeding you

the most important news via slack no no not at all no it's more like work business and what we're doing okay and and the the constructing the show i'm following the news we're doing and constructing the show. I'm following the news. We're all following the news feed on our own, but I never watch news. Is that bad? I never, never watch it. I don't watch. No, I don't either anymore. When something truly big in the world is happening, we might put CNN on in our office just to catch it. But other than that, I don't. Just not doing it. I'm getting it all online and from the morning newspapers really and every time i go and watch cable news or television news after having not watched it for a while i'm like oh this is worse than i remember oh this is just opinion oh we're

just speculating we're just gonna have like five people who don't know who knew something 20 years ago and the whole world has changed but we're gonna have them tell us what's gonna happen 10 10 months from now okay sweet i it it happens to me and sometimes i don't watch it it's just i'm like asked to go do a cable hit on some political they like haul me out when there's you know a state of the union because i'm an old speechwriter right um so i hadn't done it in a while and i go on cable and of course the other thing is it's like a five minute hit so you can't have a conversation and and i'm sitting there i'm like ready to talk about biden's state of the union his theory of the case and issues and all that and i just get what if something happens in ukraine in the uh in the middle of the state

of the union do you think they'll change something in the prompter? It's like, what? That's it? That's the question? All right. Thank you, Jon Favreau. We are done for tonight. I was like, well, that was a good use of time.

It really is such a weird. And you have to do. It's like we're all kind of weirdly in the same industry. So we're all kind of like, I kind of know everybody and everyone's whatever. But it is such a weird experience to do anything like that because you feel like, and it's the same with doing any kind of like a daytime show. Oh, I imagine. When it's over, you don't remember a thing about it. You remember there was a snack in the green room,

and then I was walking in high heels through a lot of corridors, and then I was there, and then we did it, and I don't know what we talked about, and it's over in three minutes flat. And you're like, wait, I'm done. And then you're just walking the corridors in a shameful way on the way back to the snacks because you don't even remember.

You're like did i even talk was that could people understand what i was saying i said it so much faster than you think so much faster i really feel for people who are on camera on daytime news and talk shows for the first time they just must be because they probably in their head have all these ideas of all the things they're going to say. And you're right, you don't have it. That's it, you're done after a minute. You just dissociate.

You say your name, there's some story you tell and you lose consciousness and then that's it. You lose consciousness and then people are like, good job. And you're like, what?

Was it? Was it? I can't watch it because I'm not sure there were sentences in there. I will not watch. So the news cycle gives us like 50 stories a day to choose from to talk about. I'm so interested on Full Frontal, like you guys do a few segments one night a week. How do you choose

which stories to cover? Like what's that process like for you guys do a few segments one night a week how do you choose which stories to cover like what's that process like for you guys each week so we really divide the show up pretty regularly our first act is generally the most topical of the acts our second act is something that we've spent a little more time with so that is you know from the time we land on everybody's pitching by the time we land on something and fully research it it's usually a couple of weeks before that segment will air so we live with that a little bit longer and then at the end kind of wrestle it into today shape you know like what is happening is anything in this current moment happening with this thing and usually those things usually it coincides it's actually times very nicely and in the field we have it's a bit

of a longer lead so we choose a story usually have to go off somewhere and and and film it i went to nevada last week i'm going to ohio tomorrow so those segments will air a couple of weeks from now so we spend a little time editing everything was different in covid every single element of the show was totally different in covet because for the first long time there was only one story happening in the entire world and it was happening globally and that was covered yeah and you know and because we couldn't travel we couldn't film normally we filmed in the backyard it was a whole different calculation but in general this is this is kind of like the system that we like so we are filming we'll tape a show on thursday and normally we sit

on tuesday and kind of go what is where which way is the wind blowing what do we want to talk about on the show this week these These are, what about this? What about this? What about this? And then we kind of wrestle it into the point of view or the story that we want to talk about. I've heard you say that you prefer doing sort of the once a week deep dives to the daily news cycle hot takes that a lot of the other late night show hosts do.

Yes. Why is that? Well, it sounds surprising, but I'm actually not a hot take person. I often just don't have a hot take. It takes me a really long time to sort of think about how I'm really, it makes everyone at work actually crazy when I say this. I just kind of mull it a little bit. I'm a muller. You mean you're thinking things over to develop some thoughtful insight? That's nuts. Thinking things through.

