The late-night host expressed regret for her remark about the first daughter but said ‘I hate that this distracted from other issues’

Samantha Bee on Wednesday night apologized for her remark about Ivanka Trump last week – but said she “hated that this distracted from other issues” and said that if men were offended by her use of the word, “I do not care”.

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Samantha Bee: ‘I never intended to hurt anyone, except Ted Cruz’

Bee returned to TV screens for the first time since her apology that followed her calling Ivanka Trump a “feckless cunt” during a segment on the administration’s immigration policy.

She opened the show by saying: “A lot of people were offended and angry that I used an epithet to describe the president’s daughter and adviser last week. It is a word I have used on the show many times, hoping to reclaim it. This time, I used it as an insult. I crossed the line. I regret it. And I do apologize for that.”

She continued: “The problem is that many women have heard that word at the worst moments of their lives. A lot of them don’t want that word reclaimed; they want it gone. And I don’t blame them. I want this show to be challenging and I want it to be honest, but I never intended it to hurt anyone, except Ted Cruz.”

She went on: “Many men were also offended by my use of the word. I do not care about that.”

Bee expressed regret, too, that the uproar over her comments contributed “to the nightmare of news we’re white-knuckling through”.



She said: “I hate that this distracted from more important issues. I hate that I did something to contribute to the nightmare of 24-hour news cycles that we’re all white-knuckling through. I should have known that a potty-mouthed insult would be inherently more interesting to them than juvenile immigration policy. I would do anything to help those kids. I hate that this distracted from them, so to them, I am also sorry.”

She concluded: “If you are worried about the death of civility, don’t sweat it. I’m a comedian. People who hone their voices in basement bars while yelling back at drunk hecklers are definitely not paragons of civility. I am really sorry I said that word, but civility is just nice words. Maybe we should all worry a little bit more about the niceness of our actions.”

Stephen Colbert: ‘OJ, will you accept this rose?’

CBS’s Stephen Colbert discussed Trump’s commutation of the sentence of Alice Johnson, a first-time non-violent drug offender who was jailed for life for cocaine trafficking.

Colbert said: “He did the right thing. She didn’t deserve to be in there. But maybe he did the right thing for the wrong reason, because there was no formal legal process or review as there normally is. Trump just commuted her sentence because of a meeting with Kim Kardashian.”

Colbert was referring to Kardashian’s visit to the White House last week, where she reportedly lobbied the president to pardon Johnson. “So executive clemency is now just a reality TV show,” the host joked. “OJ, will you accept this rose?”

Colbert then noted that Trump has used the pardon extensively so far, for Joe Arpaio, as well as Scooter Libby, Dinesh D’Souza, and the late boxer Jack Johnson.

Colbert noted that Trump is reportedly preparing paperwork to pardon up to 30 others.

He said: “OK, let’s see who we got here. Iron Mike Tyson, Charlie Sheen, the hot mugshot convict, the Noid, Hannibal Lecter, Fred Flintstone, and Osama bin Laden. Take that, Obama. Now you murdered an innocent man.”



Trevor Noah: ‘Facebook figured out how to monetize our arguments’

Finally, Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah covered recent reports about Facebook’s previously undisclosed data-sharing partnerships with various Chinese tech companies.

“Facebook, the Myspace of Twitter,” he began. “Are they violating our privacy? Can we trust them with our data? And why do so many people in my news feed have border collies who need kidney transplants?”





The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) “Every time you see an ad, Facebook makes money. So the more time you spend on Facebook, the more money they make. Which is why they’ve found an effective way to keep you on their site: conflict.”



Full episode: https://t.co/95biwG5mlr pic.twitter.com/FeQZQDriA0

The host then showed a news segment detailing Facebook’s data-sharing partnership with the Chinese electronic companies including Huawei, the world’s thing largest phone maker and, according to US intelligence, a potential national security threat.

Noah went on: “Facebook says that they want to change, but I don’t know how easy it’ll be for the company, considering that the core of its business is to turn your information into profits, which they’re really good at doing.”

The company, Noah noted, netted $40bn in advertising revenue in 2017, making up 98% of its total revenue. The host also showed clips of cable news commentators explaining how the company exploits polarization.

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“That’s right,” Noah said. “The human impulse to get into an argument, never back down, and then die before ever conceding a single point, Facebook figured out how to monetize that.”