WHEN: Friday, September 8th
WHERE: CNBC.com's Speakeasy with John Harwood
Al Franken earned a national following long before he entered politics. His work in the original cast of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" began a long career as a comedian. He grew more politically active over time as a left-leaning author and radio host before launching an improbable Democratic bid for the U.S. Senate from Minnesota in 2008. Franken almost lost in a hail of GOP attacks that used off-color bits from his comedic career to cast doubt on his values. After triumphing in a lengthy recount, he purposely submerged his wit while building a reputation for seriousness during his first term. It worked well enough that he won re-election easily in 2014. Earlier this year, Franken won applause from Democrats nationally for challenging the new Trump administration, including with sharp questioning at the confirmation hearing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. His humor-laced new book, "Giant of the Senate," marks a shift in his approach — and the beginning of speculation that Franken may enter the 2020 presidential race. The 66-year-old senator sat down with CNBC Editor at Large John Harwood at the Minnesota State Fair to discuss his book, his future and Trump. A partial transcript from Speakeasy with John Harwood featuring Senator Al Franken follows.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.com.
John Harwood: You say in your book that lying is something that bugged the crap out of you.
Sen. Al Franken: Yeah.
Harwood: It makes politics a weird career to go into.
Franken: No, not really. I mean, I think it helps not to lie in politics.
Harwood: What's the evidence for that?
Franken: Well, we don't have the evidence right now on terms of the president.
Harwood: Let me ask you about Trump in particular. You allude in the book a couple of times to the idea that there may be something wrong with him.
Franken: I'm not a psychiatrist. And even a psychiatrist needs to examine someone, as psychiatrists do, in order to make a diagnosis. I'm not qualified to do that. But I do think that his actions have been well outside the norm for a president and, in many ways, for a human being.
Harwood: You have friends in the Republican caucus. What do they say?
Franken: I don't think there's any doubt among my colleagues that he has some temperament issues, that he does seem to see everything in terms of how it affects Donald Trump. That he is almost pathological in the way he lies.
Harwood: Do you expect Trump to serve four years?
Franken: I don't know. I think we have the right guy, the right person, as the special prosecutor, a special counsel. I think Bob Mueller will get to the bottom of this. I think he'll just go where the facts take him. That's what we want him to do.
Harwood: Do you think that the issues that caused you some turbulence in the 2008 campaign — the Playboy article, all that stuff that you write about in the book — has all that been washed away by time? Is all that irrelevant now?
Franken: Yeah, I think so.
Harwood: Does Trump stand for the proposition that none of this stuff matters anymore anyway?
Franken: Well, yeah. I mean, I do remark – because I write a lot about my first race and what that was like. And to go back and look at that –
Harwood: It sort of looks like the 19th century now.
Franken: It looks like he didn't bow correctly when the lady entered the room.
Harwood: You can lay the Lesley Stahl 2 a.m. joke writing session next to the "Access Hollywood" tape.
Franken: Yeah, I would be happy to do that.
Harwood: So, in some way, the voters have adjusted to you, Trump, other politicians as political fashion changes.
Franken: Wait a minute. You lumped me in with Trump? Voters have adjusted to Trump, you, and – what are you? I'm not anywhere –
Harwood: I understand.
Franken: Take that back. Take that back, John Harwood. You're not taking it back.
Harwood: I'm just saying voters get conditioned, acculturated to what they see in front of them in politics. And you, in Minnesota, are an example.
Franken: No, but I think the Minnesotans, one of the reasons that I comfortably won the second time is they saw that I worked very hard, paid attention to them, to Minnesotans, and paid attention to policy and did my work. Donald Trump is the opposite. He doesn't work. He doesn't know how policy works. He won't do his homework. He refuses to work on anything that matters. So, I consider myself a polar opposite of him. I mean, I really do. And the fact that we were both in a branch of show business – I mean, you know, he was in reality TV. A human cannonball was in show business, you know? A rodeo clown's in show business.
Harwood: I know you are not planning to run for president. But other people are talking about it as you know. How do you think about that issue?
Franken: Well, people have brought it up, but I think they bring it up about a lot of people. I think that the president of the United States should be someone who really wants to be president of the United States. I've seen the job a little bit more up close as a senator than I did as a comedian. I can see what an incredibly high-pressured job it is. And it's not something that I've aspired to ever.
Harwood: But you're not saying straight-up there is zero chance you're going to do that.
Franken: There's pretty much a zero chance, I think. I mean, unless, you know, something – I get hit in the head.
Harwood: Your colleague, Sen. Klobuchar, is in the same position. She has talked about it. Do you talk to her about this?
Franken: I feel like this is something I don't want to — I just don't broach with her.
Harwood: We've got a celebrity-driven culture. And people are very used to back and forth between politicians. And I wonder if you think that humor provides a different dimension to that that would be valuable either for you or for somebody else running for president?
Franken: Yeah. I think a sense of humor is great in life. I think that and I'll tell you, you know, I'm funny. And I've bonded with, especially, all my colleagues.
Harwood: So, it's valuable.