I can be, and check this out, I can be convinced to hold an opinion that I didn't originally hold. Yeah. That is not, that's not what we do today. Yep, I know. So I actually really strongly, I'm averse to hot takes. And sometimes I worry when I go on other people's shows, they're gonna ask me for a hot take on something and I just don't really have it.

I don't, I'm sort of like, I guess it's, I don't know, like, I don't want to blurt it because I know I won't really feel that way yeah it won't be so hot 24 hours from now i'll just have a little more warm a little bit more measured i don't know it's it's silly i get it this is look this is why i have a podcast because i feel like with the podcast it is it is once or twice a week. The format is long enough that you can actually, sometimes I am working out my opinion in real time in conversation

because that's actually what happens in real life. You talk to your friends about an issue and your mind changes and your opinion develops as you're talking to someone. Yes, it's very healthy. Is it great for the people who you work with not necessarily because everybody wants to be everybody wants to be put on a path and everybody just wants to like know and i understand that i'm actually very reticent to to pull the trigger quickly on things

unless it's super clear-cut and there's just no other way to feel about something no we get that sometimes from even even our like social media team will be like yeah there's nothing from that episode that was really tight and punchy enough for like a for an online thing and i was like and sometimes i'm like you know what that's fine it's okay we just wanted to have a conversation and so yeah it's okay if we didn't have a hot take it's fun to have conversations i really do i love people should have more of them we might be might be in a better spot i don't know um do you view humor as a way to potentially change people's minds about politics or do you view humor as just a catharsis for people who share your views in your politics?

I don't tend to think of comedy as an agent of change. I mean, I'm sure it's possible. I think of it more from the catharsis perspective. I definitely, I don't think there are a lot of people whose minds I'm changing with Full Frontal. I don't think there are a lot of people whose minds I changed when I was at The Daily Show. But the role of a comedy show as catharsis has its own value. And I really do see it that way primarily. Do we sometimes discuss things that people never thought of a certain way? Certainly. That was true for me when I was just a viewer of the daily show i often

didn't know about a story and it was like very interesting to hear it through you know through a very through john's perspective i was like i never thought of it that way before but more often than not it was i agree with this person and that means i'm not crazy i I think that's true. Let's go. I feel like that. It's funny. I mean, I come at it from the other side, from the political side. And like, when do we once in a while try to employ humor? I found that during the Obama years, sometimes when Republicans were acting crazy, the most effective way forama to deal with that would be to mock them

i sometimes wonder if authoritarians and authoritarian movements can be handled a little bit more effectively with mockery um though again we made fun of trump at the correspondence dinner and then he ran for president that didn't work out at all not work out for us that well and usually the authoritarians just shut your shit down usually they just go actually that wasn't a very funny joke your puppet show is over and you're in jail so they can enjoy it on the outside of this country but not on the inside yeah now once they're in power it's sort of a little a little tougher but yeah but to avoid getting them there maybe i mean the other comedic challenge i wonder about is how you come up with jokes about some of the heaviest, most depressing news, especially political news that we've had in decades I have incredible writers and producers at the show

and like Mike and Kristen my co-head writers are just so goddamn funny and our produce I mean our producing team is unbelievable so it's not like I'm a one woman band just like leading the charge of comedy at all times and being like, hey, Matt, let's go team. You know, sometimes I wake up and I'm like, I don't I don't know what we're going to talk about this week. And everyone's like, what about this? And I'm like, I don't know. So, you know, we all, but I do think that we're a very good team. And I really mean a team because there are times when some of us are like, we just can't find the comedy in something. And then, you know, we kind of like work together and massage it into being funny. And then I go, okay, well, I think that this is very sad, but I think I'll,

my performance will approach it from this way, and we'll just sort of bring it together and put it in a studio and see how it sounds out loud. And if it's not quite right, then we'll make a change in the moment and we'll just, it's like a lot of, it's a lot of like massaging and then also being surrounded

by incredibly talented people. That's really... There's no magic to it. It's just like a lot of... It's just like hard comedy work. It's not hard work in terms of what hard work actually is. I have no illusions about that. But it's like you're in gear you're you're always

kind of yeah yeah you i guess you just keep shaping and keep working at it i mean i thought that the segment you guys did um the other week on the war in ukraine was particularly well done and i can imagine how difficult it must have been to just get that exactly right well you know to be honest well i like we had you know we have Zooms all the time. We have Zooms all the time. I cried my face off. I sat in a Zoom and cried in front of all the writers. They were like, she's crying again.

