Samantha Bee
“It’s almost autumn, and you know what that means,” opened Samantha Bee on Full Frontal. “The air is getting crisper, I am preparing to eat a dump truck full of apple cider donuts and Brett Kavanaugh is in the news for allegedly putting his penis in a place it wasn’t invited.”
At this time last year, the US Senate confirmed Brett Kavanaugh to the supreme court after a contentious hearing in which Dr Christine Blasey Ford accused him of sexually assaulting her in high school.
Now this week, two New York Times reporters, Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly, published a book, The Education of Brett Kavanaugh, which reports that Deborah Ramirez, a former Yale classmate of Kavanaugh’s who said he once thrust his penis in her face at a party, provided the FBI with the names of 25 people who could offer corroborating evidence. The FBI, however, did not contact or interview them – an oversight Bee called “one of the most frustrating parts of the book”.
Republicans have gone on air to defend Kavanaugh; the Texas senator Ted Cruz told ABC that people should move on because “at the end of the day, the American people made the judgment [on Kavanaugh’s confirmation] that the evidence wasn’t there”.
Bee objected to that characterization. “The American people didn’t get to make a judgment on this – the Senate did, and they decided not to do a proper investigation,” she said. “So yeah, as long as an alleged sexual assaulter is ruling on laws about my body, I remain vexed.”
Stephen Colbert
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert assessed the Democratic race for president, in light of a new poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal that shows the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren closing in on former vice-president Joe Biden.
The poll puts Warren down by just six points on Biden. “If she gets any closer, she’ll be able to sniff his hair,” Colbert joked.
According to the same poll, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ position has increased by only 1% since July, providing “yet another reason for Bernie to hate the 1%”, said Colbert.
“You know who would kill for that one percent momentum?” he continued. That would be New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, who was still registering zero support in the city, though, as Colbert noted: “Let me remind you that the last New Yorker everyone in the city hated is now president of the United States.”
Meanwhile on Wednesday, 60 current and former mayors endorsed Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and currently fourth in the polls, in an op-ed for USA Today. The 60 mayors wrote: “Americans need leadership in Washington that gets things done. That’s why we need a great mayor in the White House.”
“Yes, a great mayor,” Colbert concurred, “as opposed to what we have now: a nightmare.”
The op-ed also explained how Buttigieg has been considered a “role model” for mayors. “I’m sure he is,” Colbert said, because “before this, they thought it was crazy for mayors to run for president. This must be what dogs feel like the first time they see Air Bud.”
Trevor Noah
Trump and Saudi Arabia have forged a deep bond over their shared love of cold, hard cash.
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) September 19, 2019
Watch the entire act: https://t.co/KVeKjWFyXL pic.twitter.com/U6nx8ZXOF3
On The Daily Show, Trevor Noah discussed the escalation of tensions in the Middle East this weekend, after an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia was attacked by drone strikes. Saudi Arabia and the US have blamed Iran for the attack, “which means shit’s about to go down”, said Noah.
The attack did not result in casualties, but it is still a big deal, Noah explained, since these facilities are responsible for 5% of the world’s oil production.
In response to the attacks, Donald Trump seemed not uninterested in a potential war with Iran, tweeting over the weekend that the US would support Saudi Arabia’s decision and telling reporters that America was more prepared for war than “any country in any history”.
The prospect of war on behalf of Saudi Arabia “is probably confusing for a lot of people, because why is protecting Saudi Arabia America’s problem to begin with?” Noah said. “Well, apparently it’s because Saudi Arabia and America have forged a deep bond over their shared values, by which I mean: cold, hard cash.”
Noah referred to the president’s conversation with reporters last weekend in which he praised Saudi Arabia for buying American weapons consistently, and in cash.
If the US does fight on behalf of the Saudi kingdom, it would mark “a new day for America”, Noah said, “from being a country that used to fight only for its values, to Don King over here saying if the price is right, America’s gonna fight”.
