WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 816 - Senator Al Franken

Episode Date: May 31, 2017

Marc travels to Washington, DC for a conversation with his old radio co-worker who now happens to be a United States Senator. Al Franken takes Marc through his start in comedy with Tom Davis, his fifteen years at SNL and his emergence as a political leader. The Senator works through the challenges of the Trump Presidency, gives his impressions of fellow Senators and explains how his career in comedy helped him in politics. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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ears what the fuckadelics what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it i imagine a lot of people are tuning in today for the first time because of my guest, Senator Al Franken from Minnesota. Yeah, Al Franken, the hilarious Al Franken and the very decent and engaged and active senator, Democratic senator from the state of Minnesota, Mr. Al senator, Democratic senator from the state of Minnesota, Mr. Al Franken, Senator Al Franken. I talked to him in D.C. and I know a lot of you are tuning in because it's nice to have a conversation. I don't have a lot of specifically political conversations here on the show. I did talk to a president, President Obama. But this is really the first senator, I think this is the first sitting senator I've had on.

He's the first senator I've had on at all, really. And I'm excited about it because Al has a new book out. And it doesn't inherently or exclusively mean we talk about politics only because Al's book was about – it's a memoir. It's a memoir., it's a memoir. It's a memoir. The book is a memoir. And it's called Al Franken, Giant of the Senate. And you can get it now wherever you get books. But, you know, I like Al and I've known Al a long time in some degree.

We were at Air America together. But also as a kid, I was a huge fan of Al on SNL. And anytime I saw him appear anywhere, I thought he was hilarious. He is hilarious. He I wait for him to be funny. I look at him and I want and I just wait for him to be funny. And I remember when when he became a senator, I was like, oh, boy, now he's not going to be funny anymore. And he's so specifically funny. And this book uh giant of the senate is funny and it it it goes through the full arc and i talked to al about a lot of different things but i talk about his life and i talk about his his evolution uh in comedy i didn't realize he started as a stand-up i

didn't know he had time at the comedy store i didn't know about the early snl from his point of view and how he evolved out of that into public service is all in the book. But he doesn't give short shrift to his comedy career and what that implied at the time he was in it. And also once he became a candidate for Senate and then once he became a senator, it threads through it all. His comedy career is important and does become, for times, a liability. But he doesn't dismiss it, and he's very proud of it, and he should be, because he's a brilliant comedic mind. But it's also important to have Al there, to have Al in the Senate at this juncture in history. It's very important because he's a decent guy and uh he he believes in american decency and he

believes in helping americans in a real way in a practical way and he talks about that and i'll tell you this book if you read the book uh it's almost a primer for how to get into politics and i and it's something i think we should all do at whatever level we can. And I believe me, I'm guilty of being disengaged, lazy, even apathetic at times, but I do what I can. So before I get too far into my rambling, because I do want to get to Al, because I know people are here to listen to Al, because this is a nice rare sort of hour long chat with Al, but I'm going to be doing it again. I'm going to listen to Al, because this is a nice, rare, sort of hour-long chat with Al, but I'm going to be doing it again.

I'm going to be interviewing Al in front of a live audience tomorrow, June 2nd, at the Book Expo in New York City at the Javits Center. The following day, me and Brendan McDonald will be participating in the BookCon in the same place, the Javits Center, doing our shtick about our book. So if you're in New York, come to either or both of those events. shtick about our book so if you're in new york come to either or both of those events so folks i i don't uh get into the fray much of the politics but i'll tell you man you know there's some real heroes out there so there's some real heroes out there and some of them are giving their lives to maintain decency and and law and order to some degree

and the pursuit of truth and democracy. A reporter gets beaten up and it's celebrated by certain people. You know, that's not American. There's a type of belligerent, immoral, violent, willfully ignorant, proudly dumb strain of behavior going on. Now that's not, it's not political. It's not American. It's fucking crude and it's just dangerous. Why are you proud of that? So there are some unsung heroes. The journalists right now are taking up a lot a lot of their lives and energy to provide a check you know on the government that needs to be there because we don't have a lot of

outlets there's got to be checks and balances and you know to beat up on real journalists who are just looking for truth it's weird. This presidency is probably the most transparent presidency, certainly in my life, just by virtue of journalists doing their job. This administration does not want it to be transparent, and it's transparent. We can see right into it. I do want to say a few words about these people

that have stepped into the fray to protect other Americans from hate and violence. You know, two people died in Portland doing the right thing. One guy was injured doing the right thing, protecting another American from a lunatic who was radicalized by white nationalists, American white nationalists. We've got to get each other's backs because, you know, those who believe in America, in the idea of tolerance and the idea of mercy, the idea of charity, the idea of everybody having a shot, you know, at living a free life in their dream of diversity, of the things that make America interesting and great and strong.

Those of us who believe that are at odds with the belligerent, immoral, violent, willfully ignorant, proudly dumb anti-American forces that just want to steamroll the evolution and progress of democracy. So you might have to get dirty. You might have to step in. You might have to speak up. You should. But the great thing about talking to Al is he does that.

And he does it from the United States Senate. We all have a part. You got to play a little little part just a little bit so after reading al's book i laughed i cried i grew with him as he became a civil servant a senator who is deeply rooted and believes in helping and working with the people of this country in Minnesota, his state in helping people that have less or do not get the services needed in ways the poor, the disenfranchised. He does he does all the things that a decent progressive, democratic or anybody American should do. He works towards those things.

And obviously now the government is tilted in one direction. It's highly polarized. So he's got his work cut out for him. But the interesting thing about Al is that, you know, he's got endurance, he's got persistence, and he's got drive. And he's one of the most active members uh right now in the democratic side of the senate in terms of uh seeing him speak up and and confront like to watch him deal with uh question uh jeff sessions senator sessions during his uh confirmation hearing uh was a profound and

amazing thing that led to uh the ultimate recusal uh of sessions in in this investigation into the administration's collusion with Russia. So, you know, government is exciting and it is challenging and you got to be cut out for it and you got to stay in it and you got to believe in it. And Al Franken does. And I'm proud of him. I'm proud he's a U.S. senator. And it's amazing to see somebody who evolved out of show business and into finding his heart in public service. And it was great to talk to him. This is me and Al Franken. His book is called Al Franken, Giant of the Senate. And it was great.

I was able to sit with him at his chief of staff's house in D.C., and we had about an hour, and then he had to get out and do some things, Senator things. So this is me now. Senator. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything.

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little behind me. Sure. Because I'm very I need a pillow. Thank you, young man. See, I still do voices. Oh, that's great. Even though I'm a senator.

Funny hours back. Yes. Oh, good. After five and a half years of not being funny in the Senate. I'll be honest with you, Senator Franken. I didn't quite finish the book. I'm about 20 pages shy. That's okay. But at the end, is there some practical solution to all the world's problems that can be enacted quickly?

It's actually on the last page. I knew it would be there. Yeah. Oh, thank God. Thank God it's all going to work out. It's all going to work out. I wanted to stay. I don't know if I ever told you the story but i

tell you the story sure when i was a kid there was uh i went to a camp with a kid who's uh whose father worked at nbc so i must have been 14 or 15 and he was gonna i was big fan of snl i wanted to meet john belushi uh-huh so he set up uh my my grandma goldie from new jersey i flew into i was visiting her and she took me to nbc okay me and goldie were we went up to 30 rock we went up we're gonna meet john belushi we go to the waiting area and we're waiting and uh some guy comes out with a big juve row in glasses it's you yeah and you're kind of giggling a little bit i don't know what happened just beyond the door that you came out of sure but you're like we're at a comedy show uh yeah so it could have been someone said something funny

right right i wasn't implying anything but you said yeah john's not he can't he can't come out oh i was sent in to tell you that oh i'm sorry it's all right you're 14 yeah something like al tell the 14 year old-old kid that bullshit. What year is this, do you know? Well, it must have been, what, 77? Okay. Does that make sense? Sure.

