Comedian Samantha Bee is back for the third time on The Last Laugh—and this time it is as host of her very own Daily Beast podcast!
Along with the Daily Beast’s Joanna Coles, Bee is bringing her always sharp and hilarious political insights to The Daily Beast Podcast. And before their first episode premieres this Thursday, Bee is here to share her unfiltered thoughts about interviewing Kamala Harris, being exhausted by Donald Trump, and those pesky “undecided voters” who seem to get so much attention this time of year.
The former Full Frontal host also reveals how she would have approached stories like JD Vance’s “childless cat ladies” if she—or really, any other woman—was still on late-night TV, and reacts to Jon Stewart’s triumphant return to The Daily Show and the backlash he received (including from the host of this podcast) for “both sides-ing” Trump and Joe Biden.
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“We’re colleagues now, Matt, what do you think about that?” Bee asks me at the top of our conversation this week as she prepares to tape the first episode of her new podcast with Coles, who she had encountered a handful of times over the years in New York media circles. “For me, it’s very fun, because it’s like, alright, I’m gonna do a podcast with Joanna,” she adds. “Of course, I am, are you kidding?!”
As the pair began to talk about what they wanted their podcast to be, Bee says, “Mostly we laughed a lot because we are both very serious and news-minded, and appreciate great reporting, but we also definitely want to talk about Melania Trump. And I think that that makes us a good team.”
Each episode will also feature a special guest from the intersecting world of politics, media, and pop culture, with journalist Kara Swisher set for tomorrow’s premiere. But Bee admits that their wish list for guests does include a certain Democratic presidential nominee, who she had the pleasure of interviewing multiple times during her run as host of Full Frontal on TBS.
“Of course I have dreams,” Bee says. “I have interviewed Kamala Harris many times. It would be pretty exciting if she said yes. Why not us? We’re right here.”
With less than six weeks to go until Election Day (“Every time someone says that, my whole body seizes,” Bee jokes), she is feeling some combination of hopeful optimism and terrified doom. “We’re not going to know until we know,” she says. “And even when we think we might know, we still might not know, and that’s pretty scary.”
What she really doesn’t have time for in this final stretch are the self-identified “undecided voters.”
“These drama queens, these divas,” Bee snarls. “Get famous in a different way. I’m so tired of undecided voters. And I know that this is not, I guess, a popular opinion. Everybody wants to put them on TV and talk about what their grievances with Kamala Harris are. I’m tired of it!”
“I’m too Canadian when it comes to undecided voters,” the Toronto-born comedian, who became a U.S. citizen in 2014, adds. “You have to pick a lane. You have to hold your nose and vote—every time. If you have concerns, you just have to think about the greater good. Every time, every election, my confusion about undecided voters deepens. It’s like watching auditions for American Idol, for me, like, what are you doing?”
On a slightly more serious note, Bee shares this important message with “undecided” voters: “No one is watching you vote. It’s the one thing that is sacred.” So no matter what these confused citizens might tell pollsters, they can still “do the right thing” when they enter the voting booth.
Listen to the episode now and follow The Last Laugh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts to be the first to hear new episodes when they are released every Wednesday.
