The Bulwark Podcast - Al Franken: Mind Your Own Damn Business

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

The former senator from Minnesota recounts his early fandom for Tim Walz and how he won an unlikely congressional race in 2006. Plus, Kamala finding her footing, the cowardly Republicans who are shying away from endorsing her, a floundering Trump, and Franken's 70s-era comedy. Al Franken joins Tim Miller. show notes: The 1976 SNL episode featuring Al and Elliott Gould's skit; costs $1.99 to watch

hello and welcome to the bulwark podcast i'm your host tim miller i'm so delighted to be here today with a former senator from minnesota he's one of the original writers for snl he's the host of his eponymous podcast it's al franken i haven't slept that much i'm doing oprah does that work oh that's right that's right that's what she did did you like oprah last night i liked oprah fine i mean i love oprah and you know she hosted the show once the al franken podcast or saturday night live saturday night live oprah was wonderful last night yeah much better than hulk hogan i thought isn't it amazing the different culture i mean of the two conventions and the different tone the democrats adopted like a lot of the the stuff that we used to do at republican conventions and it was just like god and football

and patriotism and love in america and there's a USA chants, and there's huge freedom signs, there's USA placards. I mean, it might as well have been Reagan-Bush 88 in there. Well, I think it's just been a smart one. Of course, the big speech is tonight. That's the big one. But Walls was unbelievable last night. Did you see that the Minnesota delegation stayed after for like 45

minutes doing cheers chance chance chance that's i did and here's why that's because this is why i'm punchy i was on msnbc till 2 a.m last night and then on again at 6 a.m this morning so we'll we'll see how the show goes but i want to do mostly tim waltz before that if you don't mind i have to do a little correction from yesterday's show, and I just thought you might enjoy hearing it. By the way, I'm a firm believer in corrections. I don't make corrections all the time because I don't make errors all the time, but when you do, you've got to correct it.

When you do, you've got to correct it. It's important for trust building. My error yesterday was I began the show quoting Boogie Nights. I don't know how much you like that movie. I loved it. Yeah, where I quoted the famous line Boogie Nights. I don't know how much you like that movie. I loved it. Yeah, where I quoted the famous line about enjoying simple pleasures like butter in my ass and lollipops in my mouth. And I credited that line to the Colonel. When obviously that's wrong, it was Floyd.

So that's my bad. But I also wanted to use this correction to chastise the listeners because i there was several efforts to kink shame me from people that did not understand the movie reference and thought that i liked butter in my ass and i just want to say even if i did so what that's right you know this is a safe place for all that and so i just thought maybe you might if you have anything you want to share on that front as long as you're not hurting anybody we're celebrating whatever gets people going you know i'd rather not okay uh thank you for the opportunity if as things as the show progresses as this uh interview progresses if there's something that really pops in the mind okay well that's why i wanted to mention it while you were on there just in case it inspired you and i

just you know wanted to kind of make you know this was a safe space for that and that you're free. I like butter. Same. In my mouth. Same. In my mouth. Okay. Let's do Tim Walls. I have a clip from the speech. I want to talk about what I like best about the speech. But before that, you actually know him, right? I mean, he was in Congress, so you were in the Senate.

So talk about him. Well, actually, I met Tim in 2005 when he was a first-time candidate. Oh, wow. In fact, I talked to Tim. He was on my show, the Al Franken. It wasn't a podcast. It was an actual radio show. And he and a high school student of his went to a,

I think it was a Bush rally or something, and they got kicked out because I think they had Kerry t-shirts on or something like that. Anyway, so I had him on the radio show. So that's the first time I had Tim on. So this is before he was even running. He's just a social studies teacher. He's a teacher.

He's just a social studies teacher and coach. We honor social studies teachers. You're right. That's a good correction. Thank you. So I meet him then in Minneapolis. There's a fundraiser forum and hardly anyone shows up, but me and my wife and the hosts are there. And Tim speaks. And Gwen is there. And I'm so fucking impressed with this guy. And we talk. And he's out of money. And they just are in a really bad place.

So I had a pack. I maxed out him from the pack. I maxed out from both me and Franny. And then I did a big fundraiser for the whole DFL at a theater, and Franklin Davis performed. I don't know if you remember Tom Davis. Leo Kotke played. Anyway, we raised a lot of money, and he got money from that.

And then I started hawking Rahm Emanuel, who was head of the DCCC at the time. I'm saying, this guy is great, and he said, he can't win. It's the first district. It's a rural district. No Democrat has won since the 1800s, and I just kept calling Rahm and calling Rahm, saying, this guy's great. You can't believe how great he is, and at one point, I got a call from one of Rahm's aides and said, okay, we're going to put $50,000 in the Mankato. And I said, it's Mankato. And he said, okay, well, whatever it is, we'll put $50,000 in it. And then they started funding him and he won. I've never done

that with another candidate. I just stayed hawking them. And cause I knew this guy was great. And his story was great. I mean, what a teacher. To put together a gay-straight alliance when you're the football coach or to head it up is amazing. I know Jake Rayton, who was the kid who asked him for help. How do you know him? Well, he and his family moved to Minneapolis at a certain point, and I went to fundraisers at their house, and Jake was just a big part of the first Walls campaign.

Yes, he ends up winning that one. Actually, as I'm not being that close, I was going back through. He wins that one by six points over Gil Gutnick, and it was a good Democratic year. It was a good Democratic year. It was a great Democratic year. Mark Foley gave kind of an assist on that, if I recall correctly, and Katrina and Iraq. Was Foley Missouri? Foley was Florida.

He was the guy that was diddling the pages. He was what in the what? He was messaging the pages. He was diddling the pages. The younger, the pages, the boys pages i remember those things yeah he's messaging them and um jesus they're covering it up hastert or whoever was speaker at the time was was and so it became it was already going to be a bad year it was a midterm katrina had happened iraq was a disaster and then the mark foley thing happened so democrats had a good year but even still well and Well, and it was, Iraq was a disaster.

That was an election where it all came to fruit, bore fruit for us, unfortunately. I mean, unfortunately it had to be that. Memory 5 runs well right after that election. Yeah, well, a couple of years too late. Yeah. So then he gets in Congress, you're serving with him in Congress.

Just talk to me about, you mentioned the DFL side of things. Tim is kind of a unique bird in just the style of Democratic politics in this day and age. Because he's not like a blue dog, really. You know, he's not like a moderate. He was a moderate when he was representing the first because he had a very moderate district. He had a very, yeah. But in a way that's like a little bit different from how, you know, he's on this DFL tradition,

right? Where it's like. Should I tell you some history of the DFL? Yeah, please. There was a farmer labor party and there was a democratic party. And so Hubert Humphrey put them together. They became the democratic farmer labor party. At the time we, uh, we had farmers cause Roosevelt had saved agriculture, and we've lost them.

But we still have the Farmers Union, which backs the DFLers, and we still have labor to some degree, but there are a lot of young members of labor who don't really know the history. It's the DFL, and it confuses everyone from outside Minnesota. But it's an important history in Minnesota. Yeah, there's a line, I think, between that and this kind of prairie populism that we've seen from him a little bit, don't you think? It's a direct line, yeah. The values of mind your own damn business, those kind of values are very much old-fashioned rural values and it's funny how refreshing they are when you hear them you know and how much it resonates he has had a number of phrases that really do resonate yeah the mind journey business thing i guess this is what i'm trying to get at

is it's not moderate in the sense like like, oh, he's for gun. He doesn't think that there should be gun regulations or like the kind of traditional thing you think of when you think of like a blue dog Democrat. It's moderate in temperament. And that the mind your own damn business thing is a contrast with the MAGA Republicans that want to be in all your business and obsess about everything and are aggrieved about everything. It's also a little bit of a contrast with like the scoldy left. It's hard to imagine. We don't want to get in trouble, but you know, certain times, certain, certain corners of the democratic party, people being like, mind your own damn business is my value. It's kind of like, no, a lot of it's someone left, like minding other people's business is kind of their, their value, you know? But it's, it depends what kind of their value you know but it's it depends what

kind of business you're talking about sure so if you're talking about do they have housing or is the minimum wage high enough that's the kind of business we try to pay it can you can the government negotiate on pharmaceutical prices that business we get into yeah but i just mean more of like the kind of scoldy social media stuff that's more in vogue. I guess that's my point. I think it's refreshing because in this era of we're going to call you out on Twitter if you did something wrong,

you've experienced a little bit of that, right? It's nice to just be like, hey, we care about stuff, but also everybody should mind their own damn business and we support each other. And the contrast with J.D. Vance is huge because he's talking about cat ladies and all that stuff and maybe the cat lady needed ivf to have a child and uh was in the wrong state at the wrong time alabama there's a cat lady there who was just about get her eggs hatched or just or maybe just didn't

find the right man i don't know this is what i've loved about the dnc convention so far it's just been this sense of we appreciate everybody and we're not calling people out for random things and saying oh this is bad this is wrong if you live your life this way which takes us to my favorite part of wallace's speech last night, which I want to play for you. Let's just listen to it. But I'll tell you what, growing up in a small town like that, you'll learn how to take care of each other. That family down the road, they may not think like you do.

They may not pray like you do. They may not love like you do, but they're your neighbors. And you look out for them and they look out for you. That struck me too, because when he said they may not love like you, that was very pointed and deliberate. But the way it was set up it was part of like these are old-fashioned american values they may not love like you when he said that i just went oh man that's really set up beautifully yeah and i liked how right before it is they may not pray like you and you know you could hear that both ways as i'm talking about, I don't know, maybe people wagging their finger at Muslims or whatever. But in this context of, you know, the Republicans have been trying to, you know, say that the Democrats are targeting Christians, right?

Or that the Democrats are anti-Semitic because they didn't pick Josh Shapiro. Like this effort to say like the Democrats don't respect your faith. Oh, that's definitely true. That was anti-Semitism straight up. No other explanation? At least Eldon. I was on CNN and on the show, and he said,

isn't the only explanation that Josh Shapiro wasn't, you know, pick was anti-Semitism. And I had so many different ways to go with that. where'd you go i decided not to go snarky there's a time to go snarky and there's a time not to sometimes i miss i just said uh look you only get to pick one person you can't pick two people to be your vice president and obviously she talked to each of them and there's a million reasons that you pick somebody, but part of it is your relationship. So it's impossible to rule it out, and she's married to a Jew.

Playing a real long game there in anti-Semitism. Marry Doug, and you go to Passover, I'm infiltrating Trojan horse. Right, right. I want to get to know their customs so that I can really go after them when I'm infiltrating Trojan horse. Right. Right. I want to get to know their customs so that I can really go after them when I'm president. Trump last night was also weighing in on this with his usual decorum and modesty. What did he say? What did he say? What did he say? He called. What did he say? What did he say? He called Josh Shapiro the overrated Jewish governor of Pennsylvania and then went on to say he's done more for Israel than any person in history. But Trump has, not Josh Shapiro. Yeah, Trump has.

Trump has. Josh Shapiro has done nothing for Israel, he goes on to say. And it's just like, they spent all this time setting this up as like, oh, the Democrats are anti-Semites, the Democrats hate Jews, and then the democrats nominate somebody with a jewish husband i thought maybe one of the more beautiful things at the convention yesterday was she had the they had the parents of hersch goldberg speak hersch goldberg is a hostage is one of the hostages still in gaza huge applause bring them home cheer josh shapiro gets a huge applause and then afterwards it's donald trump that's like screw that jew no she's like what what did he didn't say that did he no but i mean basically okay basically with him overrated jewish governor of pennsylvania like what i mean am i misinterpreting his message there well he's saying as jewish governors go in pennsylvania he's saying as Jewish governors go in Pennsylvania, he's overrated.

Because all the other Jewish governors were actually better than him. You think he's got a ranking system? I don't know. I tried. You think Trump's got a ranking system? Yeah. Anyway. How about Trump?

So let's talk about Trump a little bit. Let's do it. He's floundering, it feels like. Doesn't it? Yeah. And I've been very, I hate the type of punditry. That's like the walls are closing in on Trump.

Trump is getting to rain crazier and crazier because I don't know. I don't know where you're at on this, but I've been suffering through this person for a long time now. And he's been fucking crazy as long as I've seen him, you know? And so I don't know about that, like that he's getting crazier as long as i've seen him you know and so i don't know about that like that he's getting crazier but he is definitely he doesn't know what to do about kamala he's aggrieved about it he's jealous he's on his fourth nickname i think he broke out comrade yesterday he tried crazy and laughing okay comrade because she's a communist she's a communist he broke

out comrade now i think that's his fourth one she's very very uh pro russia yeah he's obsessed he's obsessed with her looks he keeps bringing up her looks and his energy you know this pains me to say since this was my man he's a low energy though he like he doesn't he's lost now he's lost kind of the little the sticky atlantic city you, kind of Toastmaster vibe. No, he feels like he's dying out there. That's what I meant by floundering. Yeah. I just think he's just floundering about, you know, it used to be that he would riff.

I mean, he had a talent. He has a talent for riffing. But boy, oh boy, this feels different this time. It feels different, or at least lately. Yeah. And I think what happened, this isn't a hard thing to figure out they left milwaukee thinking that this is in the bag it's a wrap yeah and then it kept going on it kept going on that it looked like biden was actually going to stick it out and so so they must have thought, wow, this is, we got it. And for the same reason that finally Pelosi or whoever,

or the whole accumulation of them. The lawyers. Yes, talk them down. It happened so late that everyone just had to rush behind Kamala. And everybody was so relieved that it wasn't Biden. Biden gave a good speech, but one of the things I wish he would... You really thought it was good?

No, but anyway. Okay, that's fine. We can say we appreciate him. I just wanted to make sure I don't have BDS. There's one thing I wish someone on his team would talk to him about is him not saying, and that's no joke. I think it's too late for that.

I know. It's too late. That's not hyperbole. He said that at least two times each in the last five minutes of his speech. And I just go like, just like just somebody somebody say don't do that anymore okay we're not going back the trump point that you're getting to is just like the rug gets pulled out from under him he thinks he has it in the bag he's also 78 older than 78 and the fact is is that they left mil Milwaukee saying this is in the bag.

I mean, that was the whole vibe of that thing. And also, they had a terrible convention. I mean, Hulk Hogan, it's a different America. I understand. I guess professional wrestling is a form of entertainment that people really like, and that's legitimate. But at your convention, at your political convention, have that guy speak and then rip his shirt off. I mean, do you think there's going to be a surprise guest tonight? I don't know.

Like, is Beyonce going to sing Freedom? Yeah, well, Pink, I think, is supposed to open for Kamala. I'm really looking forward to Kamala tonight. So what was your overlap with her? You guys were in the Senate one term. Yeah. I mean, have you just been blown away as much as everybody else are surprised?

I have been. I mean, this was the transition from the president announcing today that he's leaving, you know, and then her, because she was not a good candidate in 20 she was a kind of a terrible candidate yeah i remember her challenge of him i don't believe you're racist but yeah right yeah that's a great way to start i don't think you're right but she floundered through that race and dropped out before Iowa.

And she started with 20,000 people in Oakland, right? And I felt that she floundered during the first part of her vice presidency. And I think she found her legs after Dobbs. I think she had her issue. And that was the beginning of this, of what we're seeing. Yeah, I think that's right. And it's just some people just, you know, you have to be there at the right moment. You know, sometimes the moments just fall in people's lap.

And I think that in 20, she's like navigating between Joe Biden and Bernie and Elizabeth and like trying to find her footing. And then as VP, she's like, I got to be the wingman. She went with single payer and she went with a lot of, you know, they're going to try to use some of her policies against her from 20. That is meaningless. I am really looking forward to the debate. And she's kept it simple. I'm looking forward to the debate too. But as looking ahead to tonight, she's kept it simple. That first speech oakland was it was like a box check of trying to appeal to everybody and since she's taken over it's been like a lot of the biden stuff the highfalutin stuff that that we love here at the bulwark but that just is a little in the wheat you know the democracy and like a lot of that has just been washed aside and she's just we're

focused on the future we're focused on protecting people's freedoms we're focused on optimism and like that's just worked right like sometimes simple as that is better you know like walls was pretty simple last night he only spoke for 17 minutes he spoke for eight minutes less than bill clinton who had who packed more punch walls that was that was not just a homer it was a grand slam i mean that was two outs in the ninth, except it wasn't that dramatic. And how about Gus? How about Gus? So you knew him well enough to know the family, Gwen and Hope and Gus? Have you hung out?

I know Gwen. I've met Hope a number of times. Sure. I think I've met Gus. But last night, Gusus that's my dad i mean that was that moment where he's crying and he's telling everybody that's my dad was uh jesus that was heart-wrenching i know and funny too and funny and inspiring you know you don't get many of those at political conventions of just going like holy holy crap, this is great.

You know what I mean? This is a fucking look at how human is this? The challenge with convention speeches is how do I not say anything wrong? And what does that yield usually? Well, you know, if something's well crafted, it can yield really good stuff. But you don't usually get things like that's my dad while he's crying. So I had Beto on on Tuesday, and we were both, Beto was just kind of talking about how like, you know, I think his phrase was, a lot of times conventions don't stir the spirit because it's just like the pablum, right? Like you just know what you're going to get.

It's scripted and that moment with gus i found myself getting a little choked up because it's a it's just this this beautiful father son thing and just look what kind of daddy is you can sense it but the other thing is like this inverse of what you're saying with trump it's like just two months ago this would have been gus is going to be a high school senior in like a public school in minneapolis like it's like absurd I mean his dad's a governor but even still being a Minnesota governor is just a different

ball of wax than this and all of a sudden your family's thrust into this in two weeks and you're at this convention in the Bulls basketball stadium and your dad goes up there and you're just overcome with emotion

that's pretty cool yeah i want one those people who asked um is kamala anti-semitic because she didn't pick josh shapiro they got to be looking at walls now and going like oh okay yeah i mean look even i wanted shapiro i prefer shapiro as everybody listening knows but like the complementary element of the walls thing is so obvious now. Or just like how much he compliments her. Well, he's not just even Minnesotan. He's Nebraska. I can't do an impression of him.

Because, you know, he doesn't have that Minnesota thing. He has a Nebraska. It's much flatter accent. You can't do a front impression at all? No, I can't do walls. Can you do a J.D. Vance? No. Do you have any impressions you want to do right now? No, I can't do Trump front impression at all no i can't do walls can you do a jd vance can you do do you have any impressions you want to do i can't do trump buddy that you're you know i can do this country is run by the millionaires and billionaires who's that okay so you can do bernie all right i can do bernie we want to make fun of republican mega republicans though you

got a do you have a ted cruz or oh they're gonna uh pull the plug on grandma that's grassley so you can do grassley but you can't do walls i mean it's not that far from butte to iowa i've done that drive but iowa it sounds like minnesota yeah and nebraska doesn't i mean i can hear this but i can't do walls now when i was running for the senate i remember i was running against norm coleman who's from new york yeah so i would in the debate you know depending on certain points i'd get rid of minnesota so what's your minnesota what is the minnesota well you know minnesotans and and what I could do is I could do like 5% Minnesota, which is really what I am. I am about 5% Minnesota.

But then I could do, you know, 20% Minnesota, and then I could do, you know, 60% Minnesota, you know, and talk like that. But I wouldn't go past really 20 but next to colman colman had this weird i think colman wanted to be kennedy so he had an accident that was halfway between brooklyn and hyannis port well people don't remember colman that's good i do that was my glory days on the other side didn't. He still raises the money for dark ads. Yeah, that fucker's not out there. He's out there supporting Trump, basically. All these guys are nine years in.

Nine years in after grumbling about it. Still doing it. I guess this is my one. Going back to your question about whether there's a surprise. My one disappointment about this convention, and I don't expect to be surprised tonight, but I'd be happy to be is like not a single one of these cowardly fuckers from my former party like just sucked

it up and said i'm gonna go endorse kamala like none of the big names you know the generals yeah kinsmen should be there tonight but no esper none of the generals no john kelly no chris christie no not even mitt it should have been the generals yeah and i i don't know why not why not i don't know why kelly isn't there i don't know why master is not there i don't it would be very powerful and it's just like the generals would be better but the chris christie thing i've got a bugaboo about chris christie but like that doesn't even make sense to me why he wouldn't do it is he doing it tonight no he's not that's what i'm saying the fact that he's not your bugaboo about him is just yeah why not just endorse kamala i get it makes no sense he he after everything he said about trump

before when he dropped out he obviously is not going to be for trump he has no future in the republican party at least for nikki haley you can say this is a delusional woman who thinks that she has a future in the republican party and so she's doing what she's doing for selfish interests chris has no future in the republican party his selfish move would be to go give a fucking bar burner tonight and try to become the token republican in the harris wallace administration or whatever or that whatever, or be famous and get invited back on SNL or whatever. You know what I mean? He'd get praised. I know, but he overdid it. And he was so for Trump. Then he wrote a book, didn't do well. But I read the book and it was all about his own accomplishments within the administration and as governor, of course.

The Republican rescue or let me finish? Two classics. I'm sure people are going to be reading those centuries on. It was clearly positioning himself for the run. He wasn't saying I was against Trump, but he wasn't saying he was for Trump. And he was kind of picked this halfway position. And then, of course, during the debates, he was anti- and he was kind of picked this halfway position. And then of course, during the debates, he was anti-Trump finally, but it's ridiculous.

And I don't know if we'd want them. Would we want them at this thing? Yes, we would. Right. I mean, he can give a good speech. That's true.

You can just make fun of Donald Trump, something memorable that goes on tech talk. And yeah, yeah, I think you'd want them. Well, I'm sure that was considered. Something memorable that goes on TikTok. And yeah, yeah, I think you'd want him. Well, I'm sure it was considered. I don't think it was. I mean, I don't think Christie considered it.

That's what I'm saying. I got what I was saying in the generals. I don't like and Condi. I could just go down the list. And my friend, my people, the Bushes. I'm not letting anybody off the hook. Like who am I? Who am I forgetting when I'm saying McMaster's McMaster?

Mattis. Mattis. Kelly. Mattis should be there yeah but the three bad dog mattis the three of them mattis uh esper yeah esper would be good i mean why not why aren't they there and why aren't why haven't they been doing this too they each have said terrible things about them yeah we. We have 70 weeks left. My best spin on this is because of the late handoff that they've put on a really nice convention. And they've really kind of done the fundamentals right, which is harder than it looks.

As somebody that worked with the 2012 Romney Convention, that was a disaster on stilts. You know, it's not easy. Oh, yeah. You worked on that convention. The Clint Eastwood. That was not my responsibility. We're not going to say whose it was because I like the person whose responsibility it was

and we honor them. That was a fuck-up. The whole thing, it just didn't work. You don't have to say the person was, but no one said to him, so what are you doing? What's your plan? That's the script.

And then it's like, oh, well, if we have Clint Eastwood, we can just let him just say what he wants. No, that's not how it works. You don't think that Steph Cutter was looking at Oprah's remarks just to double-check that she hadn't gone off the deep end? Like, you know, you just have to have the gumption to be like, Oprah, we know you're amazing, but let us just take a quick scan. But then the first debate with Obama, Obama was terrible,

and Romney was bagging. He was good. So anyway, my point is that just doing the basics, right. It's challenging enough. The Democrats have done that. And I,

and I'm hopeful that we will see some of these people in the fall because it just takes a little bit more TLC and warming them up. And like they just didn't, they kind of only had the time to do what the people that are already in the tent and make sure that was, that was executed. that that's the best spin i have i hope that that who do they have tonight who's on the rundown tonight you know well kinsinger is our man and and no and kamala and pink i don't i think that it's a pretty light list i mean maybe they'll be a surprise speaker but traditionally you don't want somebody outshining the president.

