Al Franken Has A New Podcast. It Doesn’t Mention Sexual Misconduct.
Sen. Al Franken speaks to the media after returning back to work in the U.S. Senate, November 27, 2017. Image by Mark Wilson/Getty Images
By Aiden Pink May 28, 2019
Former Senator Al Franken has a new podcast, but the recordings don’t mention the sexual misconduct allegations that led him to resign from the Senate last year, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
In a brief interview with the Post outside the Washington, D.C. studio where he records “The Al Franken Podcast,” Franken said that there was a reason his podcast didn’t address the multiple claims from women that Franken touched them in ways that made them uncomfortable.
“I can’t explain it right now,” he said. “There will be a certain point I give my first interview, and when it happens, I think you’ll understand.”
Franken, a satirist and former “Saturday Night Live” writer and cast member who began serving as a Democratic senator from Minnesota in 2009, resigned in January 2018, a few months after women came forward to accuse him of groping or forcibly kissing them. In his resignation speech, Franken said he was ashamed of his actions but added, “Some of the allegations against me are simply not true. Others I remember very differently.”
Franken’s podcast features him interviewing policymakers as well as comedians like Sarah Silverman, with whom he discussed dark humor. Franken reportedly said that there was currently “too much fear” in the comedy world.
Sources told the Post that Franken has long been planning his political comeback, ever since a poll of Minnesota voters showed that a plurality opposed his resignation. He’s hired public relations and digital marketing professionals, and, as the Post reported, “watched comedian Louis C.K.’s ill-fated comeback into the comedy world for tips on what not to do.”
Contact Aiden Pink at pink@forward.com or on Twitter at @aidenpink.
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