The Democratic party may have its challenges – including an increasing lack of trustworthiness – but “Democrats stand for something,” said former Senator and comedian Al Franken in conversation with Jane Coaston, host of the What a Day podcast. Their discussion, equal parts jokes and politics, took place during a live recording of the show held at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival on May 31.
“We should run as Democrats,” Franken said. He told a story about his wife’s family, and what they were able to accomplish with support from Social Security following her father’s death.
“They tell you that you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, but first you have to have the boots, and the government gave them the boots,” he said, to audience applause.
At Coaston’s prompting, Franken also addressed the Democrats’ shortcomings, especially when it comes to messaging, declining voter trust and former President Biden’s decision to run for reelection.
“Trust between Americans and the Democratic Party has been eroding for a while,” Coaston said. “But it feels like with everything that happened with former President Biden, it seems like, that we threw a stick of dynamite into it. How do you think Democrats can begin to restore faith with voters?”
Franken said he thought what Biden did was “shameful,” noting how the decision stopped anyone else in the Democratic party from running.
“He obviously did a disservice to himself and his legacy because he had been a good president in many ways,” said Franken.
Pivoting from the party’s issues to its future, Coaston asked who to look toward for leadership among currently elected Democrats.
“There’s a lot of talk about old-guard Democrats versus the new guard, and there’s a lot of value in that conversation because a lot of the party elders are elders,” Coaston said. “But ironically, it seems like one of the best people getting his message out is your former colleague, 83-year-old Sen. Bernie Sanders. So who do you think is the best person, the best people, to be leading the charge for the democratic party right now?”
Franken listed a few people he thought could lead the party, including Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York, Sen. Elissa Slotkin from Michigan and Rep. Maxwell Frost from Florida, the youngest member of Congress.
The two also discussed Franken’s history as a comedian, from his work on Saturday Night Live to times when politics and comedy intersected, including one instance when Sen. Ted Cruz asked Franken for advice on a joke during Cruz’s 2016 bid for the presidency.
If you want to see the entire conversation, it is available to stream on CascadePBS.org.