You know, he was moody. Oh, really? Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Like in and out, cranky? He could get very cranky. I mean, he, you know, 77, I'm sure by then he was doing too many drugs.

Right, right. And that he was kind of this moody Albanian anyway. Yeah. But once he, I don't know if you know this, but people who are addicted to drugs can get extra moody. Sure, when they don't have their drugs or they haven't slept. Or something. Yeah. I'm familiar with that.

I remember actually once, I think it was probably the next year, Kate Jackson, I think it was her hosting. It doesn't matter who was hosting, but he was really in bad shape. And in dress rehearsal, Jim Downey and I had written a piece, and John just was terrible in it and didn't know his lines. So I said to Downey, between dress and air, let's go to John's dressing room and just run the lines with him. And Jim kind of was reticent to do it because I wish he was not in a good mood. But I go in there and I go, John, I noticed that you were unfamiliar with the lines and the sketch. And he just said, get out of here. And he put his fist up.

And Jim looked at me and I went, he's not. I just looked at him and said, he's not going to hit us. He doesn't do that. He's not going to do it. So I said, John, I'm going to read. I'll just read the lines to you. So when you say them on the air, they'll seem familiar to you. Well, that's when the fist went up, actually.

So that's all we did. We just kept running the lines, but he wouldn't run the lines, but Downey and I just did the sketch for him so that when they were on the air, it would sound familiar to him. And did it? It got better. It was better. I think we had done our job. So I didn't know a lot of things.

I do comedy, and I work at the comedy store, and I saw Franken and Davis on the wall at the comedy store. I knew you must have been there at some time, but I didn't know the whole arc of your comedic career. But before I start that, you grew up in Minnesota, right? Yeah. Now, your father, what was his business? Well, he was a printing salesman for the rest of his career.

He started working when he was 16 because his dad died. And he didn't graduate high school, so he never had a career as such. But we moved to Minnesota when I was four years old, and we moved to a little town, Albert Lee, Minnesota, southern Minnesota, to open a quilting factory. And my grandfather, my mom's dad, had a quilting factory. And we moved to Albert Lee to open a quilting factory, and it failed. And a quilting factory makes quilted fabric right which is uh for any use any use yeah lines you can make bedspreads after you can lines uh winter coats was mainly what it was used for in those days and the factory failed after two years and then we're in this little

thing we moved up to st louis park minnesota the jewish suburb sort of is 25 jews but in minnesota that's no uh we're very jewish but i'm not right i'm not devout right but this was called saint jewish park by delightful people in minnesota nice people of minnesota well no we called it that ourselves but this is 25 jewish and the town the suburb the suburb and that in Minnesota is a shtetl that is very Jewish so we moved up there but when I was like I don't know my teens or something when I finally thought about I said dad why did we move why Albert Lee why Albert Lee and he said well your grandfather my my dad was a New Yorker and also had inhaled a pipe throughout his entire adult life. Your grandfather wanted to start a, open a factory in the Midwest and the railroad went through Albert Lee.

And I said, why? Okay, why did it fail? It went through Albert Lee, but it wouldn't stop. And dad was funny. He was a terrible businessman. He didn't know what he, you know, and then he became a printing salesman, and he was the sweetest guy.

You know, it's funny. I listened to Dana and to, I've heard that one, and Springsteen, and I know that you had a difficult relationship with your father, and Dana, of course, did. Yeah, that was something a difficult relationship with your father. And Dana, of course, did. Yeah, that was something. And Springsteen did.

Yeah. And I'm just, my dad was the sweetest guy. You're lucky. And he was very funny. I'm very lucky. Yeah, and that's why I think that you're probably a sweet, more grounded fellow. I like to think so. I really wanted to be a dad always because my dad was such a great dad. Yeah, and you don't have the

the absent dad either emotionally or physically chip on your shoulder i don't have certainly don't have that chip yeah no but it's funny about what i have but i don't have that one my dad was such a sweetheart it's funny because about that train thing because you actually worked on legislation later in life around the on the agricultural something called uh cap uh captive shipping yeah which is the railroads enjoy kind of a monopoly in this country many do yeah and uh so they kind of can not ship or not ship your stuff and this is really affects you got to pay them to stop exactly yeah and uh if you want to put a complaint into the surface transportation board yeah this is who uh oversees the railroads it used to be like a huge amount of money it's

like twenty five thousand dollars and uh david vitter uh senator from uh lou from Louisiana, he and I never saw eye to eye on anything. We worked on this thing to get down to $300. And you did it. So you could file a complaint for $300. So if your grandfather had opened a business after you fixed it. We might have been able to file a complaint. Yeah. And I might have grown up in Albert Lee.

That's right. And get those quilts out to the world. Yeah, quilting. Quilting. Quilting fabric. I'm sorry. I apologize. I Albert Lee. That's right. And get those quilts out to the world. Yeah. Quilting. Quilting. Quilting fabric. I'm sorry. I apologize. I got to get this stuff right.

When Sputnik went up, my parents, everyone was petrified. You're too young for this. But when Sputnik went up, the Russians now were ahead of us in space and had nuclear weapons. Right. And so everyone was petrified. My parents marched us into our living room, sat us down, and had nuclear weapons right and so everyone was petrified my parents marched us into our living room sat us down said you boys are going to study math and science so we can beat the soviets i thought that was a lot of pressure to put on a six-year-old um and which i was uh

but and my brother's 11 but we we were very obedient sons and so we studied math and science and both of us were very good at it. And he got into MIT as the first in our family to go to college, and he actually graduated with a degree in physics. But he was disgusted by the Vietnam War and saw that a lot of what MIT did with its physics was make stuff to kill people. And so he became an anti-war activist

and was Gene McCarthy's photographer. So he traveled with him and did the whole thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in fact, when I was a junior in high school, I went to Milwaukee to watch McCarthy. And that's when I saw Nixon on that trip. And LBJ dropped out during that trip really yeah it was a Wisconsin primary during the Wisconsin and you were in high school yeah were you excited about politics yeah you were yeah and well I was you know I was very

against the Vietnam War right um what got us is what got me interested in politics was the civil rights movement. Right. And we watched the news every evening. It was either Cronkite or Huntley Brinkley. We sat in front of the TV with tray tables and ate dinner. As a family. As a family. And my mom was a great cook.

We didn't have TV dinners. We had really good dinners, but we watched the news. And when the Civil Rights Movement was happening and Southern sheriffs at demonstrations put billy clubs and fire hoses and dogs on demonstrators, my dad would point to the TV and say, no Jew can be for that. No Jew can be for that. And that was a very big lesson, which is politics is about justice. My dad had been a Jacob Javits Republican, a liberal Republican.

There used to be such a thing. liberal Republican. There used to be such a thing. And he switched to being a Democrat in 1964 because Barry Goldwater was the nominee and he had voted against the Civil Rights Act. So the Civil Rights Movement was the first thing that got me really engaged in politics. The family deciding factor. Well, it was my my mom had been a Democrat uh-huh so it was my dad so at the point when you like as the 60s go on and and things get very heated and polarized in the country and young people were you know protesting and everything else when you initially started doing comedy did you have heroes that were fighting the power or was it part of the intention that you thought this was the best way to do this

uh no we just like comedy yeah and we like satire and so tom and i this tom davis and i met in high school and we started doing an act and uh we did a lot of nixon we just thought nixon was hilarious and so we would do so much nixon that if nixon was talking to kissinger tom was nixon yeah if nixon was talking to david eisenhower his son his son-in-law uh i'd be nixon yeah because tom was better he was it just made sense so both of us did nixon interact yeah which was stupid if you think about it but but somehow it worked. And you started when you were in high school, the two of you. Yeah, we started in Chapel.

Yeah. Oh, really? Here's the deal. That's a prep school. Yeah. I went to public school through the end of junior high. My brother goes to MIT. So my parents, who think education is everything, figure that now he's gone to college, he's the expert on education.

So my brother, unbeknownst to me, calls my parents, calls my dad and says, Alan should go to Harvard, not MIT. Yeah. Because everybody's a wonk and a nerd here. But the wonks and nerds who are best prepared here went to private school. They're much better prepared. So I didn't know about this conversation until years later, but my dad comes to me a little while later and goes,

Alan, you're going to take a test for a school for smart kids. And I go, okay, smart kids, that sounds good. Or that sounds okay. And so I go to this campus there and take this test. It's a beautiful campus. And a few weeks later, Alan, you passed the test for the school for smart kids. So I go, okay. And I've gone, you know, I've been from first grade on with this group of kids in public school.

And I kind of didn't like the idea, but again, obedient son. So then about a week before I go to the school, they have an ambassador show me around. And I don't want to say who the kid is. He was from kind of one of the old families in Minneapolis, but he was not a smart kid. Yeah. He was kind of a mouth breather. So you knew the system was rigged.

So already I'm going, huh. And then he tells me, you know, you have to wear a coat and tie. Yeah. I go like, wow, that's weird. Okay, I could do that. You have to play a sport. Okay, I can do that. You know, they have soccer.

Yeah, well, okay, I'll do that. We have chapel in the morning. Chapel? Yeah. Chapel. You know, and it was a school founded in like 1901 for protestant boys yeah so but i didn't even know the boys part until he said oh they're you know that we have a sister school they're no girls yeah and i go what they're no girls so i go down to the parking lot

my dad goes so how did you like it and i go like, like, I'm not going. I'm not going here. And he goes, well, why not? There are no girls, Dad. He goes, oh. Well, we've paid the deposit. And so I go to the damn school because they had paid the deposit. And so I go there. And so I go there, and so I'm in chapel, and there are all these Protestant hymns. Almighty fortresses are God, and onward, Christians.

And I don't sing them because I'm Jewish. And you probably didn't know them. Oh, you have a little hymnal and you can figure them out. So I'm just not, but this is a weekend and we get our first test back from math. And our math teacher had given us sort of just a test to see where we were. I was really good at math and science because the intention still was to beat the Soviets. And I got the top score in the class at the school for smart kids. Yeah.

And so he says, Mr. Franken, would you stay after class? And I go, sure. And I'm thinking he's going to say, like, it's great to have another math mind here or something like that. But he says to me instead, after everyone's left, I notice you don't sing the hymns and i go oh boy yeah and i say well uh yeah i'm jewish and i feel like you know maybe be like sacrilegious yeah you know i just was trying to think anything yeah and he says uh-huh um you want to go to a good college don't you i went wow oh uh yes yes i do and uh your math grades will really be important for that won't they and i go yeah i'd sing the hymns he said so like the next day in chapel i'm just going onward christian

soul i don't really care yeah and actually yeah i kind of like yeah they're fun those hymns and and um here's what chapel was chapel is beginning my comedy career because after at the end of chapel there'd be announcements. And Tom Davis did an announcement with some other students. You knew him before, though, right? No, I did not know him. You met him at Chapel? I saw him in Chapel. He was hilarious.

And so after Chapel, he's a year younger than me. And after Chapel, I went up to him and I went, you were really funny. And he said, you know, tell me about the announcements and how you did it. So what ended up was that's when Franklin and Davis was born. And we just did chapel announcements. So chapel is like the best thing that ever happened to me. That was the beginning. And Tom and I started doing, you know, started doing every announcement.

People wanted us to do announcements. As a team thing. As a team. And we did every, you know, every influence, whether it was Laurel and Hardy or Johnny Carson or whatever. We just didn't. We did parodies of things. I remember we did, like, if you don't go to homecoming, you'll spend a night in the box. And that was Cool Hand Luke or something like that.

That was the hit of the time. Strother Martin. That was a bad Strother Martin. Strother Martin hosted the damn show, you know. Did he? Yeah. He was amazing, actually. He was great.

What, like first or second year? Something like that. Yeah. Wild, man. I think he was great. Yeah. What, like first or second year? Something like that. Yeah. Wild, man. I think he was our first host actually to die. Oh, really? I mean, it's very weird when you do a show. Yeah.

I guess it isn't so weird when you do a show. It's weird when you're on this planet Earth. Right. That people die. Yeah. When you're old enough to know people who died. Oh, so. Strother was the first.

To die when the show was still on. Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. So when do you start, like, you work with Davis, obviously, during the summer and stuff. And when does it become a thing that you can make money at? When do you start working in clubs? We literally made money fairly soon.

We worked at this place called the Brave New Workshop. Yeah. Was that like a hippie coffee house kind of a little sort of that not so hippie uh very minneapolis yeah and at the time and just a uh just it was an improv based comedy club it was like third city it was like second city was second city because they weren't new york But this is 1970? This is 68, 69 is when we started going there. While we were in high school, we started going there. Right.

And they would do a show, and then they'd do an improv set, just like at Second City. And they were actually trained by Del Close, who trained the Second City people. The grand wizard of improv. Exactly. And so Tom and I just kept going to the improv sets which were free so we could go there and we started to get to know the guys and they had the equivalent of an open

mic night yeah and they would let you get up on stage and we met dudley riggs who had started the place uh and dudley uh watched us on a Monday night and said, you guys are great, and we started doing shows there, like two-man shows. Then he suddenly had two theaters. Right, and you're doing scripted bits. Yeah. You had, like, what, three or four bits

that you go back and forth? Yeah, on open mic night, we did, I remember we did our World War III newscast, which was tragedy death catastrophe highlight tonight's news after this message yeah well the stock market closed today for good and now with the weather barney you know new house barney well temperature's up to 10 000 degrees cooling off tomorrow to a low of 3,000. Don't get at those umbrellas yet.

You know, I mean, it was... And it killed. It killed. And it was, yeah, it was a local news show. And that was actually part of the package that we submitted to SNL later. Later in, I guess, in 75. So once you start working, how do you get to L.A.? What makes you decide? We hitchhike to L.A.

You did? We hitchhike from Minneapolis to L.A. Kids don't do that. You were 18, 19? Yeah, no, we were older. I was in college by then. I think it was before my senior year of college. And we were doing shows during the summer at Dudley's and getting paid.

And I was also working on the street crew for the city, my suburb, St. Jewish Park, St. Louis Park. But then we decided, Pat Proft, a really, really funny writer. He wrote the Police Academies. He wrote one of the writers of the Naked Guns. Really, really funny writer he wrote uh the police academies he wrote um one of the writers of the naked guns yeah really really funny guy joke guy joke guy yes and he had been starting to do stand up at the comedy store and he said why don't you guys come out and so we actually had a friend who was going to des moines so we got a ride to Des Moines and we stuck our thumbs out

and got a ride we got a ride right to Sacramento all the way all the way to Sacramento in a truck with a guy with a family guy now it was one guy yeah figured he needed some help because he wanted to go straight through and I remember he had a hole in the um under in the floorboards i thought you're gonna say his throat no no that's where you went right away you know the guys just smoke through the hole in their throat you know yeah get you guys yeah that thing and so uh but he had a hole in the floorboards on the passenger side right and uh i remember him sleeping in the back and tom insisting on driving while we're going over the mountains and it was freezing right and i was getting all this really cold anyway that was going out to the comedy store

and then it took us quite a while to get from Sacramento to L.A. Right. But then we slept on a couple of couches at Pat's and we went up and did the comedy store. For Mitzi. It was actually for Sammy. So this was like 72, 71. So before she took over. Yeah, it was like 72 or something. Right.

So before she took over the store. Yeah. Yeah. And who was there? Like, what was going on there? When you got there there did you see any of i can't remember i think charlie fleischer had maybe started yeah and uh i just i'm trying to remember then after i went back pre-mitzi store that's wild pre-mitzi you know that was only just

a few days you know just a few days and uh enough so that we kind of established ourselves on the you know as people oh there's this team franklin davis uh among comedy people yeah so then we went out to harvard for my last year tom came out for the for the spring to boston to boston stayed in my room and we'd go down on weekends to the improv we worked the improv bud friedman was there and that was with like freddie prinz the untouchables and jay leno would come down jay leno came down from uh from boston actually when we did too and kaufman he saw andy kaufman there yeah and you know, Kaufman was killing. And then after college, boom, back out to the comedy store. And then we were for the Sammy Mitzi transition.

Yeah. But then it was Gabe Kaplan was doing it. And, oh, I know, Jimmy. Walker? Jimmy Walker. Yeah, was there. Was in New York, too. Yeah. And so, you know, that know. Jimmy. Walker? Jimmy Walker. Yeah, was there. Was in New York, too. Yeah.

And so, you know, that era. Yeah. Well, that was the very beginning. Like, you know, Jimmy Walker, he went out there and then Bud opened the place down on Melrose, like in 74. You know what? I found that place for him. You did? Because it was the Ash Grove.

Yeah. And there were the Pitchell Players, who um an improv group yeah come down from san francisco bought the ash grove and then it failed it was failing and i knew that and we used to perform there with a credibility gap uh harry sheer mike mckean dave lander yeah and they were great and we'd perform at the Old Ash Grove. But they were folding. And then I came out, Tom and I came out, and we were doing a gig in New York,

or we were doing the improv in New York, and Bud said, do you know any place in L.A.? And I said, yeah, the Old Ash Grove. They're selling that. And boom, it's at no finder's fee, nothing. He probably doesn't even remember you telling him. He probably thought he found it himself. I reminded him so you're working there and you're dealing with mitzi you're dealing with that i get on at the improv anytime i want oh good for you that's nice still i think so yeah i haven't tried it yeah grandfathered in since since the senate i

have not tried it there's still time you can always go go back. I know. I know. So how long do you stay in L.A.? And then what takes you to the SNL? Tom and I are doing the clubs. Did you deal with Mitzi, though? We dealt with Mitzi. In fact, we were there for the strike. Right. Remember, no one got paid anything.

Were you there when Steve LeBitt came? Yeah, yeah. Boy, that was... Terrible. That's taking comedy too seriously. Yeah, jumping off the building. Yeah. You were there, though, during that, the strike thing.

Were you at meetings? Did you do that thing? I did not. By the strike, Tom and I had kind of moved on. Yeah. We started doing gigs at the Ice House. Sure. And other places.

And also, we got an agent in the Midwest and started doing colleges in the Midwest for 500 a pop. That's good. Yeah, it was fun. We went around in our Volkswagen van. And how long was the act? The act was like an hour, something like that. And we really enjoyed doing it. And we were getting paid.

We were getting paid. But we had some, you know, these are weird not weird gigs they're just small colleges in the midwest they still exist those gigs yeah you can you can do those again if you want i i uh you know they were it was a lot of fun yeah and uh but uh you know we moved on from that and now i'm in the u.s center yeah when does the dead start coming into your life oh right after we moved to la from from harvard from boston that's when the yeah well tom was a deadhead already and tom introduced me to the dead and we just loved the dead yeah and we just went to a lot of concerts and but you really stuck with it i mean you stuck with the dead a long time

i'm still i still on my um on our official car in minnesota i drive all around the state yeah we have serious yeah i listen to serious 23 i do too yeah you can hear like 90 versions of the same song well uh but they have like an amazing repertoire of music, but you're right. No, no, I know. I love the dead. You know, if you have a brain that can connect with it, it's a real joy to have that. I was never a serious deadhead. It doesn't sound like you.

No, no, no. It's true. Really. I liked the dead when I was in high school a little bit, but in college, I had two roommates that were deadheads. I saw them in Worcester in 84. Okay. And I saw... Well, then you get it. Oh, no, definitely.

I definitely get it. I just watched a documentary. They sent me a screener that you're in. Oh, yeah? And I completely get it. I just never could commit to the full lifestyle. How am I in the documentary? Oh, you don't know you're in the documentary?

No, I don't mean, how am I in the documentary? It meant, how am I in the documentary? Oh, you're great. You're great. It was actually a great beat it's a sweet documentary and it was uh yeah i find myself get very choked up about it about not just the dead but when i see what music was like then and the sort of community around it and and what the world was like then we're old guys so yeah you know you get sad thinking what

it was like then yeah and i and i feel like i miss most of it i mean my primary years were the 70s and 80s i thought you guys had the the beautiful time but yeah it was a rough time too i guess probably a little more fun but let's talk about snl uh you how do you how do you get the gig we submitted a writing sample That's how we got it. It was very odd. We were the only writers that got gigs that did, that Lorne hadn't met. And we put together a writing sample, which was actually quite short, but it included the World War III newscast. It included a commercial parody or a sketch. I think it was, I think now that I remember, it was a parody

of the Sonny and Cher show. Oh, yeah. And which was really one of the few. I remember our agent said, I want you to write a writing sample, not for SNL or anything,

just because we wanted to get jobs as writers. And so there was no, the only existing shows, comedy variety shows at the time were The Tonight Show, which we just weren't right for. Carol Burnett Show, which was a really good show, but we were generationally just wrong. And then Sonny and Cher share which was dreck yeah and so i think we wrote a parody of that but we said we're not we there's no show on the air that we

want to write a sample for right so we wrote for a show that we'd like to see so this had a newscast a commercial parody a sketch uh and a film little film piece that was in your package yeah so you designed the show it was that is almost exactly what snl is right it yeah i mean we um and it was like 14 pages long it wasn't it wasn't long at all yeah there was an early point in the show where the show was popular and people would send in submissions and we'd actually read them. Yeah. And then very soon we stopped doing that because someone sued us because they had written a piece about the CIA

and the CIA was in one of our pieces. And we got sued and it was like, what? Okay, can't read pieces but people would like write really long things and say and you'd call them up and go we're sorry you know we're looking for a distinctive voice or something right you'd be nice and they would go i'll send more no no no no and we had a very short thing yeah you have to pop right right yeah and you did so we did we got the job uh we wanted to perform uh you meet with lauren that what was lauren like as a as a young man at that time when they were just starting the show uh in some ways the same i mean

i remember the first time i met him, I just thanked him for the job. Yeah. Well, of course. You know, something like that. And I don't do Lauren as well as Dana or any of those guys. But he was, I think, more hands-on in the writing in those days. We had a long pre-production period. those days we had a long pre-production period and lauren's theory on that was that we would start writing stuff and a kind of a group sensibility would emerge and we'd write out

we'd get past the old stuff we were writing or something i mean pick people for having a unique voice so michael donahue was not going to start writing like Franklin and Davis. Also, what he did was he had worked on Laugh-In. In Laugh-In, the writers would be in a building somewhere off lot, and the material would go to the lot, and they'd do the show. And the writers had nothing to do with the production of the material. And at SNL, what Lorne wanted was the writers to produce their own pieces. And that, I think, was crucial for the way we all worked together.

And, of course, the cast wrote, people like Danny wrote. It must have been a blast. It was really, really fun. Like exciting? really fun like exciting and like you know the one thing people ask me the most is being a senator as much fun as working on saturday night live and the answer is no why would it be you know but being a senator's best job uh i've ever had and I'll explain that when we get past the comedy. But when I say that, why would it be? People ask me also, what was the funniest thing

or the moment you remember most from Saturday Night Live? And there isn't a moment, but what I remember the most is rolling on the floor laughing. Yeah. And it could have been Danny coming up with a new character jim downey writing a line or going on a riff or any of these people uh gilda or uh swipe bell or smigel or conan or all these people i worked with i worked on the show for 15 seasons i worked for the first five left left for five.

Then I came back as a Lorne again writer and did those 10. And the quintessential moment of joy from that show was Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, rolling on the floor, laughing. And that is, there's nothing quite like that. Being around that many funny people who are consistently funny, who are always surprising, you're exhausted, and you've been going at it, and it's just hilarious. Unfortunately, we're not exhausted. No.

You know, I used to say, because, you know, I write in the book, pretty frankly, about the fact that there were drugs. Sure. And that I did acid at Grateful Dead concerts. I smoked dope. I snorted cocaine. on those Tuesday night, Wednesday morning things. I only snorted enough cocaine so that I could stay awake to make sure that no one did too much cocaine.

Good for you. Yeah. I was being responsible. Well, you leaned towards codependency. You didn't lean towards codependency. I'm very codependent. Yeah, you didn't go the other way. You're codependent at heart.

Yes, exactly. Well, this is an odd question because uh you know there are people like you know r crumb and certainly jerry and you watch this documentary and it really talked a lot about how you know acid you know re sort of configured how they looked at the world did you have any experience like that where where you were like well this outside of just doing it where you're like oh i see it all differently now i don't think it gave me a whole new world view but i know when i was when i was tripping i had one but i don't remember it or something like that i'm not sure it all made sense do it that much it wasn't like my but i would do it for dead concerts and i remember

doing a lot of thinking during the Dead concerts. Yeah. And I remember literally working out sketches. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. I remember like, I'll go to the show and I'll write. Yeah. I'll write in my head. So I think that you and Tom's political stuff was very cutting. And it definitely had a punch.

It definitely had that you were speaking truth to power. We were doing satire. Okay. And we were funny. Well, right. Okay. Yeah, I'm not, look, I'm not going to overdo it. Thank you.

No, but there was the actual conflict and, you know, the story that's in the oral history, you know, about the Kissinger thing that, you know, that Kissinger wanted to come to the show. Oh, God, yeah. And, you know, about the Kissinger thing, that Kissinger wanted to come to the show. Oh, God, yeah. And, you know. Well, the Rolling Stones were doing the show, and he, I guess, wanted tickets for David. David, yeah. A TV executive.

Yeah, who became a TV executive. And I once met Kissinger years later, and he was like a dad dad because he was going like well David now is over at whatever he was where Sony and I wonder if he's if that's a good place for him like wow he's just a dad wondering if that's that's the hardest thing isn't it like you know because even in the book you know you talk you know, relationships with Sessions and Mitch McConnell. Sure. And even when I talk to people, it's like, well, he's just a guy.

Well, Sessions' wife, Jeff Sessions' wife, knit a baby blanket for my grandson, which is his favorite blanket, was his favorite blanket. He's moved on. But, I mean, it's hard to hate the guy, but now I'm beginning to work it up. I mean, you know, I mean, in the Senate, you sort of, you end up liking people you completely disagree with, and you don't want to unfairly demonize someone who you work with and is your friend. On the other hand, I was able to fairly demonize him in the hearings because I felt, first of all, in the hearings he hit. In the material he submitted, he was asked to submit the 10 cases that he was personally engaged in,

the most important cases he was personally engaged in. And four of those were civil rights cases, and he was not personally engaged in them. So I kind of grilled him over that. And then it turns out also that he, in answering a question that I asked, he misled the committee under oath about whether he had met with the Russians.

Right. And then he ultimately went on to recuse himself, but he still got the job. Not only that, but he still weighed in on this firing of Comey, which he should not have been involved in because he had recused himself on the Russia investigation. And Comey, I think, was involved in that. Yeah.

And I'm pretty sure that's why he got fired you know every day is an affront every day is a year every day is a year yeah so so like all right so fine no truth to power just satire yeah uh you know kissinger but you know ultimately kissinger i think the story that you're referring to Kissinger called for tickets for his son and the the uh you know the NBC switchboard operator called us up and said we I have Henry Kissinger on the phone yeah and or maybe it was someone from the news division yeah and he wants tickets for his son for Saturday night. And I said, well, tell him if it weren't for the Christmas bombing, he'd have the tickets.

And they said, well, I can't tell him that. Well, then, you know, tell him. And then I said something bad. He said something bad. So he didn't get the tickets. And, you know, he was, I guess, some had some relationship, obviously nbc news yeah i was not a fan of his yeah well understandably yeah but you do get do you get pushed out of saturday

night live at that point when lauren left we all left and we were leaving you know in a way we were stupid but in a way we had done five years of the show. The fifth season was a little harder than other seasons because we lost both Belushi and Aykroyd to do the Blues Brothers. And I think we were tired, as you get, especially at the end of the season. You know, when we get together, when they get together now, at the beginning of a season and at the end of the summer, you look the best you'll look all year and you get worse and worse all year. Yeah.

By the end of the year, we just said, you know what? Yeah. That we did five years. It's good. And then, uh,

you never got update. Oh, and then we wandered in the wilderness for five, a few years. And then we came back. And the reason I finally left the show was after doing 15 seasons of the show I sort of wanted

to do Update. I wanted to be the Update anchor. And in retrospect they made the right decision because I was wearing my liberal bias on my sleeve and I write about Downey as kind of the greatest

political satire writer on the show. Head writer for years. Head writer, and also just a brilliant, brilliant guy, and a conservative. He's a very thoughtful conservative, and I like to think of myself as a thoughtful liberal, thoughtful progressive. And we wrote a lot together, and we did not feel that the job of the show was to have any political bias. We thought the job of the show was to write satire that was smart and funny. And Jim had this thing,

which is reward people for knowing stuff, but don't punish them for not. So we're trying to write stuff that everyone could like, but if you actually knew politics, that maybe you could get a little bit more out of it. And those people that you rewarded would always come back and watch SNL because, wow, okay, they referred to the Humphrey Hawkins bill or something. And so we

did not we felt like there are just too many people on the show uh and also i think lauren felt this way uh that the satire on the show should not be i mean obviously most people on the show has your kind of typical New York, Hollywood liberal bias, but that was not the job of the show. Murphy Brown could do that. Diane English created that show. Candace Bergen was Murphy Brown. They could have a liberal bias.

