Samantha Bee ran her pre-Republican National Convention coverage last night. (Last night was the usual slot for her show, but TBS will also be airing a A Very Special Full Frontal Special to cover the rest of what goes down on Wednesday night at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT.)
As a prelude to the convocation of America’s Most Insufferable, Bee recalled the general climate of the past few weeks — notably the violence that the country’s seen, both in the brutal killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and in the shootings of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. She notes that despite how key it is that the country’s violence and careless gun worship stop, Donald Trump continues to advocate a rhetoric of force; she cuts to a July 17 interview with him in which he said, “We need toughness, we need strength, Obama is weak, Hillary is weak.” She also mentions that things are particularly tense in Ohio due to the open carry law that allows people to tote massive weapons around with them without a permit. And so, this is the climate in which we’re entering the Convention.
Bee interviews a member of the 2016 convention host committee (those of us who’ve lived in or around Cleveland can appreciate Bee’s questions about the Cuyahoga River having caught fire), as well as Steve Loomis of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association — who says, simply, at first, “we’re screwed.” His reasoning is that the RNC will see officers “stuck in the middle of…very passionate people,” noting that Trump “bring[s] a certain additional spice to the convention” — the implication being that he worries about the possibility of violence. He says the police will do their best “with the resources, training and equipment they’ve been given,” but he says they haven’t been given enough of any of that, and “the city has failed” them. But Bee says that the city has since “scrambled to get the police what they need; they’ve finally realized that when you volunteer to host the apocalypse, you can’t be caught off guard when a rough beast slouches towards Cleveland.” (Cue photo of Trump)/ The interview takes a turn towards the bizarre when Bee asks if she could go undercover with him into protest groups, and he responds “absolutely — you’d be a great a hooker.”
Watch Bee’s pre-Convention coverage here: