The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Two Information Universes — with Al Franken
Episode Date: April 29, 2021Al Franken, the former senator of Minnesota, shares how he got his start in comedy and discusses the state of play around our political ecosystem — including who might be in the running in 2024, the... issues he believes Democrats and Republicans can compromise on, and the need to address systemic inequality. We also hear his advice on being a good partner and father. Follow Al on Twitter, @alfranken. Scott opens with his thoughts on the Streaming Wars and the push towards international content. He also shares his thoughts on Spotify and Apple's podcast subscription services. Scott wraps with why he’s excited about Apple’s iOS 14.5 and what it means for Facebook and Google. Algebra of Happiness: The key is forgiveness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Episode 63, the atomic number of Europium.
NGC 63 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation pisces i was born in the 60s i kid you not a millennial asked me what my favorite book was last night
and called me sir and i said tequila mockingbird what does that have to do with any of this
nothing nothing it's my podcast. Go, go, go!
Welcome to the 63rd episode of The Prop G Show. In today's episode, we speak with Senator Al Franken.
Senator Franken is a hero of mine. I find that he's moderate, thoughtful, showed up prepared to hearings and leveraged slash deployed humor as an effective tool for creating some level of bipartisanship or
in some instances, absolutely neutering the competition. I think humor is an outstanding
weapon in a business format or in essentially any struggle, the ability to communicate
a humor sort of displays irony, outlines how ridiculous the opposing arguments are, shows the other side that you don't take yourself too seriously, that maybe they can relate to you.
I think it's an incredible weapon.
We actually did a podcast earlier with professors or Professor Jennifer Ocker and our colleague Naomi Bagdonas. We discussed with Senator Franken his introduction to comedy, the state of play around our political system and the economic response to the pandemic.
We also get his advice around parenting and being a good partner. Okay. Okay. What's happening?
What does the dog hear that humans can't? That's right. That's right. What high-pitched
whistle of news and trends register with the canine today?
Let's look at the streaming war, specifically the push towards international content.
So, roughly speaking, according to Antenna, an analytics company, the U.S. streaming market grew 23% in 2020.
It's interesting. I think the search market grew about the same amount.
Search and streaming both growing in the same amount.
Coincidence? Coincidence?
Coincidence?
And as of this year, according to The Wrap,
Netflix accounts for about 20% of the market.
I would have thought it was more.
I would have thought it was more.
Anyways, and while the streaming space may be saturated,
consumers are willing to dole out money
across different services for a wider content selection.
In fact, in fact, Statista found that in 2020,
over a third of US households that had at least three video on demand subscriptions did so to access a particular
program or original content. That makes sense. So what do you need when you launch a streaming
service? What do you need when you launch basically, I think any services company or any
CBG company? You need sort of a hero product. You need to say, okay, when I started L2,
we started something called the Digital IQ Index.
We had advisory, we had events, and I thought, okay,
what's our hero product?
What is our Mandalorian, right?
What is our WandaVision?
What is our House of Cards?
What is our Game of Thrones?
Every company, every concept, every business you start,
you got to think, all right,
we got to come up with something breakthrough. We can't be just a group of smart people or have a group of
interesting products. We have to have our hero product. What is our game of thrones, if you will?
And at L2, it's a digital IQ index. And we invested a lot in it, gathered a bunch of data,
proprietary data sets, assembled it, 1,200 data points, and said, okay, this is your digital IQ
and how you can benchmark yourself against your competitors. And we consistently over-invested in that product,
recognizing we could build things and sell things around it.
But you got to have at least one product
or one service that you're known for
and you kind of irrationally invest in and protect.
Okay, what does that have to do with anything?
Let's visit Netflix for a second.
The company reported its first quarter earnings last week
and said it attracted 4 million new subscribers. However, that number was well below analyst projection
of 6 million. Well, Netflix. Netflix stock opened down 8% the following day. That only means it's
up about 3 billion percent in the last 10 years. True story. I bought Netflix at 12. It's at 500
something right now. The bad news is that I sold it at 10 to take a tax loss and then never bought again.
Oh, God, I want to find a time machine so I can travel back and then kill me and then kill myself.
Jesus Christ.
Okay.
On a more positive note, Netflix's revenue grew 24% year over year,
and the streaming service took home seven awards at the Oscars this past Sunday.
Who would know?
Because no one watched it. Anyways, that's more than any other studio.
So what does that tell us? The pandemic boost is winding down, and the streaming giants will need new strategies to continue to grow and market value and attract new customers. Specifically,
they'll need to double down on international content investments that we're seeing playing
out now, or we're seeing that play out now. The Wall Street Journal reported
that Netflix, Disney, and Amazon
have all been making investments
in content development overseas.
We're invading the world
with The Mandalorian and Transparent.
Netflix expects to spend $17 billion on content this year,
and about half of the productions currently in development
are based outside the US.
Hmm.
With non-English language content making up approximately 38%, and it's already paying off.
89% of Netflix's 4 million new subscribers came from outside of the US and Canada.
So something I noticed or something when you look at stock market value or brand equity
value as registered by the, I think it was the brand asset evaluator, all the ad agencies came up with their own metrics. Most of them kind of gone away or they're never able to really
monetize them. But the BAV, if I remember correctly, oh no, it was the Interbrands Brand Index. I don't
know what the fuck it is. Anyways, there was some insight into it. We reviewed my brand strategy
class. But one of the levers of value that said, okay, this makes a brand more valuable in the
markets is the percentage of revenue that brand or that product this makes a brand more valuable in the markets,
is the percentage of revenue that brand or that product is able to garner from international.
And specifically, if you have $100 in revenue, if you get 100 of it from the US and you get 50 of
it versus a company that gets 50 in the US and 50 internationally, company B, the one with more
diverse revenues by geography is worth 50 to 100% more than the company that just gets all of its revenues domestically.
Why?
Because it connotes that you have the ability or your product has the ability to sort of permeate geographic boundaries, meaning there's a much larger market potential and that you have the skill set to actually recognize or register that potential.
And two, the markets love
diversification. And that is they don't like the up and down volatility of companies that are too
concentrated. Similar to the way you get risk-free adjusted returns when you diversify your portfolio,
meaning that you get better returns at a lower risk level. That sounds pretty good when you
diversify. It's the same is true of business.
And that is if you can diversify by geography,
by business sector, by brands,
you typically get a better return.
Some of that flies in the face of the notion
that the companies that have created the most value
seem to be pretty focused in terms of one brand,
but that's a different talk show,
Master Brand versus House of Brand
or Branded House versus House of Brands.
We'll cover that in episode 2063. Anyways, they like the international gig. And with streaming, I don't want to say we've
saturated the market. I buy everything. I'll get Peacock. Sure. I'll get Joey Bag of Donuts. I
probably would have signed up for Quibi had I not been so critical of it. I don't think the consumer
has run out of room around subscription media companies. I think that's bullshit. I think the consumer has run out of room around subscription media companies. I think that's bullshit. I think the consumer gets such incredible value
for these things that they will continue
to sign up for them as long as they continue to,
or these companies continue to offer
such incredible value,
basically about a billion dollars in free content
or a billion dollars in content
for every buck a month you spend.
That seems like a pretty good trade to me.
Anyways, Disney Plus recently hit
more than a 100 million subscribers.
Disney Plus, hands down, the winner, rookie of the year in streaming.
And they expect to have a content budget of about 9 billion starting in 2024, which will
include 50 international projects.
As of mid-March, just 3% of Disney Plus content was developed outside the US.
That's about to change.
Meanwhile, Amazon has doubled its production
of original local language content every year since 2017.
And the number of Prime Video's international subscribers
increased by more than 80% in 2020 compared with 2019.
HBO Max will finally be available internationally this June,
starting with 39 territories
across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Good move, good move.
AT&T, AT&T, not as dumb as we'd hoped.
The AT&T, the phone giant,
going straight to your living room
with Wonder Woman 1984 and other great franchise films.
That was a gangster move.
And while the Academy Awards
gave us this wonderful recreation
or really was able to communicate
what the vibe is of hanging out
in a train station for three hours.
By the way, you want to revive the Academy Awards, just show Brad Pitt. Oh, hello,
Dreamy. Hello, Dreamy. What else? And maybe have, I don't know, maybe have Beyonce play the latest
or play all of the nominees for best song and then have Chris Rock do the opening and have old
school, maybe, I don't know, Steve Martin do the end and then make fun of Barbra Streisand or something.
And boom, you're out.
You're out in 30 minutes.
You're out in 30 minutes.
That's right, put me in charge.
Fucking Steven Soderbergh running the Academy Awards.
This year, the Academy Awards,
Oscar's night to shine.
Produced by the dog.
Produced by the dog.
Anyway, what else is heating up?
What else is on a boil?
Let's continue our conversation around the audio space,
specifically, specifically podcasts.
Historically, the money that cabbage and podcasts
has come from advertising.
That revenue is expected to reach a billion dollars this year.
Now platforms, including Apple and Spotify,
are looking to monetize the business directly
through exclusive podcasts and subscriptions.
Spotify made a big splash around exclusivity
when it signed a $100 million deal with Joe Rogan.
Now it's launching a subscription service
through Anchor's platform.
Podcast creators will be able to set a fee for their content,
much like the popular independent service Patreon.
Apple, which originated the podcast medium,
we'll call them podcasts
because they first became popular on iPods,
has not monetized the space directly until now.
Until now.
Last week, Apple also announced a subscription service for creators,
but Apple being Apple will keep up to 30% of subscription revenue
for the first year and then 15% after that.
Manzana, wait, is that Apple in Spanish?
Manzana, you deserve to be regulated
or the app store should be regulated.
That's the power of owning the rails.
Apple has been the dominant platform
for podcast listeners for years
and now it wants to get its cut, but it may be too late.
Is it too late?
Is it too late?
Apple's listener share has fallen to just 24%.
And according to eMarketer, for the first time ever, Spotify will have more listeners than Apple this year.
So I think there's an arbitrage going on here.
There's something very special about podcasts in the sense that me being in your ears, you feel as if you know me.
You feel close to me.
If you read a blog post, you might be moved and impressed, or you might be angry and think, what a fucking idiot.
But you don't feel an emotional connection.
And there's something about when you and I have this conversation where you feel as if you know me and that we know each other.
And that sort of intimacy creates loyalty.
And if you can transfer that goodwill and that loyalty and that MPS to a broader service
that sells handsets or paper towels, there's an arbitrage there.
