Samantha Bee reprised her attacks on the Trump Administration’s “zero-tolerance” illegal immigration policy on her TBS broadcast on Wednesday night during a fiery segment in which she excoriated Trump’s Wednesday executive order and particularly took aim at Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
The segment came after Bee stirred up controversy in May when she called Ivanka Trump a “feckless c—” for posting an Instagram of herself with her children while her father’s administration was separating children from families at the U.S. border. Bee apologized for the remark, and TBS subsequently promised that it will provide more oversight of Full Frontal.
Though her attacks on Ivanka outraged many in May, Bee also didn’t shy away from calling out other women in the Trump administration on Wednesday’s episode. In one segment, she interspersed footage of a press conference held by Nielsen with video of iconic female villains in cinema, including The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe‘s White Witch, The Little Mermaid‘s Ursula, Harry Potter‘s Dolores Umbride and The Parent Trap‘s Meredith.
“I’m so sorry, those comparisons are not fair. Meredith was at least a good publicist,” Bee joked.
She ended her segment with a reference to Nielsen’s exit from a Mexican restaurant on Tuesday after protestors barraged her with chants of “Shame.” “Keep chasing Kirstjen Nielsen out of restaurants, you beautiful [people],” she said.
Bee also explicitly made light of the hot water she got into on another segment when she touched on the “zero-tolerance” policy: When addressing so-called “cages” that immigrant children have been held in after being separated from their families, the Full Frontal host joked, “I’m sorry, cage-link compassion walls.” She then excerpted a Gayle King report from a shelter, where the CBS anchor said that I.C.E. said that the “cage” term had a measure of truth but concerned them. “Wow, who knew conservatives were so sensitive about the c-word? I should make a note,” she said to audience applause.
Ultimately Bee said that Trump’s Wednesday executive order, which ends family separation but faces legal challenges as it seeks to hold families together in detention, did not fix the zero-tolerance policy’s problems. “Yay, no more baby internment camps, just regular interment camps. Yay, that’s how we win in 2018,” she said. “Mommy and me jails are not a solution.”
Bee is another late-night host launching attacks on the Trump administration’s controversial policy that has led to the separation of children from the parents of illegal immigrants.
The policy has received criticism from both Democrats and Republicans. Former first lady Laura Bush referred to the policy as “cruel” and “immoral” in a guest column for The Washington Post, whereas first lady Melania Trump addressed the controversy by saying she “hates” to see families separated at the border and hopes “both sides of the aisle” can reform the nation’s immigration laws.
Some of Hollywood’s biggest stars have also been vocal about the issue on social media, with the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Chelsea Handler, Kumail Nanjiani, Reese Witherspoon and others blasting the policy.
