Watch Samantha Bee Skewer Trump’s ‘Deep State’ Fears
Samantha Bee dissected the myth of a “deep state” shadow network sabotaging President Trump from inside the U.S. government on Full Frontal.
The “deep state” is a term borrowed from autocratic governments in Egypt and Turkey, which use it to describe a network of perceived enemies. For Trump, Bee said, the “deep state” is a cohort of Obama-era holdovers strewn about the government and intelligence agencies who have been purposely leaking information to undermine the President, when really they’re just terrified career bureaucrats.
“Think of them as passengers on a bus that’s now being driven by a feral, paranoid monkey,” Bee cracked. “They’re not trying to kick him out of the driver’s seat – they know we chose the monkey to be the bus driver because Hillary Clinton used e-mail and was a woman, and they respect that. They’re just trying to turn the wheel slightly while the monkey is masturbating so we don’t run over a cliff.”
Bee also said that Trump himself is partly to blame for a leaky and angry bureaucracy because he still has not staffed a significant number of government positions. And while the Full Frontal host admitted it’s not especially healthy for a country’s president to feud with its intelligence apparatus, she cracked: “But perhaps we should consider these leaks the phlegm of democracy. They’re a sign that something is very wrong, yes, but also that your system is fighting it – like it’s supposed to.”