And I think that's what's happening in the podcast space,
that this golden age of radio would be called podcasts,
not because of the revenue they would produce,
but because of the loyalty
and the intimacy they would produce.
And that's created, if you will,
some sort of a NPS or a Goodwill arbitrage.
Okay, let's round this out with more Apple news.
The company released iOS 14.5 on Monday,
which creates a major escalation in the privacy wars.
iPhone users will now have to opt in to tracking.
I have to opt in versus opt out.
Actually, that's something I didn't know.
It's not opt out.
It's that you have to opt in,
which is expected to deal a major blow
to Facebook's data collection.
A major blow.
Son blow mayor.
Tim Cook is talking his book here.
So he may be principled, but this is also awfully convenient as he wants to drive users to apps where Apple gets a cut and away from web-based content where it doesn't, specifically the
internet that is ad supported. They don't get a cut of that, but they do get a cut when you say,
well, I don't like ads and I value privacy and I'm willing to pay a fee. The reality is there's markets for both. There's
a lot of people that despite big claims or big concerns about privacy are willing to let Google
and Android and every handset manufacturer molest, with the exception of Apple, molest their data
points. Android pulls about 1200 data points a day from your phone, Apple around 200. But a lot
of people are willing to make that trade to say, I would love to have the processing power of the
space shuttle and free apps and free maps and incredible search queries and all this information
at my fingertips for free. Effectively, you can get an Android phone for free right now if you pay
Verizon and AT&T. It's amazing they've been able to trade moats around
their franchise businesses. Anyway, a lot of people make that trade. As a matter of fact,
more people will make that trade. And Apple's trying to say, well, we want to make it harder
to monetize that audience. And as a result, make those companies less profitable, maybe make the
service less robust and move more people into the paid ecosystem because they get a toll on every
payment or almost every payment. I think
about 80% of dollar volume in apps goes through the app store on Apple. It's just striking here.
I mean, if you think about this, Apple gets somewhere between, take all the streaming
services, Apple gets somewhere between 3% and 12% of their top line revenue across Hulu,
across Netflix, across HBO Max.
Why? Because where do people go to download these apps, these streaming service apps?
They go to Apple's App Store.
So, wow, is it good to own the rails.
The question now is how Facebook and Google will react.
Will they starch their hat white and deal honestly and fairly with their users?
So, we shouldn't bet on it.
This is a fight taking place
down in the technical details of these platforms
and one with multi-billion dollar implications
for digital advertising and social media players.
This is incredibly interesting.
And generally there'll be some emotion here
because I think Tim Cook genuinely authentically
can't stand Mark Zuckerberg.
Tim Cook strikes me as someone who
has some sense of regard for the Commonwealth, some sense of empathy, and is not a sociopath.
And the CEO of Facebook is none of those things. And I think the CEO of Facebook sees Tim Cook as
a bit of a scold and also pretty cynical about his intentions, or I think they're cynical about their intentions.
I love this.
I absolutely love this.
I always say that in the war between Murdoch and Zuckerberg,
I hope the bullets win,
but in the war between Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg,
I'm betting on the guy from, where did he grow up?
Alabama.
Where did Tim Cook grow up?
Anyways, I'm betting on Tim Cook,
and I think a lot of people are.
We'll be right back with our conversation with former Minnesota Senator Al Franken.
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Hey, it's Scott Galloway. And on our podcast, Pivot, we are bringing you a special series
about the basics of artificial intelligence. We're answering all your questions. What should
you use it for? What tools are right for you? And what privacy issues should you ultimately
watch out for? And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, the senior AI reporter for The Verge, to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life. So tune into AI Basics,
How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your welcome back here's our conversation with former minnesota senator al franken
senator franken where does this podcast find you uh new york city what what are you doing in new
york city where you live have? I have grandchildren, yeah.
Wow.
I did not know that.
Where in New York City?
Upper West Side, 76th and Broadway.
So I could just run into Senator Franken rolling around the Upper West Side right now.
You are- I often am rolling around, yes.
Just rolling around?
Okay, so the question on everyone's mind, what do you think of Elon Musk hosting Saturday Night Live?
It's an interesting writing.
I was a writer for there, and it's very intriguing.
And immediately, I thought of what not to do.
Don't do an ad for Elon Musk's Musk.
Don't do that.
I suppose there should be an Elon in space.
Maybe if someone plays Zuckerberg and Bezos, we should get maybe a rich guy sketch.
But I don't know. get maybe a rich guy sketch, you know?
Right.
But I don't know.
And I don't know.
I hope he comes in early enough so they get a feel for what he can and can't do.
He should do something where he's not playing Elon Musk, I'll tell you that, where they should play him like, you know, he should play an idiot or, you know, a guy down on his luck or something.
So I want to use SNL as a jumping off point because I think a lot of people know you, but I don't think people really know you.
How did you give us kind of a—
Who really knows me?
Who really?
He's a complex character.
Give us the wonder years of Senator Al Franken.
Growing up, your biggest influences, and how were you introduced to comedy?
That's easy. I grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.
It's a suburb of Minneapolis.
My dad didn't graduate high school.
He was a printing salesman.
Uh, you know, two bedroom, one bath house.
I felt like the luckiest kid in the world.
Cause I was, I was growing up middle class and, you know, in St.