They could do what they wanted to do. That was the nature of that show. We just had too many people working on the show to represent everybody's political views. So we were kind of studiously and Jim and I would check each other. We would keep each other honest. Well, it seems like that that motto is helpful in politics as well. You can take a drink of water. OK, you're going to get it.

Sure. Great. OK, we'll cut that out get it? Sure. Great. We'll cut that out. Will we? No. Where were we? I just thought that. I want to just talk about update.

By the time 95 came around, I had done stuff outside the show. Wrote some movies? Yeah, yeah. But the political stuff I had done really showed that i had a liberal bias and uh so i didn't get update and went to norm mcdonald and i think that was the right decision i thought norm was very very funny yeah on update and um but i was miffed and i don't know if you know what that's like to be upset and angry and feel uh uh you know fucked over yeah i don't know if you know what that's like. To be upset and angry and feel, you know, fucked over? Yeah, I don't know if you know.

No, I have no experience with that. Bitterness? Well, let me tell you what it's like. Anyway, so I was miffed, and I left the show, and it was hard to leave the show. The show was a very safe place it was a very exciting place to work um so i know exactly what you're talking about you mean uh feeling like you were pushed off the air by a uh uh uh a sort of know nothing ceo like i was in air america yeah

i know that feeling sorry i didn't mean to interrupt, no. I didn't feel that way at all. You sound, actually, I never became bitter. No. But it sounds like you might have. For a while. You know, I got through it. You know, I worked through it, and I found success in my own terms. Well, you know what I think they probably felt at Air America

is that you weren't good in the audio medium yeah they had real insight on that good good foresight on that never work in that medium so you you didn't get bitter though you just no it actually uh i didn't uh and i owed too much to the show first of all and secondly um yeah i i didn't really i for it it lasted like a week and again you can there's always an a time it might happen it could still happen get update yeah yeah well that's my dream that's my dream you know george burns worked till he was 100 yeah yeah so you know i can serve and he's pretty funny too he's funny all the way all the way um do you talk to learn yeah yeah yeah i'll see him i think um

in a couple weeks do you ever talk about uh his decision to put trump on during the campaign i did not talk to him about that yeah i think I think I talked to him maybe about, wow, that was a bad show. Yeah. I may have talked to him about that. But you guys are still close and you're friends. Yeah, yeah. That's good. Yeah.

So now let's do the politics thing. Because the one thing I love about the book is that you don't pay short shrift to the comedy, but when you get into the politics thing, someone could read this book and be inspired to get into politics. I hope so know it feels like that like you really go through the the process of of deciding of campaigning of of learning and in and the tasks of it but it doesn't sound even though you make jokes about it it seems like you're fully engaged in all of it even the bad parts and that it seems like something people

should and could do well if they want to and there's different ways to do it you don't have to run for the senate you can get involved in other ways you can go to a town hall meeting and ask your absolutely just a little bit just get involved yeah voted for this unbelievably bad health care bill or you can do a million things you can be an advocate uh for any you know, if you care about mental health, if you care about climate change, if you care about housing, if you care, there's a million things to do. And they make a difference to us in the Senate. When advocates come and lobby you, it makes a big difference. And it's also something you can do that you can also do your other life, too. I mean, you can be involved in politics. I think a lot of people detach from it because they don't see how it plays into their life or they don't have time.

But it seems like you can be relatively active and still have a job and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, you can do that. And I actually, when I was a comedian, did, I mean, the easiest way for me to help was to campaign for somebody. Yeah. And usually that was fundraisers, but sometimes just campaigning to help was to campaign for somebody. And usually that was fundraisers, but sometimes just campaigning. And that was Paul Wellstone. I did that the most for Paul. Minnesota, who died in a plane crash right before the 2002 election, like 11 days before.

It's horrible. And it's his seat that I ran for in 2008. And was he, I know that you speak about him a lot as a friend and as an inspiration, as a personal hero politically, had you decided to to pursue politics you know before that relationship became no no no um i you know i was in comedy and i did not never considered running uh until paul had uh paul died and norm cole Coleman, who then went on to get elected 11 days later, gave an interview to Roll Call as the first profile of him as a senator less than six months after Paul died. And he said, to be blunt, I'm a 99% improvement over Paul Wellstone. to be blunt, I'm a 99% improvement over Paul Wellstone. And I read that, and I was working on lies and lying liars who tell them a fair and balanced look at the right at that time,

and my reaction was, hmm, I wonder who's going to run against him. It was really is that there was no anger in the hmm? It was different language. It was a thought. It was a thought. I was alone. And the thought had different language. So who's going to run against that jerk? Right.

Except it probably wasn't. Sure. So that's when I realized that, look, I'm going to be an empty nester next year. My son was graduating high school, and I can move back to Minnesota. And I got this radio gig, this Air America thing. Oh, yeah. What happened to that? Well, it was underfinanced, and I think that the people who made some decisions made some wrong decisions.

Several. Yeah. We had Jerry Springer as a host. Yeah, I remember. That was probably the low point, I think. I had wanted a very different thing. I was kind of the flagship show, I'd say. And we had some very, very good people.

Rachel Maddow was a host. And, you know, Janine Garofalo. And we had some very good. But I wanted to do sort of a little bit of like an NPR, but that said we're progressive. So I, like, wanted Robert Reich to do an hour business show every day like marketplace right do a progressive business show that's what i kind of wanted but it became very apparent very early that they first of all didn't have really the finances to do what they wanted to do um we had a crisis like right out of the gate.

It was insane. I was there. Yeah. Yeah. And so I just did my show. Right. And I did my show and I stayed out of. Did you know you were going to run for Senate when he started Air America?

I thought I might. Yeah. I thought I might because that was post-reading the Coleman thing. And that's why I moved the show back to Minnesota at a certain point. And I really went back to Minnesota with the intention of, I went back early enough to be able to go around the state, go to bean feeds, and that's sort of the organizing uh way the dfl democratic farmer labor party does

things in minnesota we have bean feeds and they can be burger bashes or the walleye fries or something like that and to see if i liked it to see if i liked actually doing politics and uh i had a couple years to to see that and whether i was good at it you mean meeting the people hearing the people just meeting people and hearing what they were thinking and uh and trying i was watching amy klobuchar run for the first time for the senate and watching her she was that's in 2006 she ran and won and uh she went if i she went to pretty much every uh bean feeder burger bash or spaghetti dinner and if she wasn't there her husband and daughter were there and if they weren't there her father was there who's a beloved columnist for the star

tribune and if none of them were there i'd be going like am i in the wrong place you know yeah and but i um i i caught the bug i really liked it and uh it because i was speaking at these things uh they got more people to show up which helped the party and very often these are fundraisers and well i noticed in the book that you know they're this transition from being you know a performer from being a guy you know, a performer, from being a guy, you know, we want to be liked, we like getting the laugh, and, you know, as progressive as any of us might be, that I imagine that the depth of your empathy, which I'm sure you have, obviously, anyways, and also the sense of justice, that when you start meeting constituents, you know, on a personal level, because you have, obviously, anyways, and also the sense of justice, that when you start meeting constituents, you know, on a personal level, because you're, you know, you share some personal stories in there, that, I mean, I think the real shift of one's heart into really committing to

politics has to be some moment where you realize that these are individuals you know with real problems that are that that that should be you know somehow uh you know dealt with well i kind of realized that already doing the radio show of course i was talking about these issues yeah and so i would have elizabeth uh warren on talk about middle class squeeze right right tool gawande who writes, well, about health care. But being with the people. But the difference is, you know, you can hear Elizabeth Warren say half the bankruptcies in America are caused by a health care crisis. Yeah. It's different when you meet somebody who, and going around Minnesota at that time, any cafe I'd go to or VFW, there'd be a, on a bulletin board, there'd be a thing for a fundraiser for someone who had gotten sick and didn't have insurance. Right. Or actually had gone through their cap. And so it was very different seeing that and hearing that from people.

