Hi, everyone.
I'm Samantha Bee.
Welcome to "Full Frontal."
We are only one menstrual cycle into this presidency,
and there is blood in the water.
A White House in crisis.
A bombshell report overnight with new questions
about President Trump's ties to Russia.
What did the president know, and when did he know it?
And he is digging himself as quickly as--
he's digging himself into the same bunker
and the same little hole that Richard
Nixon did in 1973 and 1974.
Holy shit.
That is how serious this is.
Joe Scarborough mentioned a past event
in Washington without making it a story about himself.
Today, all of us, Democrats and Republicans,
woke up with this sick feeling that our president
could be a Russian puppet.
No puppet.
And it's pretty clear--
You're the puppet.
Well, that's a relief.
If he's yelling that angrily, it must be true.
I'll just accept POTUS's tweet-splanation
that any report of his senior staff yakking
on the phone with the Kremlin like a pair of teenage girls
is both illegally leaked and completely made up.
Let's move on, because in the past few weeks,
while we were all staring directly
at the eclipse of national security and democratic norms,
we've been blind to something else, namely,
our Republican Congress going hog wild
like Amish twins on Rumspringa.
Today, the Senate gave final approval
to another bill that would let coal companies dump
debris into nearby streams.
Who the fuck asked for that?
I have never seen citizens driving around
with pro-coal juice bumper stickers.
Senate Republicans won't get 60 votes for a Make America
Mercury Again bill that doesn't save jobs, but hey, lucky us,
they don't have to.
Republicans are steamrolling Democrats, slashing
regulations left and right.
And they're doing it using an obscure law called
the Congressional Review Act.
Oh, god, sorry.
I get a mini panic attack these days when I hear
the words "an obscure law."
Also happens when I hear "a routine phone
call," "a norm, not a law," and "Friday
afternoon announcement."
OK, hit me.
What is the Congressional Review Act?
The Congressional Review Act allows for a quick rollback
on regulations passed in the last six
months of the Obama presidency with a simple majority vote.
Once the president signs off, the agency cannot re-enact
a similar rule, an unprecedented tactic
to overturn multiple laws from a previous administration.
Or, as the actual text of the act puts it, yoinked your regs.
No backsies.
Sucks to be you.
[LAUGHTER]
The act has been used successfully only once,
in 2001, to roll back Bill Clinton's OSHA requirements,
because if anyone cared about creating a safe and harm-free
workplace, it was Bill Clinton.
But when the current Congress discovered this fun toy,
they were as excited as a puppy discovering a dildo, and just
as destructive.
When Congress uses it five times in just one week,
that truly is unprecedented.
More than 50 regulations are vulnerable,
from the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act that sets nutrition
standards for school lunches to a regulation
intended to increase access to treatment for opioid use.
Joke's on you, Republicans.
If school kids are hungry and hooked on opioids,
they'll never have the stamina to learn that Jesus
wrote the constitution.
[LAUGHTER]
Now, if you're wondering, won't coal-flavored rivers also
be bad for the wild animals, don't worry,
there won't be any.
Republicans plan to roll back parts of the landmark
Endangered Species Act.
It comes after decades of complaints
that it hinders drilling and logging projects.
Changes proposed would be limiting the amount of lawsuits
used in the law's name, and limiting
the number of species that can be protected at any one time.
That is not how extinction works.
The endangered species list isn't a nightclub.
You don't wait for one breeding pair to leave before you
can let another one in.
Hearings began today on modernizing the Endangered
Species Act the same way an elderly volunteer
modernized that fresco of Jesus.
[LAUGHTER]
HR 717 would delay the already slow approval process,
give industrial interests greater influence,
and give government officials power to prioritize which
species get protection, which will be particularly
tough on the Muslim animals.
[LAUGHTER]
Meanwhile, Wyoming's newest Congress Cheney
is co-sponsoring a bill to de-list the gray wolf
so their burgeoning Wyoming population of less than 400
can be culled down to more reasonable none.
Leave it to Dick Cheney's daughter
to make it legal to shoot things in the face.
Here's the thing.
The vast majority of Americans support wildlife protection.
The Endangered Species Act unites conservative warriors
and unemployed liberal farmers.
[LAUGHTER]
For God's sake, "animals are awesome"
is the only safe topic of conversation
most American families have left.
Left, right, old, young, black, white, Americans
agree, four legs good.
Unfortunately, the guy who spends
his life sealed in a no-pets Isengard
in the middle of Manhattan and never wears anything but a suit
isn't what you'd call a nature lover.
He re-authorized the Keystone Pipeline, his sons slaughter
elephants for recreation, and he's got personal beef
with the bald eagles the Endangered Species
Act was written to protect. Dammit, eagle.
Don't muss Trump's hair.
You're just normalizing him.
Trump will sign any animal death warrant the Republican Congress
puts in front of him, as long as it doesn't
threaten the tufted titmouse.
He doesn't know what it is.
Don't tell him.
[LAUGHTER]
Oh, hey, you know that would be really impressive?
If the congressional Once-lers could combine
the Congressional Review Act with pointless slaughter
of animals.
Like, imagine if they repealed an Obama rule so as
to let Alaskan hunters shoot wolves and bears from airplanes
inside wildlife refuges, including mothers with cubs,
and set out bait and steel-jawed trap to snare bears, or maybe
your dog.
And what if congressmen whose constituents
are horrified by this bill voted for it anyway?
Because maybe the congressman from Alaska
will do them a favor in return someday.
And anyway, who's paying attention to the vote
that's actually happening tomorrow?
Certainly not a bunch of woke Americans
with their congressman's phone number
on speed dial and four minutes to kill
during a commercial break.
We'll be right back after this commercial break.
[LAUGHTER]
[CHEERING]
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