And so you don't have the big names on the last. I think they'll be friends of Kamala. People can speak to her story. So I think that's what we'll get tonight. Her story that we've heard thus far is pretty good. Pretty decent. Single mom. I didn't know her mom was a single mom.

And her best friend and the story about a kid threw a rocket at her because she stood up for her best friend. I like that story. You started to get a feel for her. You started really kind of liking her. And Doug. Doug really personalized her. Their first date and how she's cooking at Passover

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That's A-U-R-A-FRAMES.COM, promo code THEBULLWORK. This is the best offer of the season, so don't miss out. Terms and conditions apply. I do, after just venting about all the terrible Republicans, I want to give Jeff Duncan his due the 10th governor of Georgia. Let me be clear to my Republican friends at home watching. If you vote for Kamala Harris, Kamala Harris in 2024, you're not a Democrat. You're a Patriot. USA. USA. USA.

USA. USA. USA. In our family, my wife Brooke and I are raising three boys and we have a family motto. And it says, doing the right thing will never be the wrong thing. During 2020, during just the lowest of lows, when we had armed officers outside our house protecting us from other Republicans. Donald Trump had targeted us. My son came downstairs and he handed me this coaster that I'd given him years before at a father-son retreat for our church. And he said, hey, dad, doing the right thing will never be the wrong thing. Stay strong.

I love that. Gus and Jeff Duncan's son, stars of the show last night. That's why Mattis or one of those people would have been so strong. Yeah. You know, and they could have done that. But I don't know what they worry about. They actually think that the Trump people are dangerous. And it could literally be fear.

I guess. But doing the right thing will never be the wrong thing. Our conclusion at the end of this is that these five-star generals are chicken shit. They are chicken shit. They are chicken shit. Let's just be honest. They're chicken shit, at least in this context, right? I would be chicken shit with a big gun in Fallujah, okay?

I have some quotes from these guys that I keep around. This is exciting. Here is John Kelly, of course, was Secretary of Homeland Security, but then he was Chief Staff. The depth of his dishonesty. He's talking about Trump. The depth of his dishonesty is just astounding to me. He is the most flawed person I have ever met in my life.

Okay. That could be the speech, by the way. He could have just walked out to the Marine Corps band, gotten up to the stage, said, he's the most flawed man I've ever seen in his life. I'm voting for Kamala and left. And that would have been amazing. This is James Mattis, who is a sec def. He is more dangerous than anyone could ever imagine. John Bolton has a good one. Trump has this impression that foreign leaders,

especially adversaries, hold him in high regard, that he's got a good relationship with Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un. In fact, the exact opposite is true. I've been in those rooms with him when he's met with those leaders. I believe they think he's a laughing fool. More dangerous than you could realize, a laughing fool, the most flawed man I've ever met in my life. We'd like to see that in some ads. That's a good idea. It would have been nice to see them tonight. It would have been nice if they started this months ago. It's never too late to do the right thing. We can do a big rally in Pennsylvania and

bring them out. I hope that that happens. After what he said about the Medal of Honor, it would have resonated with that, of course. Any other final Tim Walls thoughts, since that was ostensibly the reason why you came here, to give us a little Minnesota lesson on Tim Walls? since that was ostensibly the reason why you came here to to give us a little Minnesota lesson on Tim Walls any memories any things that strike you about him I just

remember campaigning with him in 06 down in southern Minnesota and he won and I got a call from someone in the DCCC that night who was very drunk because i don't know if you remember 2006 you were a republican man but i was we lost we almost beat leonard boswell if it would have been any other year my candidate would have beat leonard boswell in iowa three but alas we lost a very close race bad bad environment so i was there thank god i'm sorry i know well you were was he a good guy was he a good guy jeff lamberti uh well he was a good uh he was a good guy but i think he was for trump so everybody let me down now so i you know it's hard to hard to give a full endorsement of any anybody that i ever worked for did you go to the republican convention this year yeah no are you fucking

kidding me? Like, I don't know. There's not enough gummies in the world for me to be around all those people. I don't mind going to Trump rallies, being around MAGA people. I find that interesting and journalistically valuable. Going to be around my former colleagues who all know fucking better and are happy to walk us into the abyss because they want another consulting contract. Right. It makes me have the rage of a thousand sons and i don't you know i don't i have a young daughter i don't want to get into a fight in milwaukee and end up in jail or anything smart

i don't i don't understand i don't attend well what you've done is amazing i loved your book i appreciate that thank you al and um to the extent that we've ever argued about, what did we argue about? The waters of the U.S.? Yeah, we did. And so this is how we're ending. I want to turn it on you. I'm turning it on you. I went on to your podcast, and for good reason.

