Samantha Bee has issued an apology on Thursday after the TBS host referred to first daughter Ivanka Trump as a “feckless cunt” on Wednesday night’s episode of her talk show Full Frontal.
“I would like to sincerely apologize to Ivanka Trump and to my viewers for using an expletive on my show to describe her last night. It was inappropriate and inexcusable,” Bee said in a statement. “I crossed a line, and I deeply regret it.”
In a subsequent statement, TBS wrote, “Samantha Bee has taken the right action in apologizing for the vile and inappropriate language she used about Ivanka Trump last night. Those words should not have been aired. It was our mistake too, and we regret it.”
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White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also issued a statement on Thursday forcefully denouncing Bee’s words.
“The language used by Samantha Bee last night is vile and vicious. The collective silence by the left and its media allies is appalling,” Sanders said. “Her disgusting comments and show are not fit for broadcast, and executives at Time Warner and TBS must demonstrate that such explicit profanity about female members of this administration will not be condoned on its network.”
“You know, Ivanka, that’s a beautiful photo of you and your child, but let me just say, one mother to another, do something about your dad’s immigration practices you feckless cunt!” Bee said at the end of a segment about the Trump administration’s policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the border. “He listens to you,” Bee continued. “Put on something tight and low-cut and tell your father to fucking stop it?”
The “c-word” was bleeped when the segment aired on TBS, but remains uncensored on the version of the segment that appears on the show’s social media channels. Audible gasps, followed by cheers, could be heard from her live audience.
Whereas Sanders did not explicitly invoke ABC’s recent cancellation of Roseanne over a racist tweet by that show’s star, other prominent conservatives on Twitter have been equating the two.
Former Fox News personality and current NBC host Megyn Kelly called Bee’s comments “disgusting” and asked how anyone could support them and at the same time “(rightfully) condemn” Roseanne Barr.
And then there was Donald Trump Jr., who wondered aloud what would happen if that word had been directed at Michelle Obama or one of her two daughters: “You think they’d still have a TV show?”
One important difference between Trump’s daughter and other first children, as Bee pointed out in her piece, is that Ivanka Trump works in the White House in an official capacity.
Regular viewers of Full Frontal will know that Bee has perhaps become a little too accustomed to being called the “c-word” by her own trolls. After someone on Twitter called her a “thunder cunt” just after Trump won the 2016 election, Bee decided to reclaim that term and presented the first ever “thunder cunt” award to CNN’s Jake Tapper for “making cable news bearable.”
Fans can still purchase their own “thunder cunt” t-shirt on TBS’ website for $24.95.