Louis park, uh, and the, you know, and this is post-World War II fifties, you know, this is post-World War II 50s.
You know, it was a great time.
It was, if you were, if someone was pro-Nazi at that point, they kept that to themselves.
It was very anti-Nazi.
That was on the download, the whole Nazi thing?
Yes.
If you were Nazi, you just didn't bring it up.
Yeah.
So my dad loved comedy.
So basically, we just spent a lot of time watching comedy on TV. Yeah. My dad inhaled a pipe, inhaled a pipe for his entire adult life. And so if he would get on a laughing jag, he would cough up phlegm.
Right.
So if we were watching Carson and Johnny said,
ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Buddy Hackett, my mom would leave the room
because she couldn't stand the phlegm.
But my brother and i would stay and my dad god
he loved buddy hack and he loved comedians and that's really how i got introduced and he was
funny my dad my dad was really funny and so that was really it my mom was funny too
but uh and a sweet guy my dad was such a sweet guy.
So that was it.
That was it.
And then I started doing comedy in high school with a partner, Tom Davis.
You remember Franklin and Davis at all?
Mm-hmm.
I do.
And so we started performing.
We started performing at a theater, like a Second City-type theater,
improv-based, in high school.
And then during college, we'd perform there.
And between my junior and senior year of college,
Tom and I hitchhiked out to L.A. from Minnesota and did the Comedy Store
and kind of got a little bit on the map
and went out to L.A. after college.
Two years later, boom, SNL started.
Lauren hired us.
So two years out of college.
So you were literally 24 when you got onto SNL.
Yep, yep.
As a writer or in front of the camera?
As a writer.
And actually a little bit in front of the camera.
We were, Franklin and Davis was, he'd throw us up in dress.
In dress rehearsal.
And if the show, if so much stuff tanked in dress, he'd put us on.
So in other words.
You're the sixth man.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
And that didn't happen much.
But then we got on, I think our first show was an Elliot Gould show that won an Emmy.
That show won an Emmy.
Mm-hmm. Gosh, Elliot Gould. And so an Emmy. That show won an Emmy. Mm-hmm.
Gosh, Elliot Gould.
And so how long at SNL?
Did the first five years, left for five years,
and came back when Lorne came back.
I was a Lorne again writer.
And then I did 10 years. So I did 75 to 80, first five, and then 85 to 95.
So give us some inside baseball here, because you were kind of back.
That was like, was that Jane Curtin, Dan Aykroyd, Belushi, Gilda Radner, that whole crowd?
You just did four of the seven.
There you go.
Yeah, there was only seven people.
Chevy Chase, Garrett.
Aykroyd, Belushi, Jane Lorraine Gilder.
Give us, and obviously you were exposed to other cast members, give us a most talented in your viewpoint, nicest person, most difficult person.
Well, to me, the consummate live air performer is Dan Akroyd.
First of all, Dan
really embodied the characters
he played.
And also,
we
made cuts
and rewrote between dress and air.
And he could
internalize those cuts
faster than anyone I've seen.
Phil Hartman was also amazing at that you know but boy that first cast everybody was great everybody was
great and it was an advantage you know i look at the cast now there it's it's a lot of people
and i think there's an advantage to the cast of only having seven because they each got the airtime yeah and if you
get airtime you get confidence first of all you get practice doing it and you get confidence and
you're just out there and you're doing it and you play everything you play an old person you play
you know you play a little girl you play you know you play everything so uh let's pivot to politics
be a sports commentator here in the sport of politics and that is look at two teams democrats
republicans give us what you think the state of play is and how each of the teams are doing and
what you see is kind of the dynamics call the call the sport call the game right now well it's not a sport it's too high stakes i mean it is it's a
game i guess so maybe it is um you know the coach on the republican side is mitch mcconnell and he
will he he'll make it impossible for uh for democrats for uh for the president to do much of anything, if he can help it.
He wants him to fail.
Mitch McConnell wants Biden to fail.
He wanted Obama to fail.
He wanted to win the midterms in 10.
I don't know if you remember them threatening.
We went in the sequester.
We had to cut spending during a recession.
I mean, it was crazy.
And it was under the guise of we care about the deficit.
They didn't care about deficits.
They just wanted Obama to lose.
And they wanted us to lose seats.
And so there's that.
You know, our team, I have reason to have problems with our team, of course.
But I was very pleased with, you know, American Recovery Act.
I thought that did a lot of great things.
I thought that did a lot of great things. I thought that was an achievement. Unfortunately, I mean, that was something that 65, 70 percent of Americans were for.
Not one Republican voted for it in either house.
You know, everyone says, well, Biden has to reach out to Republicans.
Well, they've got to reach back a little bit. And remember that 10 Republican senators showed up at the White House and they came back with like $600 billion to his 1.9.
And, you know, it was Obama all over again.
That was basically, you know, what they came up with after, you know, when we were in the Great Recession. So the ossification or the
partisanship is pretty easy to identify. If you try and reverse engineer to the problem and then
hopefully the solution, are there two or three things that stand out where you think this is
the shift or the changes that need to be made to create a situation where, you know, we're still
representing our ideals, but do, you know,
do try and focus on we're Americans first, not red or blue. Any thoughts on solutions?
First of all, I think that there are going to be areas of agreement, I hope, on infrastructure,
for example. Republicans always say they want infrastructure.