And so I just got more and more motivated to do the job yeah and it's funny when I first got back I when the first people I met with was Jeff Blodgett who had been Paul Wellstone's campaign manager for all his campaigns and he said to me well as an exercise you should write like a five minute speech that has no jokes in it and i went why would you do that you know i like i uh and then that's uh he was right of course but i was still a comedian and And in 2006, when I was going around to the bean feeds, I was still, you know.

You were doing it. I was still being funny. Killing. Yeah. But I didn't realize that should have been a signal to me that, oh, the comedy is going to be a problem a bit. And I learned to, you know, dehumorize my own material. But they put everything I'd ever said over 40 years of comedy through they, meaning the Republicans, and my opponent, Norm Coleman, through the dehumorizer, which was a $15 million machine built with old Soviet technology

to take the humor out of every joke I'd ever told. And try to indict you with it. Yeah, you know, it's satire, so a lot of it uses irony or hyperbole. Right. And when you rob something of its context, it can look pretty bad. And they did that. That's what they did. And that was sort of the theme of the campaign against me.

Yeah. And you talk about it that, you know, sort of figuring out how to counter that, that, you know, there was a moment where to diminish their power over that, that you realize you thought it was a liability initially to to be having gone to harvard and then then at some point you realize like we did a focus group yeah and uh in the focus group we found out that no one thought being a comedian comedian not smart or you're not smart uh i went to harvard he must be smart yeah he must be smart enough to do government work and so that was you know uh really weird uh that it was kind of the first time i realized that i thought i'd have to hide the fact that i went to harvard in a way or at least play it down as much as possible turned out the exact opposite was the

case and also it shows that people don't really know what goes in to making comedy like that and that's still the truth i had i won't say who the senator is but um uh the first time I got up to speak in caucus, Harry Reid, I was just there for a couple weeks, and Harry said, Al, I want you to get up and tell about who you are. Yeah. So I spoke for about 10 minutes, and I got laughs, and I got applause, and I got a standing ovation, and I went to my table, where I'd been sitting next to a senator who was quite senior,

went to my table where I'd been sitting next to a senator who was quite senior. And the senator said to me, you know, when you first got here, I thought you were going to be stupid. And I said, why? And the senator said, because you're a comedian. And I said, actually, comedians are really smart and and the senator said i think that i know they're really i think the stuff they talk about is really dumb it's really stupid and i went okay forget it you know i'm not gonna argue this one but there are moments you you you talk about in the book with senators that we know

who, you know, once you, like they told the Broderick Crawford story. Oh, yeah. With, who was there? It was, this was five days after I got there, we started the Sotomayor hearings. after I got there, we started the Sotomayor hearings. And during one of the questionings, she said that she had become a prosecutor because of the Perry Mason show.

Yeah. And so I asked her, I said, why did you become a prosecutor watching a show where the prosecutor lost every case? And she said, well, actually, Perry Mason lost one case. And I said, what was it? And she said well actually perry mason lost one case and i said what was it and she said i i don't know and i said didn't the white house prepare you which is they're supposed to be prepared and then that got a laugh which i that had repercussions which were stupid with people why did he do a joke? You know what I mean? But right after that questioning,

we went into this closed hearing on the FBI background check. And that now we do every time because when they did it on Clarence Thomas, it tipped off everybody that there was a problem. So these are just perfunctory now. So we go in there, and the Internet just went nuts on Perry Mason and what case he had lost. And so we walk into our normal hearing room. We're in a bigger hearing room for the spring court uh confirmation hearings

and tom coburn who from oklahoma comes in he goes actually perry mason lost two cases and then uh sessions goes you know what i liked dragnet and then uh cornyn uh john cornyn texas goes uh i liked Highway Patrol. And I said, you know, I worked with Broderick Crawford. Now, these guys don't know me. And I felt sort of a little like the new kid at school in the lunch line. And so I said, I worked with Broderick Crawford. Broderick Crawford was a star of Highway Patrol.

But he also won the Oscar for All the King's Men. He was this great great tough guy actor. Every, all the Republicans, everybody kind of turns to me and, like, you worked with Broderick Crawford? I go, yeah, he hosted the show. And then I tell a story about that, and everyone's going like,

you really were in show business. And I go, yeah, yeah. And so that was, was like my bonding moment uh with the republicans on the judiciary committee yeah it was funny because even now like that that moment with uh with perry during his hearings with the couch moment yes that there was a moment where you had to fight making the easy joke sure he threw you a fucking softball um now i'm being self-conscious about saying fuck on my own show on your own show i know that's funny i did that to you you did that's very funny and uh and you had to just ride it out i did but the timing of riding it

out turned out to be just as well yeah then, yeah, then you learn some timing. No, what he had said was we had actually had Perry surprise me. He's a very charming guy. Yeah. And actually, he had been governor for the longest of any governor in Texas history. And he knew a lot about how to pull levers as a governor. And governors tend to have to do real stuff. And so we had a really good time and he was sitting in a chair and like you are now and i was sitting on a couch like i am now and we had a really good

time uh in our our uh our meeting the before you know our um before the hearings we met in my office and so he just said to me uh i actually said to him like uh it was nice meeting you did you enjoy meeting me yeah which no one says but i yeah we'll laugh on that right and uh he said well i hope you're as much fun at the dais there as you were yesterday on the couch and um i did a pause and they got a laugh i mean it was stupid what he said right and then he caught himself and then he kind of caught himself. And so he said, can I rephrase that? And I said, oh, dear Lord, please. Something like that.

It's funny. Well, this is the weird thing about it. It's like even when you're talking about it, even when Brendan and I are going over whatever happened overnight or in the last few hours in the morning with this president. overnight or in the last few hours in the morning with this president and uh this is really you know all all kidding aside this is a very very disturbing yeah serious time right and and he gets to the so many ways and it's hurting so many people this health care bill incredibly awful um it is uh i've gone around minnesota Minnesota when the first iteration of this bill came out that was scored as, you know, 24 million people losing their health care. But also cutting $880 billion from Medicaid would be devastating. billion from Medicaid would be devastating. And I went to rural hospitals and nursing homes and people crying at what the effect would be. A healthcare provider saying my mom gets her

home healthcare through Medicaid. And if this goes through, she will lose that. And both my husband and I work. I don't know what we will do. And there's, you know, story after story. Like, this is terrible what they've done. And, of course, it was to give a $900 billion tax cut to people at the top. People who have earned $250,000 a year or more would get this huge tax cut. But all this stuff across the board, like everything they're doing, cutting everything, deregulating everything. Oh, well, on climate, you know, Pruitt.

I mean, some of these nominations for cabinet posts were just bizarro nominations, like the opposite person. Well, that was Bannon, right was that was bannon doing what he wanted to do which is to destroy the government i think it was also pence um he was in charge of the transition so i think a Freedom Caucus guy. And Pence has an ideology. Trump doesn't. Trump is about Trump.