You're like, I want to see where your Republican still is under there. And you've picked on me on a couple of different topics, including the waters of the U.S., which we're going to table that. We're not going to redo that fight. People can go to the Al Franken podcast archives if you want to hear a very intense debate about the waters of U.S. policy. But I'm turning it on you because I'm new. I'm part of the team, I guess now, at some level. Part of the coalition, at least. And Kamala rolled out her economic policy. There's some good stuff in there. I like a child tax credit, building more houses. I'm for it. I love the child tax credit. It's great. The going after the profits or the price gouging, price gouging. I don't know how that works. I'd like to, you know, I'm not against it, but I,

I'm skeptical on how you make that work. I don't know how that works at all. It's unclear to me as well. So that's why I didn't pick that one because it's a little vague. It kind of feels like it's just a bumper sticker thing because people don't like price gouging and so i'll allow it in service of beating trump no price gouging that'd be a good bumper sticker yeah exactly what i didn't like was a specific item that said we're going to give first-time home buyers 25 000 25 000 bucks and And Adam Smith still works in the Democratic Party, right? Like, if we're worried about housing costs being too high, why are we giving people money to buy houses?

Do you realize that's just going to make housing prices, but you think that's just going to make housing costs get higher, right? You understand that? Subsidizing demand doesn't fix the supply curve? No, I don't understand it at all like it why are we doing this it's to give people chances a home is very basic and so it i'm not totally against this fdr did this kind of thing in the depression we're not in a depression though well that's one of the things that uh is no one in the convention went out there and went like, OK, the reason gas was $1.20 during Trump is because he was during the pandemic and no businesses were operating and no one drove anywhere.

And so the price of gas went way down. That's why he keeps using that figure. But that's not because of anything good that he did. It was just because no one was using gas. And then the reason we had inflation, but so did everyone else in the world, and ours was lower than anybody else's in the world. No one's given that speech because that speech isn't helpful, I guess. And we're not going back. Oh, there you go. I hear you.

Yeah. In a different world, 10 years ago, Bill Clinton could have maybe done that speech correctly. Right. But otherwise, it's very challenging to execute that, the explainer. Yeah. He did that speech, what, in 12? Yeah. Yeah.

It was really good. That was an amazing speech where he did exactly what I'm saying, except he did it really well and really explained things. It's like Mitt Romney says he's good for the economy. Well, let me tell you a few things. And it's like, we're going to go back to 1989. And it was like the Democrats, we gained this many jobs. And the Republicans, it was well done. Al, thank you so much. My final thing for you, my friend Christian Snyder has a podcast called Wasn't That Special?

50 Years of SNL. And I've been digging it. And like every once in a while, I'll listen when I just need a break from this stuff. Sure. Do you have a favorite old, like a favorite skit, you know, something for, you know, something for people who need a little chuckle, who want to go on a YouTube dive or, you know, want to pick one of those years of snl and find you know find some golds do you have a do you have a favorite memory well you know there's some classic favorites yeah

let's go for a deep cut uh we know stewart smally okay we know stewart oh man i wish uh okay should i prompt you well no i mean like i was gonna say cl to say, Clinton at McDonald's is sort of a good one. There's Franklin Davis. Remember Franklin Davis and all? I had a partner, Tom Davis. Are you too young for that? Too young for that, I think. We had one where we did a – it was in the first year.

It was the Elliot Gould Show. Okay. And it was the one that won the Emmy. And Tom and I did a bit from our act where it was the one that won the emmy and tom and i did a bit from our act and where it was what if the indians had won and tom was head of the bureau of white man affairs and i was the host of powwow with the press would this be allowed on under 2024 snl no it wouldn't have been because mainly the joke was there's been a lot of controversy about some of the major league lacrosse teams and their names. For example, the Milwaukee Dagos.

Well, the Dagos are violent, greasy people. And it was that kind of thing. Yeah. And a lot of controversy about the mascot for the Cleveland Kikes, the Screaming Rabbi. I'm not letting people see my face. That seems like something worth Googling. And if you think about that, that was 1970. It was January 76, I think. Okay. 1970 it was january 76 i think okay and so we were basically saying the names of the cleveland indians right and milwaukee braves are racist especially the cleveland indians and the

washington redskin yeah those are incredibly racist and we shouldn't have it and that was in 1976 that's ahead of your time in a lot of ways. The Indians are now the guardians. It took 30 years for it. No, 40 years. 45. And there's a joke in it about how they show a clip from Dumb Swedes on the Warpath, which is a movie. And then at the end of it, it goes, well, a lot of progress has been made. White people actually play the roles of white people in the movies these days. That's good.

Okay. This is what i was hoping for i'm gonna go dig these up this will be this will be a good weekend so dig that up for her and i'd be happy if she wants to talk about snl christian well christian is a gender neutral name uh but uh his pronouns are he him but i will pass that along uh i think he'd be overjoyed to talk to you. So I appreciate this very much. Thank you, Al Franken, for doing this. Sure.

