Author: Marisa Guthrie

September 21, 2016 11:44am PT by Marisa Guthrie

Courtesy of YouTube/ Full Frontal with Samantha Bee

Samantha Bee on ‘Full Frontal’

“We were just done with these gossamer light interviews of this person and the continued normalization of deplorable,” said the TBS late night star. “We’d just had it.”

Samantha Bee – whose TBS program Full Frontal has in many ways taken up the mantle of political satire left by her old Daily Show boss Jon Stewart – delivered a stinging rebuke of NBC on her program Monday. The segment was a response to Jimmy Fallon’s friendly Tonight Show interview last Friday with Donald Trump, which came just two days after Trump blatantly denied his leading role in fanning the false birther conspiracy about President Obama’s citizenship.

Bee has been a persistent critic of Trump. But it was somewhat surprising to see her call out NBC and a late night peer. “It’s not really a Jimmy thing. For me, it was more of an NBC thing,” said Bee, speaking to reporters during a conference call on Wednesday. “I’m just tired of having people on shows for great ratings just because you want and need great ratings. I’m tired of the whole process. I think it just needed to be called out. I just feel like they’ve allowed him to amplify his message in a way that feels so safe and comfortable, for so long.”

Fallon’s interview came less than two weeks after Matt Lauer’s widely criticized handling of a forum with the candidates that was supposed to focus on national security and the military. In separate interviews with Trump and Hillary Clinton, Lauer spent considerable time grilling Clinton about her use of a private email server and then seemed to ask Trump a series of open-ended questions while failing to bring up Trump’s past derogatory statements about John McCain’s service during Vietnam or the Gold Star family of a Muslim Army sergeant killed in Iraq.

Lauer also didn’t ask Trump about his own deferments from military service during Vietnam while he allowed the candidate to repeat his debunked assertion that he opposed the Iraq War from the beginning. In a lacerating Full Frontal segment following the forum, Bee called the Today show anchor “human Splenda.”

“I think we were done,” noted Bee. “We were just done with these gossamer light interviews of this person and the continued normalization of deplorable. We’d just had it.”

Fallon is of course known for a convivial approach that eschews any hint of controversy. And Bee noted that she is a “fan.” But she said, such appearances in the case of Trump have enabled a “race baiting demagogue,” as she has described Trump on her show.

“Even when The Apprentice was on he was totally engaged with all of that birther nonsense, which to me was the most thinly veiled of thinly veiled racism,” said Bee. “And that was a really long time ago and it’s only grown and grown – until he finally put the issue to bed. He said Mexicans are rapists and then they had him on [Saturday Night Live]. I’m just tired of it. I’m tired of the enabling a person to look like just this guy who likes to have fun.”

Bee’s Full Frontal will shift to Wednesday next week – the show regularly airs on Monday nights – so that she can address the first presidential debate, which takes place Monday, Sept. 26 at Hofstra University in New York. Lauer’s NBC News colleague Lester Holt is tasked with moderating. 

“I feel oh so bad for Lester Holt,” said Bee. “But I’m sure he is handling it. I know Lester is doing his homework. And I think he will do a great job. Fingers crossed. We can do this. This is survivable.”

Clearly, Bee’s audience is left of center along the political spectrum. And she was name-checked in New York Times editorial column by conservative writer Ross Douthat, who lamented that much of late night comedy has been co-opted by the left.

“It’s so good to know that we’re the problem and not racism,” quipped Bee. “I’m so glad that someone finally figured it out. It was an interesting wake-up for me. It was a little bit akin to, ‘Stop pointing out that your uncle is molesting the children, you’re upsetting the family.’ I don’t know. I’ll probably have it framed.”
 

Marisa Guthrie

THRnews@thr.com

September 12, 2016 7:57am PT by Marisa Guthrie

Larry Busacca/Getty Images for Paley Center for Media

“The first piece should be about 16 minutes long,” says Olbermann. “It’s a comment. It’s special. It’s a kind of special comment.”

Since he left ESPN last year, Keith Olbermann has for the most part used his Twitter feed to air his views about a certain Republican presidential candidate. Beginning Tuesday morning, Sept. 13, Olbermann will be delivering that commentary for GQ.

The Closer with Keith Olbermann will bow at 8 a.m. on GQ.com.

“The first piece should be about 16 minutes long,” Olbermann tells The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s a comment. It’s special. It’s a kind of special comment.”

Of course, special comment was a signature of Olbermann’s MSNBC show Countdown, which grew out of the host’s opposition to George W. Bush’s War in Iraq. During the current presidential campaign — and since he left ESPN last year — he also has aired his frustrations with Donald Trump and the way his candidacy is being covered via several guest columns. He asked in Vanity Fair, if Trump could pass a sanity test. And he penned a column for THR, in which he accused the mainstream media of being soft of Trump. 

“If he is scheduled to do 20 Trump town halls for you between now and the election, thus saving you about a month’s worth of production costs for your average cable news show (a million or two, depending on how much you pay your meat puppet), you don’t examine what’s going on inside of a man who could first pretend to be his own media spokesman, then boast about his own sexual conquests in the third person, then admit the deception to a reporter, then again admit it on the legal record, then deny it on national television, then when pressed about it by The Washington Post simply hang up the phone,” Olbermann wrote. 

The media’s approach to Trump has received additional scrutiny since NBC’s Matt Lauer was strenuously criticized for what was perceived as less-than-thorough questioning of Trump during NBC News’ Commander-In-Chief forum on Sept. 7. 

Additionally, Olbermann will also serve as a special correspondent for GQ. He continues to lend his voice to the Netflix animated show BoJack Horseman, having just wrapped production on season four. And he tells THR he also has some one-off sports projects in the pipeline.

Olbermann is repped by Todd Christopher at Gersh.

Keith Olbermann

Marisa Guthrie

THRnews@thr.com

September 01, 2016 1:19pm PT by Marisa Guthrie

Matt Lauer  Gilbert Carrasquillo/FilmMagic

The ‘Today’ anchor is set to host the first joint candidate event of the general election with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

A since deleted web page on the Clinton Global Initiative site touting several prominent TV anchors as “notable members” is creating controversy for NBC News’ Matt Lauer. Several web sites have seized on the CGI’s assertion ahead of a Sept. 7 forum with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, which Lauer will moderate.

In fact, Lauer has never been a member of CGI, nor has he donated any money to the organization. (ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos had to recuse himself from moderating primary debates after it came to light last year that he has donated to the Clinton’s foundation over the years.)

It’s unclear why CGI seemingly took it upon itself to list several news personalities as “members”; Anderson Cooper, Maria Bartiromo, Thomas Friedman and Christiane Amanpour were also name-checked on the since deleted page.

But sources at NBC News tell The Hollywood Reporter that the only proximity Lauer has come to CGI was in 2011 when he interviewed Bill Clinton from the organization’s conference in New York. But while the interview was done at the Manhattan hotel hosting the Clinton Foundation, it was conducted for the Today show, not as part of the conference.

“Matt Lauer was not and is not a Clinton Global Initiative member,” an NBC News spokesperson tells THR. “He interviewed President Clinton from a CGI conference for the Today show’s live broadcast, not for the conference.”  

Lauer is not the only anchor to have been dogged by the web page. Cooper’s inclusion was cited last fall as he was moderating primary debates on CNN.

Lauer will host the Commander-in-Chief forum on Sept. 7 in New York. It is presented by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and have Clinton and Trump separately answering questions about national security, military affairs and veterans issues in front of an audience of members of the military. 

Marisa Guthrie

THRnews@thr.com