And Pence is about this kind of Tea Party. Right. So now all these relationships that you built in the Senate or that you see these guys every day, and these are guys you've had a laugh with, you've socialized with Mitch McConnell. No, I haven't. I mean, I've socialized with him only to the extent of there is a spouse dinner every year.

But, I mean, I say that I socialize. I said I'm not going to write cliches right in this thing like uh even though mitch and i disagree with each other all the time after a day in the senate debating each other we go to dinner and he laughs so hard that milk shoots out his nose that was a joke that was a joke i don't social that doesn't happen yeah i i mean i see your frustration you know when you you talk publicly and obviously that this polarization thing and and you speak a little bit in the book about how there there there are two conceptions about you know what america should be and how it should run but then there's crazy and then there's

evil right yeah that's pretty fair and you you're a guy that you're diplomatic. You like to be liked. You have a codependent streak in you that, you know, that. Thank you. Well, no, that, no, no, it could be used. There's good. No, no, no. I mean, I talk about going to Al-Anon, which is for.

No, but I mean, there's a good part of it. There's a good part of it. I guess so. I mean, you have to, it is if you're aware of it. Right. Right. But, you know, because it does make you connect with people. I think so.

Yeah. I guess so. So what do we do, man? I mean, what, you know. Well, I'm working as hard as I can. I mean, for your listeners, as we talked a little bit earlier, there are a whole bunch of things to do. Right. And these marches mean a lot. The Women's

March the day after was very, very important. And the continued going to these town halls, very important. But also just working on issues that mean a lot to you, whether it's the clean water or whether it is mental health is something that I've been working on since I got here and I've had some achievements that mean a lot to me. Any kind of issue that you really care about, and when I've brought this up to audiences around Minnesota, there's no limit to how many things people really care about and when i've brought this up to audiences and uh around minnesota there's no limit to how many things people really care about and they they respond to that and i i it's it's you may be in an advocacy group and be a foot soldier but it's not long before you become an

officer and right and uh become an important part of it i guess like you know i i remember at the beginning uh when when it first happened the event of him becoming president that the election the election then when he took office and all that you know weird kind of a fascist theater that was going on that speech was the american carnage speech was, I mean, I, um, that was a, you know, it was the inauguration of Donald Trump. So it was a tough day for me, but at least I got to be kind of far enough away and behind him that I couldn't going to the state of the Union address or the joint, that was hard because I was like 15 feet from him. And I'm in that chamber. Yeah.

And the whole government is there. The Speaker of the House and the Vice President are behind the President. And all the cabinet is there except one. And the Supreme Court's there. And the Joint Chiefs are there. And every member of Congress is there, except one, and the Supreme Court's there, and the Joint Chiefs are there, and every member of Congress is there. And when Obama would do these events, I really felt like I was, I felt moved by the whole thing because of this really smart, thoughtful, dignified, heavy-duty president. And then this year, sitting there with Trump there, I really thought I was an 8-H, and we were just doing a sketch.

Doing a pitch, yeah. doing a sketch yeah he was a sketch and um i i just felt the whole office in a way has been cheapened sure and we see it every day every day there's a new affront and then every day after that we're seeing that the story they put out was wrong and and we just lie after lie after lie after lie. And so all of that is just upsetting to me as an American. But I've got a role to play. I'm one of 48 in the Senate. And you're doing a great job. No, I mean, you're speaking up. You're taking people to task.

You're doing what you're supposed to be doing in a very focused. I think that the actual showbiz training has helped. Oh, yeah. You know, I'm on the Judiciary Committee. I'm one of the few people on the Judiciary Committee who's not a lawyer. But I can frame things. And I think I got, I think I learned stuff from doing comedy. I think in comedy, comedians are good editors

because you realize what works, what doesn't work, and you realize what you have to take out. Right. So it lands. So it lands. Yeah. So it lands. And I have a lot of people and colleagues coming to me like

your stuff lands they don't say lands but but and and i think it has to do with uh having done done stand-up okay well then two questions so you know obama talked about this too about incremental change that you know you know any progress on on some level is good progress so now we're in a time that you know is is not only doesn't seem to be progressing but is you know taking us back yeah do you attempting to look yeah but in some cases taking us back yeah do you see health care thing would it's horrible back it would it would be horrible now we'll see what comes out of the senate we've been asking we just had a hearing yesterday in which all of the democrats were basically asking lamar alexander the chairman

of the committee whom i respect to have us be dealing with with health care have hearings do this process the way it was done in 2009 do that instead of to have this 12 man literally 12 man um committee meet behind closed doors and come out with something we we need to have public hearings we need to do this in the right way. Are they going to? I don't know. I don't know. I think that it's so logical that we should do that, and it sort of depends on Mitch McConnell, who I say one or two nice things about him because there are one or two nice things to say about him.

But he's kind of a little cynical. And if he thinks that this is the way he should go and he can get away with it, that's what he's going to do. So what you can do and what you're doing is chipping away, trying to make the Senate work in a bipartisan way around these things that you may not agree with obviously but it still needs to work yeah and does do you have

i think in the book i kind of make the case for actually trying to make progress all the time and and now this is going to be a period where we're fighting yeah uh bad things from happening as well right and do do you are there do you have any do you have hope or just persistence both uh both i have uh you know but sometimes i i get a little down on what's going on because it is uh you know i just think the presidency here has been devalued in a way yeah uh that is um is is a real shame and it's been devalued so much that people talk about me running for president do you feel like it no no but i mean it's been like, oh, I see. An entertainer can be who had no experience. You never think about it?

No. You don't want the job. Too big a deal. I like being senator. I like doing that. I like that. Yeah. I don't want a Peter principal myself.

And two, you know, oh, good. A codependent president you know that i mean but that's uh that's not that's not a bad thing you know if you can feel everybody's pain it's been done before look if you compare to the guy now yeah i go like i'd be you know yeah yeah what can you say we'll see what happens. It's a long way off, but I do know this, that this job, when you get stuff done, and I've gotten stuff done on mental health, on health care, on energy, on... Mergers, media mergers. fighting back against consolidation of... People ask me if I'm going to be asked to come back and host SNL. The Comcast people aren't thrilled with me. They'll put a stop to it.

You know, I asked Lorne, I said, well, okay, I'm going to be in New York on the 20th, and that's the last show. And the last show, they have this big party, end-of-the-year party. And I said, it's okay if I go to that. And he goes, as long as you don't yell at Brian Roberts, who's the head of Comcast. I go, okay, if he doesn't yell at me.

Good. I've got to check back in with you to see how that goes thanks for talking senator franken well i'm really honored to be on the show i mean it or on the podcast rather oh thanks and thanks for doing it i knew it had to be a wednesday or thursday or friday right because that's what it yeah that's what it stands for yeah and i just i'm glad we were able to make that happen yeah that was the funny and engaged

and very active believer in democracy who's doing his job and loves his job as a United States Senator. Al Franken, I hope you enjoyed that. I am looking forward to some time off.

After this stint in New York, I'm going to be taking the summer to work at some stand-up at my own pace and to do the podcast, but just to sort of not lay low, just to figure out who I am and where I stand and what I need to be doing to move things in the correct direction. A little soul-searching. It's going to be a soul-searching summer. No guitar today. I hope you're okay with that. All right?

Fight the good fight. Get involved. Boomer lives! You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing.

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