Ruminating with AL FRANKEN

The comedian and former senator on returning to stand-up, fixing the filibuster and Tucker Carlson

Al Franken and I became friends in the late 1990s when we and our families were guests at Renaissance Weekend, a conference held in South Carolina. This was after his years on “Saturday Night Live” and around the time he wrote “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot” and “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,” both of which hold up well. His 1999 book, “Why Not Me? The Inside Story of the Making and Unmaking of the Franken Presidency” included a few amusing satirical jabs at me. When I got cancer in 2004, Al visited me in the hospital and he convinced Linda Ronstadt to sing a song he wrote about me and cancer to the tune of “Johnny Angel” for his Air America show.

Al was (barely) elected to the Senate in 2008 and overwhelmingly reelected in 2014. He was an outstanding senator—for Minnesotans and the country—before being forced to resign in 2018 after charges of sexual misconduct that he was never offered a chance to rebut before the Senate Ethics Committee. Nowadays, at 70, he’s a podcaster and a stand-up comedian and he’s leaving his options open about running for office again some day.

JON:

Hi, Al. I was thinking recently about when Emily and I had dinner with you in Montclair after your show at the South Orange Performing Arts Center. The date was March 7, 2020. That was the last time we saw anyone outside the family for months.

AL FRANKEN:

Yeah, my last show was the next night. I came out and I said, “I have some bad news. Ladies, gentlemen, we're going to have to all be quarantined here. Evidently an usher has a cough.”

I went to six cities then, but this time I'm approaching it a little differently. I’ve been going down to the Comedy Cellar [in Greenwich Village] for a few months now, about three nights a week. That's great. And I’m going to step it up and probably do five nights a week. My first one of these will be in Northampton [MA]. And then I do 14 other cities. 

That's the thing I probably am putting the most energy into right now. And I've been writing a lot, of course. It's really fun to do comedy again. What I do at the Comedy Cellar is a bit different from what I will be doing on on tour because at the Cellar it’s a younger audience there for a lineup of comedians they don't know. So they're actually very surprised when I show up. They don’t expect me.

I do two shows when I go there because there are three rooms open now, and they're mobbed every night. One of them is the Village Underground, which sounds like, you know, Dylan played there. 

JON:

How cool is that? Not to put too fine a point on it, but you have to be one of the older comedians down there, right?

AL FRANKEN:

 If you consider 30 years [older] a fine point, yes.

JON:

Switching to politics, are you at all concerned that Republicans won’t be blamed for opposing all this popular stuff that’s about to pass in the new bills? Look at Medicaid expansion, which continues to be widely approved by ballot initiatives in one deeply red state after another.

AL FRANKEN:

Yeah, Idaho, Missouri, Nebraska, Utah, Oklahoma. And the reason is, Medicaid expansion is so fucking helpful to these rural communities.

JON:

But the Republican politicians who were against it pay no political price for having turned down billions of dollars in free money from Washington to help the people of their states.

AL FRANKEN:

I think it's partly because we [Democrats] don’t point that out enough. People in those states are getting a lot of disinformation from social media, and from Fox, and again from talk radio. That’s sort of their culture. It's like you in Montclair are surrounded by people who are reading the New York Times, the Washington Post and watching MSNBC and the PBS NewsHour. 

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“I talked to some of my former Republican colleagues, and they're basically saying that if they even say the election wasn't stolen, they’ll be called ‘Never Trumpers’ and lose the primary. And so they can’t. It's sad. It's sick.”

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But it's especially pernicious because if you look at Trump, he’s still got the support of 85 percent of the Republican Party. I talked to some of my former Republican colleagues, and they're basically saying that if they even acknowledge the election wasn't stolen, they’ll be called “Never Trumpers” and lose their next primary. And so they can’t. It's sad. It's sick.

JON:

But they still claim credit for bills they opposed.

AL FRANKEN:

At one of the first groundbreakings I attended after taking office in 2009— an extension of a highway in Minnesota—there are a piles of dirt in front of us. And it's me, Amy [Klobuchar, the other senator from Minnesota] and Erik Paulsen, a Republican congressman who voted against the stimulus. He speaks, and I get up and say, “You know what? I don't deserve any credit for this. I got here too late. I did not vote for this infrastructure bill. So the credit should go to the members of Congress here who voted for it. So that would be Amy... and....[looking directly at Paulsen].... And well, it would be just…Amy.” Those fuckers. They tried to do it in February on the COVID relief package. [Mississippi Republican Senator Roger] Wicker tried to claim credit for keeping restaurants open.

.JON:

You know the people who live on the Iron Range in northern Minnesota. Why have Democrats lost their ability to talk to non-college educated white people?

