In recent weeks, “comedian” Samantha Bee has used her TBS program Full Frontal to advocate for left-wing policy proposals from gun control to student loan forgiveness. This week, she gave a lecture on climate change. Bee spent most of her monologue trashing the Koch brothers, whom she described as “two guys” who “managed to radically damage Planet Earth.” The fact that David Koch has just passed away didn’t seem to dissuade Bee from her nastiness.
Bee looked back favorably on 1988 as “a time when pretty much everyone agreed that not only was climate change real but also that we would need to take steps to keep it from getting worse.” After playing a clip of then-Vice President George H.W. Bush talking about the importance of addressing climate change, Bee asked “how did we get from the late 80s when we were poised to tackle climate change to now, when we’re poised to do nothing until the oceans boil and polar bears roam through Florida cross-breeding with manatees?”
Answering her own question, Bee blamed the disappearance of the consensus on climate change on “two men who are almost wholly responsible for throwing us off course,” the Koch brothers. Bee referred to the brothers as “Scary Kate and Trashley” and claimed that they “almost singlehandedly ushered in the apocalypse.” Bee proceeded to outline how “the Kochs spent the next two decades investing in any schmuck with a thermometer and a willingness to publicly denounce climate change.”
The TBS host spent the rest of the segment talking about how the Kochs have thrown money into killing bills aimed at increasing the regulation of carbon and worked to oust Republicans who supported the left’s climate change agenda. As the segment came to a close, Bee unveiled her description of the Koch brothers as “two guys” who “managed to radically damage planet Earth.”
In addition to countless jabs at Republicans, Bee’s monologue was awash in climate change alarmism. According to Bee, “Our planet gets hotter and hotter but no one in power seems to be doing much to fix it despite the efforts of my favorite child sea captain since Charlotte Doyle.” For the record, Bee was referring to Greta Thunberg; the teenage climate activist whom left-wing comedian Sarah Silverman compared to Jesus.
Channeling her inner Jon Meacham, who referred to former Vice President Al Gore as a “prophetic voice” on climate change, Bee praised “the activism of America’s 43rd elected President.” Now that Bee has made it perfectly clear that her show is about left-wing political activism and not comedy, perhaps Gore or Thunberg can guest host for her one of these weeks.
A transcript of the relevant portion of Wednesday’s edition of Full Frontal is below. Click “expand” to read more.
Full Frontal With Samantha Bee
09/18/19
10:39 PM
SAMANTHA BEE: Welcome back to the show. July was the hottest month ever recorded. It’s the worst world record imaginable; other than world’s longest kiss. 58 hours and I assume it was followed by the world’s fastest divorce. Our planet gets hotter and hotter but no one in power seems to be doing much to fix it despite the efforts of my favorite child sea captain since Charlotte Doyle. How did we get here? By now, everyone knows the party line when it comes to climate change. Democrats say “climate change is real, we should do something about it.” And Republicans say “we don’t believe in science, also why do you hate the police and our troops, founding fathers, something, something, blah.”
(LAUGHTER)
BEE: But that wasn’t always the case. There was a time when pretty much everyone agreed that not only was climate change real but also that we would need to take steps to keep it from getting worse. Weirdly, that time was 1988.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VICE PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH: Our land, water and soil support a remarkable range of human activities but they can only take so much and we must remember to treat them not as a given but as a gift. Some say these problems are too big; that it’s impossible for an individual, or even a nation as great as ours, to solve the problem of global warming, or the loss of forests or the deterioration of our oceans. My response is simple. It can be done and we must do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEE: That might be the coolest thing H-dubs ever did besides throwing up in the Japanese prime minister’s lap.
(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)
BEE: So how did we get from the late 80’s when we were poised to tackle climate change to now, when we’re poised to do nothing until the oceans boil and polar bears roam through Florida cross-breeding with manatees? It’s called a polamanabearatee and yes, it does hunger for human flesh; just not in the way you think.
(LAUGHTER)
BEE: Believe it or not, there are two men who are almost wholly responsible for throwing us off course. They are the subject of this week’s segment, “Meet the Rich.” You probably think you already know the Koch brothers; the late David Koch and still living Charles Koch. But what you don’t know is how much Scary Kate and Trashley here almost singlehandedly ushered in the climate apocalypse. While most Americans might have been relieved to have someone in the White House who believed in climate change, it caused oil and gas magnates the Koch brothers to shit their $10,000 chinos. They feared that restrictions on how much poison their energy empire could pump into the air would reduce them from billionaires to slightly lesser billionaires. As businessmen, their solution was to innovate; not new ways to produce cleaner energy, mind you, but new ways to make everyone shut up about it. A recent history of the company by Christopher Leonard describes how Koch Industries spent millions to support the idea that there was an alternative view about climate change. Why did everything in the 90’s have to be alternative?
(LAUGHTER)
BEE: They were on a mission to make environmentalism just another short-lived 90’s craze; like curtain haircuts or thinking that “Major Dad” was hot.
(LAUGHTER)
BEE: That could have just been me. Here’s how Leonard described it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTOPHER LEONARD: They’ve been building this narrative since 1991. They were some of the first people there…you know, there’s a Koch funded think tank here called CATO Institute in Washington. It held one of the first conferences in 1991 talking about how there was doubt around the science of climate change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEE: Yeah. The Kochs helped invent modern global warming denialism; even I wouldn’t pitch that invention and I’ve had seven ideas rejected on Shark Tank.
