I’m Samantha Bee, and I’m in the woods right now! Both metaphorically and literally.
To help prevent the spread of COVID-19, I am now shooting the show with a safe, minimal
crew of my husband and the creatures of the forest! Oh! Who’s this? Hello, little bluebird!
How are you? - I’m a hallucination brought on by you
isolating yourself! Okay!
As surreal as it still seems, the coronavirus has changed how most of us live our lives.
With millions in isolation and hundreds of thousands infected, now is the time to put
our differences aside and come together. Like, not come together like these idiots.
- Thousands of students who made their annual pilgrimage to Florida for spring break are
having celebrations interrupted. - I think they’re blowing it way out of
proportion. I think it’s doing way too much. - If I get corona, I get corona. At the end
of the day, I’m not gonna let it stop me from partying.
That’s right. If spring breakers get corona, they’re gonna get corona. Oh, and they got
corona. Florida, don’t be like this! Even an alligator riding a lawnmower the wrong
way down the interstate was like, “Get inside, assholes!” Believe it or not, that’s Florida’s
governor, David P. Alligator. He issued an executive order to see you later, alligator.
While America's least wanted is hitting the beach, the economy is getting slammed. Local
news around the country has been showing empty restaurants, bars, hotels, and stores that
have either closed or seen a massive plummet in business. The National Restaurant Association
said U.S. restaurants could suffer a loss of 225 billion dollars in the next three months.
That's four and a half Michael Bloombergs! Put them together and that equals one normal-sized
Bloomberg. And it's not just restaurants. Every part of the service industry is suffering.
Here's how one New York City dry cleaner has been affected.
- Our landlord still wants the rent paid, our taxes paid. Con Edison wants the utilities
paid. If nothing’s coming in, where am I gonna get the money from to pay employees?
So many of our clients are white-collar workers. They are working remotely. And unfortunately,
when you work remotely, you’re not cleaning your clothes.
New Yorkers, I know you’re all shitting your pants in fear right now. Send your pants
to her! Save her business! Unfortunately, if your job isn't considered essential or
if you're one of the 70% of people who can't work remotely, there's a good chance you're
not working at all. And if you are working remotely, there's a 50% chance you’ve accidentally
shown your coworkers what you look like on the toilet. Even if you can go back to the
office eventually, you really shouldn’t. Meanwhile, concerts, conventions, and music
festivals have all been delayed or canceled, leaving thousands of artists, performers,
technicians, cleaning staffs, vendors, and more without the seasonal income they depend
on for the rest of the year. Thank god Lilith Fair doesn't exist anymore. I don't think
my heart could take it. I mean, I didn't just go. I was Lilith Fair. The fact is pretty
much every industry that employs the working class is collapsing— except, I guess, pornography
and beans. Which is why I've just released my own line of bean-themed pornography. It's
gross. The catch-22 is that if you’re not out of work, there’s a good chance you’re
being pressured to keep working in dangerous conditions. Last week, Amazon discovered a
case of coronavirus at a New York warehouse. And while they are being generous enough to
offer a whole extra two dollars an hour for working during a plague, they’ll only give
workers paid time off if they’re under mandated quarantine or if they test positive. I don’t
know if you’ve heard, but those tests are kinda hard to come by right now. You have
to be like 25% famous to get tested. It’s the new getting verified on Twitter. And if
you do test positive and you’re one of the more than 27 million Americans without health
insurance, you could be on the hook for treatment costing up to $100,000. And I don’t mean
the good 100 Grand! - Ugh, this is why women shouldn’t try comedy.
Dammit, I miss the 30- to 50-year-old white women who used to come to my show.
Even when companies such as McDonald's say they’re offering employees paid sick leave
during the crisis, I mean, they kind of aren’t. - I've worked at McDonald's for over 10 years.
There are over 500,000 McDonald's workers just like me that have to go to work whether
sick or well because we have no paid sick leave. Last week, McDonald's did roll out
a coronavirus plan, stating that anybody that's quarantined will be paid. But you guys, don't
be fooled. That’s only for corporate-owned McDonald’s. But 95% of McDonald's are franchise
stores—including my store. So that does not benefit us whatsoever.
95% of stores won't have paid sick leave if their employees get the coronavirus. So I'd
like to congratulate Trump's new Secretary of Labor: Mayor McCheese. Also, R.I.P. Trump
ate him. And now that schools are closing, working class parents have it even harder.
Nearly 55 million students have been affected by closures, and some areas are considering
keeping schools closed through the summer. This means parents with zero teaching experience
now have to homeschool, even as Disney implements its emergency plan to inject Frozen 2 directly
into their kids' veins. For some parents, school closures mean having to choose between
keeping their job so they can feed their kids or quitting their job so they can stay home
to take care of them. I guess there is a third option: making every day Bring Your Kid to
Work Day. It's important to remember not every family can afford remote learning and many
low-income households with school-age children don't have broadband internet access. That's
a lot of kids going without education and Animal Crossing. Both are probably that asshole
Tom Nook's fault. It's also worth mentioning that everything I've talked about tonight
disproportionately impacts people of color, because of course it does. Thanks systemic
racism! A lot of people have lost their income. But on a personal level, there are things
that you can do to help out. Buy gift cards to local businesses and restaurants. And if
you do order delivery, tip! More than usual. Tip them, as Mark Twain once said, like everybody
is watching. But more than that, we need large-scale government intervention. As of this taping,
Congress is debating a two-trillion-dollar stimulus package. Democrats have fought hard
against original versions of the bill, which failed to include enough aid for unemployed
Americans, but did include a 500-billion-dollar slush fund that Trump had clearly hoped would
help cruise ship and hotel companies. The only ship that should be helped right now
is that scary ass hospital boat. It’s called the U.S.N.S. Comfort, yet there is nothing
comforting about it. Listen, I’m glad they’re using it, but please don’t make me go on
that boat! Look at it! That boat is 100% haunted now. On the bright side, people are optimistic
the new package will both pass and include direct cash payments to individuals. It’s
a way to help Americans while also giving Andrew Yang a fire-hydrant-level wet dream.
Shh. Don’t wake him. He’s stuck to the bed. This is a scary as shit time. Hospitals
are already overwhelmed, but the president is signaling it’ll be safe to re-open businesses
in weeks, not months. I guess he doesn’t want to miss spending spring break with—let’s
be honest—probably the next governor of Florida. Every decision the president makes
puts us in more danger than the one before. We are going to lose people we love, and we
won’t even be able to have funerals to mourn them. And he is responsible. We would be much
better if he just hid in his house and did nothing like we’re all being asked to do.
Instead now, we have all become Dr. Fauci at that press conference. He was so mad he
touched his face! We need the government to stop bailing out
big business and start bailing out the Americans who need it. And we need to stop treating
the working class like their lives matter less than CEOs. In short, we need to start
treating people like people. Well, not every people.