But, you know, it happens. It's like we're all human beings. None of us want a war. I don't know. There's no other. So we know we have to make a show. We know we have a goal. We're like, all right, well, what can we say in this moment that feels appropriate,

that comes at it from the right perspective? It takes time. And for that reason reason i'm extra grateful to not have to do it every single day because i just don't think that we could have a fresh take that's on the war in ukraine every single day um it's it you know it's it's quite a process yeah that was one of the few segments where I both laughed and also was like in tears myself listening to that woman talk about her family. I was just like, oh, my God. But it was very well done and it's a tough balance.

Thank you. We are headed into another midterm season. Yeah. We'll be talking about it. I know you guys will be talking about it. How do you personally keep doing this show without getting burned out by politics? I'm definitely burned out by politics. I'm definitely burned out.

I hate everyone. Everyone's bad. There's no secret. I mean, everyone's terrible. That's all I can really bring to it. I don't want to talk about it anymore. You are in the wrong line of business. I'm in the wrong line of business for sure. I am very burned out on politics, for sure. But I have this show, and we have to talk about the midterms. It's very important. I was born in Canada. I'm American. Now I vote here. I care about this place. I'm never leaving.

I'm in it to win it. I want it to be better. I want politics to be better. So I can't, even though I'm very extremely burned out, I see the the stakes I see it all so clearly and I just can't stop talking about it even though I truly makes me sick honestly that's a that is a perfect answer and that's that's how I feel too because people ask me that all the time about getting burned out and it's like yeah no I it sucks I'm not like sitting here all pollyannish thing everything's wonderful when it's not but like i'm sorry i care about it i can't control that either so yeah yeah you have this i hate it i care about it you have a platform you've built a platform for yourself like you've got to use it for something you have to use it for good what are you gonna do do a cooking show like i mean i love cooking shows i need them i have to watch them but this is your passion life are you uh are you still hopeful we might get the calm

years that uh you and i had been hoping for last time we talked no not at all those that dream that dream died i am in fact you had reminded me that I had that dream that's how distant a memory that dream is yeah no I sort of wonder I'm like maybe this is just every year is going to be like this now and we're just going to have to we're just going to have to fight through it hey can you believe we're going to be voting this year this year we're not even talking about that part yet we're going to be voting we're going to be in the voting booth. It's creeping up. And the moment that day comes, we're going to be talking about, we're going to go straight into 2024, like the day after. And I told myself, 2020 was so just anxiety-inducing for so many reasons beyond Trump or in COVID.

Just everything was falling apart. And I remember right before 2020, I'm like, I cannot do this. I cannot feel like this again. Because I'm like, I'm, you know, I check the news obsessively. I do that. I have a show, but I'm not doing what I did in 2020, which is like 430 in the morning, wake up, scroll, find the latest New york times poll freak out what's happening like it has calmed a little not looking forward to it happening again i have been saying every election cycle i say to myself well i'm thank god i'm not doing that again i'm just never doing it again i'm just not going to i'm gonna know better i'm gonna know myself i'm not gonna do it again every time I would go at the Daily Show

and even at Full Frontal, every time I went to a convention, I was like, well, that's the last one for Sam Bee. Never again. So at least we got that. And then here I am. I'm like, well, probably go to the conventions just one last time.

One last convention. This will be the good one. I know it it this is the one where i'll have fun uh last question i ask all my guests what's your favorite way to unplug and how often do you get to do it oh what's my favorite way to unplug well my favorite favorite anytime i'm with my family my kids well which is really every day but but I unplug with my kids. I feel my most calm. I feel my most, I feel I'm the most true to myself when they are all around me. I have three. But apart from that, I would say I love to cook and I love to bake. And that is a meditation for me that I just,

I love to follow a recipe. It just gets me out of everything. It gets me out of my, it unspools my brain in a way just to get my hands in a dish or make bread or like make something fun, make a cake. That's what does it for me. And if both hands are making the cake, can't hold the phone. Can't hold the phone. Can't hold the phone. That's perfect. Samantha B, thank you so much for doing Offline. Thank you. This was so fun. Thank you so much. Offline is a

Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, John Favreau. It's produced by Austin Fisher. Andrew Chadwick is our audio editor. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis, sound engineer of the show. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care

of our music. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Michael Martinez, Andy Gardner-Bernstein, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Sandy Gerard for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, and Amelia Montooth, who film and share our episodes as videos every week.