Jon Stewart defends Samantha Bee after Trump suggested she should get fired for calling Ivanka a 'c---'
- Jon Stewart defended Samantha Bee in a Q&A on Sunday after President Trump called for her firing last week over Bee's remarks on Ivanka Trump.
- Bee drew criticism from the Trump administration and subsequently apologized after she called Ivanka a "feckless c---" on her TBS show, "Full Frontal."
- Stewart said that the controversy that surrounded Bee represents a "game" and "strategy" from right-wing politicians at large.
Samantha Bee faced intense criticism from President Trump last week after she called Ivanka Trump a "feckless c---' on her TBS show, "Full Frontal."
Trump quickly took to Twitter to ask why TBS wouldn't fire Bee for "horrible language." But in the eyes of Jon Stewart, who worked with Bee on "The Daily Show" from 2003 to 2015, the controversy that surrounded Bee from the White House last week represents a "game" and "strategy" from right-wing politicians at large.
"Please understand that a lot of what the right does, and it's maybe their greatest genius, is they've created a code of conduct that they police, that they themselves don't have to, in any way, abide," Stewart said in a Q&A at Clusterfest comedy festival on Sunday, as reported by The Daily Beast.
"It's a game, it's a strategy, and it's working," Stewart added.
Bee apologized for her remarks last week after Trump called for her firing. Bee used the phrase in question during a segment urging the president's daughter to "do something" about her father's immigration policy that's resulted in undocumented immigrant children being removed from their parents.
Stewart commented on Bee's controversy and apology on Sunday by first addressing "liberals" at large.
"Don't get caught in a trap of thinking you can live up to a code of integrity that will be enough for the propagandist right. There isn't," he said. "And so, create your own moral code to live by, but don't be fooled into trying to make concessions that you think will mollify them."
Stewart then turned to Bee's comments in particular.
"They don't give a shit about the word 'c---,'" Stewart said of the Trump administration. "That is probably-[Trump] says that instead of 'please,' I'm guessing."
As the Daily Beast notes, various reports since the 1980s have alleged that Trump has used the derogatory word to describe women.