Why Samantha Bee Bailed On CNN’s ‘Have I Got News for You’

It’s not you, it’s me. But it’s also you, as Samantha Bee explained on this week’s episode of The Daily Beast Podcast. Following in her co-host Joanna Coles’ footsteps, Bee was booked to appear on a recent episode of the new CNN panel show Have I Got News For You. Days before taping though, she backed out, and told Coles why.

“I really like the show,” Bee said. “But I just can’t go on a fun-loving comedy quiz show with someone who stands so opposite every value I hold dear.”

That opponent? Republican congressman Tim Burchett, of Tennessee, who would have joined Bee alongside regular panelists and “team captains” Amber Ruffin and Michael Ian Black. In an appearance on CNN earlier in the year, Burchett controversially described Vice President Kamala Harris (then the Democratic nominee for president) as a “DEI hire.”

Many of Burchett’s political positions are in conflict with Bee’s own values, she explained. His opposition to abortion rights was the breaking point. “I’d spent all day Thursday fighting for the existential future of Planned Parenthood,” Bee, a board member with the Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, explained. “I just can’t be in a photo or a split screen with someone like that and pretend it’s a fun Friday afternoon.”

When Coles noted that past episodes of the show—particularly its original iteration, which has run in the United Kingdom for years—had effectively “ribbed” (and in some cases, undone) political figures, Bee agreed, and encouraged others to have at it. But she didn’t feel ready to throw punches or punchlines. “These questions and these issues that we are facing are literally existential,” she said, “and I don’t have a good sense of humor about it.”

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