Samantha Bee Previews Her New TBS Show, Plays 'Most Likely To' With the 2016 Presidential Field

TBS is promising that Full Frontal With Samantha Bee will “break up late night’s all-male sausage fest.” So what food items is Samantha Bee bringing to the party, exactly?

“Maybe we need a few veggies,” Bee tells Yahoo TV. “Some greens at this party. Plenty of sausage already.”

Yes, some variety in the male-dominated late night landscape would be nice, and after a dozen years as a correspondent on The Daily Show, Bee is ready to deliver: Her new late-night news show, Full Frontal With Samantha Bee (debuting this week on TBS), combines political humor with the kind of ridiculous field pieces Bee has made into an art form. In this sneak peek, Bee reveals how woefully unprepared our nation’s Veterans Affairs department is for the health needs of female soldiers:

So what sets Full Frontal apart from The Daily Show? Well, to start with, there will be no guests… at least at first. “If some really famous, powerful person wanted to come on our show, that would be great!” Bee says with a laugh. “I’m not gonna say no. But for the first little while, we’re just gonna do our own thing.” And that thing is bringing important news stories to light that wouldn’t otherwise get played up in the mainstream press, she says: “We’re mostly looking at stories that make us go, ‘Oh Godddddd… why is this real?!?’ We want to get really upsetting.”

Bee earned her seat at the late-night table after logging more than a decade as a Daily Show correspondent, starting back in 2003, where she specialized in field pieces that made good use of her deadpan delivery. And those field pieces will be a big piece of Full Frontal, she promises: “That’s the thing I think I liked the most at The Daily Show. I actually just love it. I mean, I hate it, and I love it. You know what I mean? It’s good to go out in the world and talk to people. I mean, it’s horrendously frustrating. But in the end, it’s very rewarding.”

And on Full Frontal, Bee says she’ll be utilizing everything she learned from her years working with former Daily Show host Jon Stewart: “It really was comedy college. His point of view infused the whole show. There was not a thing that went on that show that was not determined and focused through his actual point of view. I think the importance of having a really clear editorial voice is a huge takeaway from that.”

Bee left The Daily Show last April, just a few months before Stewart handed over the reins to new host Trevor Noah. “I think Trevor’s doing an admirable job of it,” she says. “But I’m not envious of that part of that experience. I’m really happy to carve out my own space. Because I am a little quirkier than The Daily Show. I do have a different style than that show. And to be able to explore that is a gift.”

Along with Noah, Bee joins a late-night landscape dotted with Daily Show alums, including Stephen Colbert on CBS and John Oliver on HBO; in fact, Full Frontal tapes in the same New York studio as Oliver’s Last Week Tonight. But Bee insists she doesn’t think of them as her competition. “I’m a woman, so I don’t know what goes on in their minds, but I don’t feel competitive with them. I feel like there’s a lot of room for everybody to carve out their own space. I don’t even feel competitive if other women take up that mantel. I’m like, ‘Great!’ We all have a different point of view. We can handle more than… ten.”

Bee is married to fellow Daily Show alum Jason Jones (who has his own TBS sitcom, The Detour, debuting later this year), and the two Canadians recently became U.S. citizens. In fact, they’ll be voting for the first time in this year’s presidential election, and Bee says that’s made her more personally invested in the American political process: “I legitimately want what’s best for the nation now. It’s not just comedy from a distance. I’m in it. I have American children. At some point, you have to buy into the whole system, and we have done that.”

So does she know who she’s voting for already? “I’m not sure I know enough about many of them! I wish Trump was more outspoken about his goals. Just state your opinions, my friend.“ Speaking of Donald Trump, Bee is starting to think his meteoric rise in the polls isn’t really a laughing matter anymore: “I think I’m a little more concerned about the actual future of the country now. I think we’re all sobering up a bit. I think we’re all realizing that something could go terribly wrong. In the very near future. That will affect all of our lives.”

So since she’s a newly christened American voter and the election is nine short months away, we asked Bee to play a round of “Most Likely To” with the 2016 presidential field, speculating on which candidate is “most likely to…” and filling in the blank. Who knows? Maybe we’ll all figure out who we should vote for based on Bee’s answers. Let’s start with…

Ben Carson

“[Most likely to] fall asleep while talking, I think. Just nod off while you’re interviewing him.”

Ted Cruz

“Most likely to be the first person to say no to coming on my show. Unequivocal no.”

Bernie Sanders

“Most likely to get frustrated by my nonsense. He is not interested in hi-jinks. At all. He’s a little crusty. And I love him. But he’s crusty.”

Marco Rubio

“Most likely to share a blender drink recipe with me, if we ever get together. I feel like he has a specific room in his house, a bar with a special daiquiri maker. Not that he’s having daiquiris all the time, but he just has that in his house. Most likely to serve me a daiquiri.”

Jeb Bush

“Most likely to stare forlornly out a window. He might actually be doing that right now. Most likely to be in the middle of a deep sigh.”

Hillary Clinton

“Hmmm… I want to say, most likely to win the presidency. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I am kind of hoping. [Nervous laughter.] Most likely to slam her laptop shut and throw it across the room. When she reads what’s being written about her.”

Donald Trump

“Most likely to be the worst person you ever served if you were a waiter. Terrible tipper. Nasty. I did a lot of waitering in my life, and I kind of have identified him as someone I would never want to serve.”

Full Frontal With Samantha Bee premieres Monday, Feb. 8 at 10:30 p.m. on TBS.