Franken: Yeah, it's valuable. Your life would be better if you got a sense of humor, John.
Harwood: I'm working on it.
WEB EXTRAS
SENATOR AL FRANKEN REFLECTS ON THE 2009 SENATE RECOUNT AND HIS PROBLEM WITH OBAMA
Harwood: You remain a little bit irritated with Obama and the distance that he kept from you in 2008.
Franken: Not really. I know it might sound like that. I was a little peeved because I clearly was the closest race that year in 2008. But I can understand better now why he didn't.
Harwood: But even after the election when you were trying to raise money for your recount –
Franken: That, I still — I don't know who to fault for that.
Harwood: Have you talked to the president about it?
Franken: I have not. And I hope to. I hope to because I know he'll probably see it in the book. Basically, it cost me – I had to raise, like, $13 million for the recount. People might say, "What?" Well, it was lawyers. I mean, we had a two month recount and then a six month legal process. And kind of the White House had said, "Oh, he will do a fundraiser for you." And he was, like, high-60s. All he had to do was put on a tux and, boom, $3 million, you know? By the way, I think he was a great president.
SENATOR AL FRANKEN ON HIS PORTRAYAL OF THE LATE SENATOR PAUL SIMON ON "SNL"
Harwood: When you were doing Paul Simon, did you want to be Paul Simon?
Franken: No. I did not want to run for the Senate, really, until Norm Coleman said he was a 99 percent improvement over Paul Wellstone. Paul was my friend and –
Harwood: But would it have been accurate to call you privately a Paul Simon Democrat when you were doing Paul Simon?
Franken: Oh, yeah. I liked Paul. I admired Paul Simon tremendously. I also had sort of his tenor, I guess, is what you would say. I once did a thing at the Kennedy Center. There was comedy – we did comedy at the Kennedy Center for SNL – SNL came in. And then we had Crosby, Stills and Nash come on. And they needed, like, 10 minutes to set up the equipment for Crosby, Stills and Nash. And I just went out as Paul Simon, and I said "I have been asked to kill some time." And then I just tell a story about Hubert Humphrey coming to southern Illinois in 1968, and he was late, and they said, "Paul — we need you to kill some time." I just did that for 10 minutes.
SENATOR AL FRANKEN ON "SNL"
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/09/08/sen-al-franken-reflects-on-snl-and-the-good-old-days.html
Harwood: Since you're against lying, straight-up, honest answer. Compare the quality of the original "SNL" cast to the current "SNL" cast.
Franken: I think the original cast had the best of a generation. It was the first time our generation was allowed to be on TV, essentially. So, you had Belushi, Aykroyd, Gilda, Jane, Laraine, Garrett, Chevy. Now Lorne is in competition with this incredible comedy industry. And I think they have a great cast. And I think you see that in the Emmy nods.
Harwood: It's harder for him to draw the superstars of a generation because there's more competition now?
Franken: Yeah. He also was putting together a show that didn't exist. Everyone didn't want to be on Saturday Night Live, so it was a little different. But he was able to draw upon – he knew Gilda and Danny. Tom Davis and I were the only writers on the show that Lorne hadn't met. But we believed to his end that if Lorne had met us, we probably wouldn't have been hired.
Harwood: Have you given up the Update dream?
Franken: You know what, I think I've made my peace with that. In the book, I left "SNL" because I never got – I wanted to get Update.
Harwood: Had you gotten Update, would you be sitting here right now?
Franken: Probably not. No. This is, like, you know, when one door closes another door opens — that thing. I don't like that phrase when people say it at commencement addresses because sometimes that door that opens is a trap door, leading to the very lonely place at the bottom. Because they always say it's lonelier at the top.
Harwood: That's where you are. You're in the United States Senate.
Franken: Well, not at the top.
Harwood: I was talking about the bottom.
Franken: Oh, you mean I'm at the bottom. I see. Thank you. You got me.
About CNBC:
With CNBC in the U.S., CNBC in Asia Pacific, CNBC in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and CNBC World, CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news and provides real-time financial market coverage and business information to more than 409 million homes worldwide, including more than 91 million households in the United States and Canada. CNBC also provides daily business updates to 400 million households across China. The network's 15 live hours a day of business programming in North America (weekdays from 4:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. ET) is produced at CNBC's global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and includes reports from CNBC News bureaus worldwide. CNBC at night features a mix of new reality programming, CNBC's highly successful series produced exclusively for CNBC and a number of distinctive in-house documentaries.
CNBC also has a vast portfolio of digital products which deliver real-time financial market news and information across a variety of platforms including: CNBC.com; CNBC PRO, the premium, integrated desktop/mobile service that provides live access to CNBC programming, exclusive video content and global market data and analysis; a suite of CNBC mobile products including the CNBC Apps for iOS, Android and Windows devices; and additional products such as the CNBC App for the Apple Watch and Apple TV.
Members of the media can receive more information about CNBC and its programming on the NBCUniversal Media Village Web site at http://www.nbcumv.com/programming/cnbc.
For more information about NBCUniversal, please visit http://www.NBCUniversal.com.