There's going to be a lot of fights over what that is, the shape of it, the size of it.
But I hope that there can be some working together on that.
Again, I have my doubts about McConnell and Republicans working together on that.
I think that on this crime bill, on the George Floyd bill, I think there will be compromise on that. That's what I'm hearing. You know, the question,
like on voting rights and on elections, that is, I don't see them coming together on this at all, because basically what I see them doing nationwide is doing autopsy said, we have to start reaching out to minorities.
And instead they said that and we got and they got Trump.
Yeah. And they won. And now the whole party is captured.
Basically, enough of the party is captured by Trump that that's who they are now.
And that's pretty scary.
And that, you know, that's people, that's Americans who are, one, getting a lot of disinformation.
They're getting news from their information from a disinformation universe that includes Fox, that includes Newsmax, that includes a lot of stuff on social media that they get everywhere from Facebook.
And that's why a certain percentage of people believe that Democrats kill children and drink their blood.
You're referring to an op-ed you wrote in the LA Times where you said, quote,
Americans are divided into two completely different information universes, and that's a problem.
And, you know, it doesn't seem like social media is doing anything new. They're just making it worse, right? Oh, much worse. Agreed. And what do you think? Any thoughts on
legislation or regulation that could solve that problem or at least reduce it?
Well, I think that we have to look at a couple of things. We have to look at some antitrust
stuff. We also, I think 230, Section 230 needs to be looked at you know what i'm talking about right
the 230 was written in what 1996 at the dawn of the internet and basically provided protection
for platforms and said that they were uh they're just platforms, they weren't publishers. So they
were, were held harmless, could not be held responsible for content that other people put
on there. And I understood that. We believe in, you know, the First Amendment, but I don't think
people wrote that in vision what they're seeing now. And the First Amendment does have limits.
There's a lot of people yelling fire in a crowded movie theater right now on the Internet.
Facebook doesn't do its due diligence.
They don't do it.
Returning to the Republican Party, I was just down in Florida with my co-host of another podcast,
and I went to this thing called the Boca Bash, and I saw Trump 2024. Who do you, if you had to
try and handicap who you think the Republican nominee for president 2024 would be, who do you
think are the top contenders? Boy, that's so far away, but I think that Trump still has his power over the party, has enough power over
65% of the party. And I don't know what he wants to do. I don't know if he wants to profit
from that position. I don't know what he wants to do. But I'd say if you were betting,
you'd have to bet on him as a front runner if you're betting.
And then among these other guys, I know who wants to run.
I mean, it's Cruz.
It's Hawley.
It's Scott.
It's the governor of Florida.
DeSantis, yeah?
Yeah.
What about Nikki Haley?
Do you think she's in the mix?
Sure.
I imagine she'll run.
It'll be interesting.
I think Sass will run.
It was interesting watching Sass, which is that he voted to convict on the impeachment, but then he voted against Garland.
Garland is actually the most suited person that I can think of to be attorney general, whether you, I mean, that a Democrat could possibly appoint or that anyone could appoint.
He's got the just the integrity and the chops and the expertise.
I don't get that.
And I thought that was him trying to make himself healthy with the right or something.
I think he I was just kind of looking at that and going like, oh, he thinks, oh, well, I guess maybe I miscalculated on that vote.
So those are the people I think of as running.
And who do you think, we won't even talk about 2024, who do you think are the real rising stars in the Democratic Party?
That's a good question.
Let me think.
Let me think.
Young, young. Young, young people. What about your neighbor, Senator Klobuchar? I'll just throw some out.
Well, she did well in this last race. I think she's obviously a force in the Senate. She's
been there quite a while. She has leadership. She's the head of the Rules Committee.
The Rules Committee has become very important in light of January 6th.
And she is someone who likes to work cross-party lines and legislate.
So I think she'll be a force for good in the Senate.
You've got to give me some time here.
Let me think.
Well, I'll throw some out.
A guy I supported for president in 2020,
Senator Michael Bennett.
There's a guy like that who's more of a,
I don't know, policy wonk.
I don't know what the right term is.
And it doesn't, Jones for every camera.
Do you think there's a future
for a senator like that in a presidential
race? He ran, got nowhere. Do you think he would ever-
Yeah, I think he got nowhere for a reason. I served on the education help committee with him,
you know, and we did the NCLB reform, the Child Left Behind reform there.
And I was hoping for more leadership from him on that since he had been a superintendent of schools.
I feel like, you know, he's a good senator.
I don't really feel like he sort of has the presentational chops that you need unfortunately and he has sort of two speeds
he has uh like patrician and yelling that's sort of in that order yeah i mean that seems to be his
two speeds i've noticed you know i listen we you know, we have a lot of great young people in the party.
You know, and again, this is kind of future.
But Melvin Carter, who's the mayor of St. Paul, is just terrific.
I don't know.
You know, he's mayor right now.
You have to see his depths.
I think Andrew Cuomo isn't going to be president.
I just have that inkling.
You're going long on that one, huh?
You don't think that's going to work out?
Yeah, I'm going long on that.
What about the squad?
Any comers there?
People to keep your eye on?
Well, AOC, you can't uh uh ignore her she has great
messaging instincts she is really smart she does I've been very impressed with her questioning
uh which I hate very during hearings and I pay a lot of attention to that. That's where I, that's one of the things I enjoyed the most
and prepared the most for, and I could see that she does too,
and I'm very impressed with that.