Always a pleasure. I appreciate you very much too. Thanks to Al Franken. I wanted to take this one questions about walls solo because I had people reaching out to me on every platform that I'm reachable on asking me after that great speech last night, whether or not I'm finally in, whether or not I'm walls p last night whether or not i'm finally in whether or not i'm walls built whether or not my dark heart has has melted even though y'all know i'm really a softy on the inside i wanted to answer that question in a serious way because i do understand this like the impulse of everybody in the community to be like i want you to be as excited

about tim wells as me i I get that. I feel that way as a consumer of other media, other podcasts. Like if I'm really excited about something, I want the person that I'm listening to to also be excited about it. And it's like, they won't get on board. You get like frustrated with them. The reality is, and we talked about this with JVL. We talked about this with Al. That's why I wanted to have Al on. Walls really does come out of this different type of DFL prairie populist tradition that I've definitely been won over on the political value of. That's one place I've been won over. But at the same time, it's just not my politics and it's never going to be.'s okay and i think that tim wallace is a person i've

been talking about the gay straight alliance thing since it was like the first thing i learned about him back when it was still in the veep stakes how amazing he was to do that him and gus last night how amazing was that it was beautiful as a person you know all by all accounts from beto and al franken and everybody we've talked to, he seems like a good man, which is important. But in politics, if I was going to get pilled by somebody, you heard it yesterday with Favreau.

I'm a neoliberal squish, man. I want my Democrats to be technocrats and YMBs and libertarians like Jared Polis, if anything, I'm Polis-pilled. And probably tonight, after Kamala's speech, I assume I'll be moved by it, and in part because of the politics. And I think that her brand of politics is a little more similar to mine than Walz's is, but also the identity, the nature of it. And I'm already getting emotional just thinking about her accepting that nomination speech and thinking about it through the eyes of my daughter.

And so all this stuff's going to hit people differently. And I want to interview people that have different views from me, because I think that's valuable for both me and you, the listener. But I just want to caution all this to say, also, politics isn't team sports, and it's not healthy to be totally pilled by somebody. It's actually not good. Politicians are humans like us. They're sinners.

They're flawed. They have strengths and weaknesses, just like I do, and just like everybody does. And it's valuable in politics to not paint your face and get a tattoo of somebody and paint yourself into a corner where you have to defend everything they do and you have to be excited about everything that they do because that can lead to pretty dark places. And I think that we really could have used, just looking at my career in politics over the last 30 years, for there have been more internal checks on all of these guys and bill clinton gives that stem winder yesterday i don't know i think our politics would be in a better place in the mid

90s if more democrats had said maybe the guy that is abusing and using his influence to have sex with a very young intern isn't the person that should be leading the party we probably would have been better off and had the democrats passed the torch to Al Gore back then. We certainly would have been better off if more people in the Bush administration listened to Scott McClellan, who was blowing the whistle about Iraq. We sure as fucking shit would have been better off

if any Republicans had shown an iota of courage in 2016 and saved us from Donald Trump. We go on and on. We don't need to relitigate the Biden thing, but I think the same thing is true there. I think that getting excited about a politician is great. Being moved by a speech is great. I expect to be moved tonight, but I think it's healthy to have an emotional distance as well and to be able to say, hey, this seems like a good person. This seems like a good leader, but you know,

they aren't my kid. They aren't the quarterback of the football team. They're a public servant. That's going to have flaws and it's up to all of us and all the people around them to make sure that we celebrate their strengths and hold them accountable for, for their weaknesses. So I don't know.

Maybe Tim Wells won't have any weaknesses. Maybe he'll be the best vice president ever and he'll pass JBL's favorite vice president of Mike Pence and my favorite vice president of George H.W. Bush as the best vice presidents that we've had. And I hope that's true. In the meantime, if that Tim Walz thing just had you cheering last night, I honor that and you should enjoy it and uh i look forward to kamala tonight and bringing back one last coconut meter to let you know how

coconut pilled i am tomorrow thank you for listening to the bulwark podcast as always it's been a great run of guests this week we're gonna have ab stoddard tomorrow for all kamala all the time i hope you'll be back then. Enjoy the big speech. Peace. Not love, no mystery Demonstrating love and affection That you give so openly, yeah I like the way you make me feel about you, baby You're the whole wide world to see Whoa, whoa, you got the best of my love Whoa, whoa, you got the best of my love. Oh, you got the best of my love.

Oh, you got the best of my love. Oh, you got the best of my love. Blowing in and out, changes. Kind of curve around each day. My life has a better meaning Love has kissed me in a beautiful way I'm giving you the best of my love My love I'm giving you the best of my love You've got the best of the best of the best The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper

with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.