Senator Al Franken in Northern Minnesota, August 2017

AL FRANKEN:

 George Packer’s new book is very good on this. First of all, you had a black president. And there was more culture shock— or whatever that is—than we had thought. And as Bill Kristol says, around 2014 or so, people really started thinking, “My kids aren't going to do better than I did.” And they had a lot of reason to believe that. And so they're easily distracted by identity politics, by resenting elites, and by—if not rank racism—a vague sense that they're being, you know, replaced, and they're losing status.

Heather McGee's book explains how the Republican establishment is selling those people the idea that anything that helps black people hurts them.

JON:

Yeah, McGee explains how for years, whites would actually close public swimming pools rather than integrate them. Rosalynn Carter told me how this happened in Plains after Reagan was elected. 

How badly did Biden mess up in Afghanistan?

AL FRANKEN:

I don't really know the real answer to that. Clearly there’s some bad intelligence and mistakes. But you can't leave without being messy. We should have left a long time ago because it's just no-win. The only alternative is never leave. Once it's determined that we're leaving, if you're a tribal leader, you're gonna surrender instead of getting killed. 

And then there are these Republicans— I hope it's not a majority of them— I don't think it is— complaining about the number of refugees that are coming in from there. We should be reaching out to those refugees and fortunately, people are stepping up.

JON:

After the Vietnam War, Carter resettled the “boat people.” And there was a fair amount of opposition to it. [Former Vice-President Walter] Mondale got involved in this also and they finally just said, “you know, screw it. lf Republicans and nativists don't like it, tough shit.” And they brought in tens of thousands of them.

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“Mondale got involved in…they finally just said, ‘you know, screw it. lf Republicans and nativists don't like it, tough shit.’ And they brought in tens of thousands of them.”

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AL FRANKEN:

And the Vietnamese have done wonderful, unbelievable things  in Minnesota and in the U.S. My best friend's daughter is going out with a brilliant doctor who was one of these boat people when he was a little baby. It's so short-sighted and we need people. We need immigrants. 

JON:

I think the Democrats should be unapologetic about things like that. I don't want Democrats leading with their chins with stupid shit like ‘defund the police.’ But when they're right about something, even if it's going to be easily exploited by the other side, I think they should just fucking do it.

AL FRANKEN:

It makes it a lot easier. It really does. It makes it a lot easier to be in politics, if you're just going, “OK, what's the right thing to do here?” That’s what Paul [Wellstone] was so good at. He voted against the war in Iraq when people in Minnesota were overwhelmingly for it. His poll numbers went up because they knew Paul, and they knew that no matter what, he would do what he believed. And people respected that. They want you to do that. And if you just go by that, you’re going to be fine.

JON:

You and your old friend Norm Ornstein have a great idea for changing—not ending—the filibuster in a way that will dramatically improve the odds of the Senate approving the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

AL FRANKEN:

My first vote [in 2009] was on a Thursday night.  I came back to the [Senate] subway and I saw [Kentucky Republican Senator] Jim Bunning, who I didn’t know yet was such a cranky guy. 

JON:

Though a great pitcher.

Senators Al Franken and John Kennedy at the Senate subway November 2017 Photo: CQ Roll Call

AL FRANKEN:

Yeah, but he didn't get into the Hall of Fame until the last possible year of eligibility because the sportswriters hated him.

Anyway, I just said, “Jim, have a great weekend. I'll see you on Monday.” And he said, “I don't have to be here on Monday. There’s a cloture vote.” And I went, “Oh yeah, yeah, we have to come up with 60 to stop a filibuster.”

I called Norm and said “Why the hell is that?” And Norm said, “Yeah, they should have to come up with 41 [votes] to sustain the filibuster [to delay voting on a bill by a simple majority].

That's when Norm started talking about this rule change (that can be accomplished with 51 votes) and it evolved. And what I liked about this idea is that it’s not getting rid of the filibuster— it's modifying the filibuster. And I talked [recently] to Joe [Manchin] about this. The strongest part of our proposed rule change is that they would have to have 41 senators on the floor at all times to sustain the filibuster. Then they have to stay there. And they have to talk and filibuster and - under our proposal - everything they say has to be germane. Cruz can't read “Green Eggs and Ham.” In fact, that means you have to have the debate on why you can't give water to people standing in line to vote.

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“I know the senators— they won't be able to do that. Physically. I don't know if they could do it for 24 hours. You can't believe how fucking spoiled these people are. They won't do this.”

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JON:

But won’t they refuse to relent? Their whole party is on the line. They need voter suppression to survive. It’s an existential issue.

AL FRANKEN:

I understand that you believe that, but do you really think Chuck Grassley is gonna stay there on the floor for 48 hours? Do you think McConnell will? I know the senators— they won't be able to do that. Physically. I don't know if they could do it for 24 hours. You can't believe how fucking spoiled these people are. They won't do this. I know these guys.