And I think she's, yeah, yeah, she's a comer, no doubt about,
I mean, that's obvious.
I know Ilhan, Ilhan, I know.
And, you know, we have some differences on some policy, you know,
but to have a Somali-American representing Minneapolis,
representing Minnesota in Congress is really something.
Would you ever consider running for office again?
I'm going to keep my options open.
I'm young. I'm options open. I'm young. I'm just,
I'm turning 70. That is young. Another 10 years, you could be president.
But what would be, just hypothetically, what would be the re-entry point for Al Franken? Would it be the House, the Senate, governor, something? What would be the likely re-entry point well i don't think
i want to be a governor um i love the senate that's what i would you know love to do again
i mean i love the senate i really did and um if i did it again i think that's probably
what i might do unless i I did something quite local.
Coming up after the break...
The gaps in wealth and income in this country are scandalous.
And there's so much that we can do to address that.
But we have so much we need to do
in that regard, in terms of
early childhood education, my goodness.
Making sure that kids go to good schools.
Stay with us.
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So, If I Did It Again is about the strongest proclamation of saying you're going
to run without actually saying, announcing you're going to run. So, it sounds like I'm
going to put words in'm going to do.
I'm doing what you're doing here.
I'm doing a podcast, which I enjoy a lot.
And I'm now doing videos, which I like.
And I think before all of COVID, I was out touring.
I was doing stand-up, basically, with politics.
How was that?
Well, that was great.
It was very much combined with, it was during the political season.
It was during sort of the primaries and then just leading all the way up to COVID.
And so I was kind of doing half. I was doing what I do, which is sort of what I'm doing here,
I guess, except I think a little bit more comedy. And it was fun. I had big crowds and it was, you know, there's nothing better than getting laughs and there's nothing better than that feedback with an audience.
And, you know, I know that everybody, every performer misses that and can't wait till everyone is inoculated in the United States.
Well, let's talk about the pandemic. Give us a sense of what you've learned or what you think
the novel coronavirus has revealed about America and then your thoughts on the government's response.
Some of the stuff it revealed was not good um it first of all obviously the
response by the trump administration trump himself was was a scandal and um
you know as burke's said you know after a000 deaths, that could have been mitigated.
And this guy was so irresponsible.
It's tragic.
It's just tragic.
I think it also revealed their people are food insecurity tripled.
I mean, our gaps in wealth and income in this country are scandalous.
And we just didn't function well.
And now I think what we're seeing, to go back to these two universes of information,
this disinformation universe is incredibly pernicious and incredibly
dangerous.
This is the polio vaccine.
This is the smallpox vaccine.
People don't understand, for example, on Pfizer, 95% effective.
If I talk to anyone, they don't know what that actually means.
And what it means is, if you look at a double-blind study, they had like 28,600 people in the placebo group, same number in the Pfizer group. A certain number, and it was not very big at all, like 160 people
out of the 25,600 in the placebo group tested positive, got infected. Eight in the Pfizer group,
that's 5%. That's what they said, 95% effective.
But a lot of people thought, oh, that means I have a 5% chance
with the Pfizer of getting infected.
No.
No, it's much, much lower than that.
And not only that, those eight people didn't get sick.
Right.
They tested positive.
They didn't know they were infected. This is insane not to take.
And when they get this information and they get it from Tucker Carlson,
who has to know better, has to know better.
And the danger of people not taking it is they get it, and that
gives the virus a chance to mutate. And the more chances it has to mutate, opportunities it has to
mutate, the more possibility that we'll get a variant that is vaccine resistant. And we'll go
back to the drawing board. That is dangerous to everyone.
It's not just dangerous to the people who aren't taking the vaccine. It's dangerous to everyone.
So that just makes me furious. Yeah, by the way, that thumping was Senator Franken pounding his
fist on the table. So talk a little bit about the stimulus and the bailout packages. How do you think we've handled the economic response to COVID-19? And again, looking back at 2009, where, man, they just didn't give a sufficient, pass a sufficient enough package at that time and kept us in the recession longer than we had to be.
You know, I don't know if everything was targeted in exactly the right way.
I think the $3,000 tax credit per kid is amazing because that,
you know, I haven't really studied it at all,
but I keep hearing that it's going to reduce childhood poverty by 50%.
I mean, wow.
As I said earlier, the gaps in wealth and income in this country are scandalous.
And there's so much that we can do to address that.
And that's part of it right there.
But we have so much we need to do in that regard in terms of early childhood education.
My goodness. Making sure that kids go to good schools. in that regard, in terms of, you know, early childhood education, my goodness,
making sure that kids go to good schools. You know, right now, basically schools are funded
by property tax. So if you live in an affluent neighborhood, you go to a good school. And if
you don't, you go to, you know, you don't go to a good school. That's not right. That's not right. That doesn't work.
I do think an infrastructure bill is really important, and I hope it gets Republicans
support, because I think a lot of those jobs will be the kind of jobs, and I've heard Buttigieg say
this, that most of those jobs don't require a college degree.
And we're talking about blue-collar jobs.
And we're talking about also transitioning so that we have a green energy economy, which we have to do.
We have to do it.
There's just no doubt about it.
We have to do it.