(LAUGHTER)
BEE: Sharks, soft serve ice cream in a box is the future of desert. I’m looking for $50 million for a 1 percent stake. Nobody? I should leave? I should take my melted box of ice cream? Thank you so much.
(LAUGHTER)
BEE: The Kochs spent the next two decades investing in any schmuck with a thermometer and a willingness to publicly denounce climate change. The Kochs spent over $100 million directly financing 92 groups that have attacked climate change science. That’s basically every climate denial group, even the group that just denies that it’s raining men. It is raining rain, weather girls. And yet climate change became more difficult to deny; thanks to mounting scientific evidence, the activism of our 43rd elected President, and the searing documentary “Bio-Dome,” not to mention the evidence of our own eyes as the planet continued to warm. No matter how many bouquets of pseudo-scientists the Kochs mailed to talk radio, they couldn’t explain away a puddle where a glacier used to be. In 2009, the House of Representatives passed the first major bill regulating carbon emissions, the Waxman-Markey bill, not to be confused with the Biz Markie bill which says “ooh, baby, you, you’ve got what I need, but you say he’s just a friend.”
(LAUGHTER)
BEE: If it passed the Senate, it would become the law of the land. Things looked good. The bill even had bipartisan support despite Congress’s worst attempts to make bipartisanship seem hip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY PELOSI: Hi, I’m Nancy Pelosi, life-long Democrat and Speaker of the House.
NEWT GINGRICH: And I’m Newt Gingrich, life-long Republican and I used to be Speaker.
PELOSI: We don’t always see eye-to-eye. Do we, Newt?
GINGRICH: No, but we do agree our country must take action to address climate change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEE: Oh, you just know Newt was infusing that sofa with poots during the entire video. I hope the owner of that couch put it on the curb with a sign that says, “No bed bugs but Newt Gingrich sat on this.”
(LAUGHTER)
BEE: The Kochs believed that regulations like Waxman-Markey were a death sentence but luckily, they had Americans for Prosperity; one of the countless groups they funded, to attack the climate change movement. It presented itself as a grassroots advocacy group like the Tea Party but A.F.P. Was about as grassroots as a women’s world cup soccer field.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
LEONARD: Back in 2010 when the Tea Party arose, which was a real grassroots, from-the-ground-up movement, Koch was very adept at sort of injecting its interests into that movement and talking about cap and trade or regulating greenhouse gas emissions as an assault on liberty.
KRYSTAL BALL: Yeah.
LEONARD: It’s a…it’s the…it’s the trojan horse of tyranny.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Protesters did greet Al Gore just outside the Keller Auditorium last night. The group Americans for Prosperity say solutions for climate change can best be brought about by market forces in a low tax, less regulated American economy.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
BEE: Oh yeah, that sounds real grassroots. What do we want? Free market solutions and less regulation of the energy industry! When do we want it? Before the next corporate filings!
(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)
BEE: Thank you. Unfortunately, these shenanigans worked. The 2009 bill was never even brought to a vote in the Senate. The bill was a bit like Mitch McConnell’s prom date. He just stared at it until it went away.
(LAUGHTER)
BEE: The Kochs crashed the tea party harder than a cool professor crashing a college party and killed America’s last best chance at serious carbon emission regulation and they ensured that Republicans wouldn’t even dare talk about climate change. In 2010, the Koch brothers and their proxy tentacles poured tons of money into attacking those Republicans who did admit that climate change was a thing, like South Carolina Representative Bob Inglis.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
BOB INGLIS: Yes or no, do you believe in human causation on climate change? Well, I had a bad habit of answering questions, so I said, yes. “Boo, hiss,” comes the crowd. I was busted out from underneath the tent. And so, I mean there were…there were a couple of hundred, 300 people there. I mean, it was intense.
JOHN HOCKENBERRY: He was pounded in commercials and on talk radio.
INGLIS: It became a oft repeated theme on talk radio and that is a major source of information, of course, for Republican primary voters. They were hearing, Inglis has left the reservation, he’s over there somewhere with Al Gore.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
BEE: Republicans are so fucking lame, they make Al Gore sound radical and cool.
(LAUGHTER)
BEE: If you’re watching, Al, that’s not an insult, you can go back to your composting. The Kochs threw their support behind a primary challenger named Trey Gowdy, a carbon tax opponent who managed to oust Inglis. You may know this pointy-headed snurge from his obsession with Benghazi or his previous job as a lawn dart. But he also helped kill carbon regulation. Once the Kochs had shown what they could do to politicians who put a toe out of line, it became much harder for Republicans to speak honestly about climate change. Just two guys managed to radically damage planet Earth. Two. The only time I want to see two guys destroy something is when it’s late and I Google…you, you know what, forget it. That is not what this is about. They helped warp America’s view of global warming from a fact so self-evident even this guy was behind it, to a both-sidesy mess that the right wing talks about like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
SENATOR MARCO RUBIO: I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate.
SENATOR TED CRUZ: The problem with climate change is there’s never been a day in the history of the world in which the climate is not changing.
SEAN HANNITY: Why would you ever do a commercial with Nancy Pelosi?
GINGRICH: I was really stupid.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
BEE: Not as stupid as you’ll feel when that couch is under water and it’s killed all marine life for miles around.