Sen. Chuck Grassley left, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at the State of the Union, Feb. 4, 2020. (AP)

JON:

So democracy could be saved by weak bladders?

AL FRANKEN:

No, you can go off the floor and pee. That doesn’t count.

JON:

So it will be saved by the fact that this gerontocracy that we've all been complaining about actually might be very useful. A book could be called “How Gerontocracy Saved Democracy.”

AL FRANKEN:

I was there when we were in the majority and they were filibustering on us when we were trying to do stuff. And you know, you couldn't get Dianne Feinstein to stay there, and she wasn’t alone. 

JON:

The argument for “the talking filibuster” is that it restores the filibuster to what it used to be—when senators like Strom Thurmond had to stand on the floor for hours or days. Eventually, they can’t do it any more and the Senate proceeds to a vote where a simple majority wins. But this simple “41 on the floor” rules change goes further than that.

South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond spoke to reporters Aug. 29, 1957, after he spoke a record 24 hours and 18 minutes against a civil-rights bill

AL FRANKEN:

It’s a return to Senate traditions, when filibusters were rare.  If you look at McConnell—he filibustered more executive nominations of Obama's than had been filibustered in the entire history of the nation.

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If you look at McConnell—he filibustered more executive nominations of Obama's than had been filibustered in the entire history of the nation.

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JON:

So, what can you tell me about your conversations with [Joe] Manchin and [Kyrsten] Sinema and where they would be on this?

AL FRANKEN:

I know Joe pretty well and spoke to him about it. 

JON:

He was strongly opposed to those who forced you to resign.

AL FRANKEN:

Yeah. God bless him. I know Sinema a little bit but I haven't talked to her about this. I try to leave Joe alone but he has said many times that he is open to a “talking filibuster.” More important, word leaked recently that he is also open to this idea. [Requiring 41 senators to be on the floor to stop a vote.]

JON:

Clearly the best place to use this would be on voting rights. But because it would likely tie up the Senate, they can’t do it when other important legislation is pending. So will Chuck Schumer do that after passage of reconciliation and the bipartisan infrastructure bill [scheduled for September 27]?

AL FRANKEN:

I would hope that he would. And again, what I’m talking about is not getting rid of the filibuster.

JON:

This could be really big and I want to make sure I have this straight. They couldn't really do this now because it would interrupt the Biden program. The Republicans will hold out with their 41 for days —likely the longest filibuster ever. It would prevent anything else from coming to the floor, so Schumer has to pass these budget and infrastructure things first, before they can get on with reforming the filibuster and and pushing voting rights through.

And this has to be passed this fall in order to possibly have any effect on gerrymandering. Otherwise the census means the gerrymandered districts are locked in for 10 years—possible minority rule for a decade. The stakes are really high.

AL FRANKEN:

That's very good point. Look at a state like Wisconsin, which has been gerrymandered up the wazoo and it’s impossible to flip that legislature. There's some really awful stuff that could be permanent [without federal legislation]. For example, in the new Texas bill, poll watchers in Texas can sue poll workers.

The Congressional districts in Wisconsin for the past 20 years. On the left, the maps for 2001-2001 were drawn by the federal court. On the right, the maps for 2011-2021 were drawn by a Republican-hired law firm.

JON:

To execute your and Norm’s idea, Democrats have to hold all 50 Democratic senators. But they’ve done that so far. And Pelosi got every single Democratic House vote this week for Biden’s huge “Build Back Better” program. To me, one of the big stories of the last couple of years is how unified and disciplined the Democrats have been.

But now we need them to hold Trumpsters accountable at the polls, in the courts, in disbarring Giuliani.

AL FRANKEN:

You know the press conference where the hair dye went down his face and everyone remarked on how ridiculous that was. No one remarked on this fact: I think that’s the first time in history it’s ever happened.

JON:

It might be no more complicated than that he was too cheap to get good hair dye. It looked like shoe polish.

AL FRANKEN:

I’ve also been thinking about a line from Tucker Carlson, where he was asked by a New York Times reporter whether he had been vaccinated and he said, “When was the last time you had sex with your wife and in what position?” 

JON:

Charlotte [Alter] asked him the same question a little earlier for TIME and he gave exactly the same answer, except he dropped “with your wife.”

AL FRANKEN:

Yeah, sure, those are really equivalent questions. I don’t think there’s a pandemic going on in Tucker’s bedroom. That we know of, anyway.

This is something like a waiter saying, “Sir, would you like a Diet Pepsi?” 

“Well, that's a very personal question. Is your mom a crack whore?” 

“No, it's just that you indicated that you wanted a diet soda with your pizza. Is that right?”

“Was your father your crack whore mom's pimp?”

“So you don't want a Diet Coke?”

“And did your pimp dad beat your mom with his cane?”

“OK, sir. So no diet soda?” 

JON:

Thanks, Al.