And so, man, I just hope
we go that direction. You know, McConnell, you just heard
McConnell, like, after that bill was passed. Well, he just wants to get
out in front of the parade, bottom line.
He knows the economy is already expanding. And he just
wants to take credit for it.
Oh, screw you.
You know what I mean?
So, look, I think you've got to give him his props.
I think he's been brilliant.
Who on the Democratic side is that strategically deft at getting in the way of Republican?
Let me ask this. where's our, let me ask
this, who's our Mitch McConnell? Sort of the dark horse or the dark genius or the dark Satan of
genius. Well, I don't think we have one in terms, and maybe that's a good thing because really,
really, do you want to be Mitch McConnell? I mean, you know, I mean, Chuck Schumer is our leader and, you know, Godspeed.
I mean, and he did that.
He shepherded that through.
You know, I have this odd suspicion and this wouldn't be kosher, but I think the parliamentarian somewhere in her brain knew that if they did the $15 an hour in the reconciliation, that they weren't going to get 50.
So I was kind of happy in an odd way.
I love the minimum wage to be $15 an hour.
It's a scandal what it is now.
It's just ridiculous.
But you wouldn't have gotten Manchin's vote.
You wouldn't have gotten a number of votes, I don't think. But But you wouldn't have gotten Manchin's vote. You wouldn't
have gotten a number of votes, I don't think. But you certainly wouldn't have gotten Manchin's. And
you know, God bless Manchin. If it weren't for him, we wouldn't be in the majority.
People have to remember that. He's senator from a state that went for Trump by 40 points.
And I also think that what he's doing is interesting.
He has, about the filibuster, he basically at one point indicated, remember he did the full Ginsburg one weekend?
He did it on every Sunday show.
You know what I'm talking about, the full Ginsburg?
Monica Lewinsky's lawyer was Ginsburg, named Ginsburg, and he did every Sunday show.
And so now they call it the full Ginsburg, if you do every Sunday show.
And so Joe did it at some point.
He was asked about the filibuster and a couple of them and said that he would be open to a modification.
And then he later wrote an op-ed saying, well, he doesn't want to end the filibuster, which he had said earlier, but he doesn't want to weaken it either.
Well, you can modify without weakening it, I think.
But what he said was he wants to go back to regular order, basically.
He wants to do it the way you're supposed to do it.
You write bills in committee.
You do hearings.
You write the bill.
You take the bill to the floor. You
have an open amendment process. People vote on amendments. Then you vote on the bill,
and you pass the bill. That's what he wants to do. But I don't know if Mitch will do that. And I think that Joe is to some degree saying, OK, you know, here's your opportunity.
Do that.
Go back to doing what we're supposed to do, because we certainly didn't do that.
Well, Mitch.
Well, Trump was president.
Mitch was a leader.
So.
So one of the candidates from a presidential candidate on the Democratic side and a candidate for mayor now here in New York, Andrew Yang, said something that struck me.
And he said that one of the mistakes the Democratic Party has made is they feel that they've been appointed a kind of a police force for cultural issues and that most Americans are more concerned with kind of their challenges facing them daily.
Do you think there's any truth to that?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think, you know, speaking of one of the reasons I had Andrew on my podcast
and, you know, I said, you know why you did well?
Because you're a human being on the stage people responded to him because he was not
programmed he wasn't uh the it was hard with 10 candidates up there and everybody giving a minute
to an answer and but he's right he's right and I think people care about. And yeah, I think people have obviously been somewhat offended by by what he's talking about.
And the if you look, well, let me back up. You've been on SNL. You're nominated or elected to the U.S. Senate.
But I find arguably your most impressive accomplishment is that you've been married for 45 years.
And we have our our listenership senator is very young and very male.
And I'd love to get your thoughts or advice to to men around being a good father and a good husband? Well, if you have kids,
and that's the first prerequisite to be a good father.
That helps to have kids.
Yeah.
So I think that, you know,
the first thing that you do is be a good parent together,
that you parent together because that's your, that's your job. Right.
And, um, I,
so I think that's how we saw ourselves and now we see ourselves as
grandparents. So I think, uh, being a family, uh,
you know, is, is part of it of it, is a big, big part of it.
And then you have to keep the spark going.
And I'm not going to get into that.
There you go.
Right.
Yeah. The spark. the spark conversation yeah all right let's do a quick lightning round before we let you go just first thing that kind of pops your mind all right so
uh biggest influence in your life uh my dad uh biggest influence in your life that wasn't uh
you know in your life i'm sorry i missed i missed your last life that wasn't, you know, in your life.
I'm sorry. I missed, I missed your last thing. That wasn't what?
Well, a book, something outside, something not an immediate family member,
someone you never met or a piece of art, a piece of.
Oh, I see what you're saying.
But boy, Paul Wellstone.
Highest moment. most proud moment, proudest moment.
My proudest moments are always family.
Just it's a continuous thing. It's just seeing my grandchildren be already developing into great people.
That's that makes me really proud.
One piece of advice you would give your younger self
well don't be hard on yourself
favorite piece of media favorite tv show favorite music well grateful dead grateful dad yes that's a that's a crap that's a crowd pleaser that's why you're just
aging as a buddy hackett and grateful dad jesus christ are you like 105 buddy hackett and grateful
dad there you go so now that you're no longer in office uh experience with drugs and favorite drug well uh my experience with drugs is uh i used to take some cocaine at snl
but only to stay up long enough to see that belushi doesn't do too much cocaine uh then let
me see oh i did lsd guess what during. Yeah, there's one central theme here.
