Stephen Colbert & Samantha Bee Raise a Glass to Post-Trump Comedy

It seems that every time Samantha Bee appears on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, it is during a massive national news story — the night James Comey was fired, the release of the Mueller report, the first Trump impeachment, and the second Trump impeachment — prompting Bee to joke Wednesday night that they are like "a Mentos and a Diet Coke. We cannot come together. We are like two great tastes that together cause societal collapse."

Colbert, who has been particularly upset on the air since the U.S. Capitol riot, seemed to be looking to commiserate with Bee about their similar jobs as hosts of comedy shows that deal with news, asking her how she's approaching her job right now.

"I will say that I was so... never going to hear another person say to me 'you must be so happy to have so much content to talk about,'" Bee said. "I want this chapter to end. I don't want to talk about Donald Trump anymore. I want him to go away. So that's where I'm at."

As far as the insurrection, Bee was resigned to talk about that on Full Frontal. "It's our first show... of our new season of the show, and it comes astride this hideous moment in history, so we're talking about that on the show. What else can you do? I'm sure that it's the same for you, we're kind of processing this in real time."

Colbert then wondered whether or not Bee's weekly schedule was better than his daily shows. "Sometimes I'm jealous of you doing a once a week show that's just packed with peanuts, but I'm grateful to be able to do a show every night because there's so many bites at the apple."

"Sometimes I'm actually grateful that I don't have to — that I can actaully just process as a citizen and take a step back and watch the story unfold before we really dive in there," Bee answered. "This is one of those situations. We did not have a show last Wednesday as the Capitol was being stormed — Jesus! — and so I did process that as a citizen of the United States, watching it on my TV screen, just jaw on the floor, so sad. It was awful. Today I'm happy to have a show because we can talk about all of the enablers who made this happen. So that's great. That's an opportunity for us."

This kind of group therapy might be necessary for Bee, since she also told the story of what her voting process was like in the 2020 election, which apparently involved her having a conversation with an inanimate object. "I flipped off my ballot, and I spoke to it and I told it to F off. I was just like 'I hate you'... Yeah. I had a personal moment with my ballot... I just needed to speak with my ballot. I gave myself some time and some space to do that."

Full Frontal with Samantha Bee airs Wednesday nights at 10:30 PM ET on TBS.

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Andy Hunsaker has a head full of sitcom gags and nerd-genre lore, and can be followed @AndyHunsaker if you're into that sort of thing.