It all comes back to the Grateful Dead.
Yeah.
And I don't drink except occasional beer.
And I don't.
I remember once, though, I was like when I was running in Minnesota.
And so it turned out that Norm Coleman was running against like sold pot at Hofstra or something.
It became an issue.
And then I had been out very publicly said exactly what I've told you. Very has been an article in Rolling stone had been somewhere else so the guy from the star tribune
wants me to say okay what you know what it goes to my press guy and says what did he take and he
said well it's in the press it's this no i want him to say it to me and i was like no
it's like why yeah it's there it's not it to change. No, I want him to talk to me.
Right.
No.
Like, I'll talk to you.
I don't care.
He was a reporter.
We're just telling him.
It's there.
No, right.
All right, well, listen.
Senator, like, I think we can forgive you for liking the Grateful Dead.
I think there's a lot of us, though, that are angry you resigned, and the only way we'll forgive you for liking The Grateful Dead.
I think there's a lot of us, though, that are angry you resigned,
and the only way we'll forgive you is if you run again. And I just sense in your voice is a need to run again.
I just get that sense that you have not.
God, have the worst instincts.
You've got to put a bow on this.
You don't know how to read people, man.
This is the best ending to the movie that is the Franken story is you running again.
Anyways, Senator Franken is a comedian, politician, and author of four number one New York Times bestsellers. During Senator Franken's time as Minnesota Senator from 09 to 18, he served on the Judiciary, Engineering, Indian Affairs,
and HELP, that's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committees, and also wrote a key
provision of the Affordable Care Act. He is currently the host of the Al Franken Podcast.
He joins us from the Upper West Side where he is hanging with his kids and grandkids. Senator
Franken, I'm in on this campaign campaign i'm going to vote with my campaign
and my checkbook senator senator stay safe but i'll hold you to the money 100
just don't cash the check i'll send it just don't catch it okay all right Thank you, Scott.
Algebra of Happiness.
Our interview with Senator Al Franken, the thing that struck me, and it's borne out in a lot of research, is when we asked Senator Franken his advice to his younger self, he said, don't be so hard on yourself. And Adam Alter's done, a colleague of mine at NYU has done some great research. He went and interviewed a bunch of people in palliative care,
essentially people at the end of life, and asked them what their biggest regrets are.
And regrets are usually a function not of the mistakes you made, but the mistakes you didn't
make, or specifically the shots you didn't take, right? You can't make any shots you don't take. And one of the things that they also
talked about, or the kind of the things they wish they changed, is they wish they hadn't been so
harsh on themselves. And that is the key to any long-term relationship, or a key to any long-term
relationship is forgiveness. And that is over the course of a
decade, two decades, or in the case of Senator Franken's relationship, he's been married for 46
years. One or both of you is going to screw up at some point, knowingly or unknowingly,
and not be as generous, not be as thoughtful, not be as considerate, or just kind of
be absent from the relationship. And you need to bring forgiveness.
If you're always holding people to a certain standard or ideal in your own mind,
you're going to end up divorced.
You're going to end up with strained relationships with your kids.
You're going to find reasons why your siblings are assholes
and you're constantly rolling your eyes
and maybe not getting together with them as often as you should.
So bringing a certain level of forgiveness to relationships is paramount in maintaining what
is the asset for long-term happiness and reward. And that is a lot of deep and meaningful
relationships. In addition, you need to bring that forgiveness to yourself. You need to recognize,
and this is my favorite line that gives me a lot of comfort,
nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems. And when you screw up, when you screw up and you're
sitting in bed and you're staring at the ceiling and go, I said the wrong thing, or I wish I'd
done this. I really screwed up here. And you're beating yourself up. Yeah, beat yourself up,
but then move on. Give yourself time to mourn and be angry and learn from it and then move on.
Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself. I love Esther Perel's statement around confidence. A confidence
is the ability to recognize you're flawed, to recognize you make mistakes and still hold
yourself in high regard. Hold yourself in high regard. Have a good relationship with yourself
and bring forgiveness. Nothing is ever or as good,
as bad as it seems. Cut yourself some slack. You screwed up, but when you look back at the end of
your life, and this is what the research shows, you're going to be more upset about how hard you
were on yourself than you are upset about the mistake you made. Let me repeat that. The key is
forgiveness. The key is forgiveness.
Your mistakes, your mistakes are not the risk here. They're not what attacks your happiness.
It's how you respond to those mistakes. Life isn't about what happens to you.
Life is about how you respond to what happens to you. Bring forgiveness.
Our producers are Caroline Chagrin and Drew Burrows. Claire Miller is our
assistant producer. Assistant producer, we're growing an empire here. Microsoft, watch the
fuck out. Amazon, they're nervous. They're nervous. If you like what you heard, please follow,
download, and subscribe. Thank you for listening to The Prof G Show from the Vox Media Podcast
Network. We'll catch you next week on Monday and Thursday.
That's right. Dos dias for the dog. It escapes me. It's gone. It's gone. It swam across the Bay
area, swam across the Bay in a makeshift raft and has never been seen again.
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