Al Franken, Giant of the Senate

A comedian, satirist, and writer who spent decades in show business, Al Franken recounts his unlikely transformation into a United States senator representing Minnesota, framing his political journey against the backdrop of escalating partisan warfare and the rise of Donald Trump. Equal parts memoir, political history, and argument for civic engagement, the book traces a path from a middle-class childhood in the Minneapolis suburbs through Saturday Night Live (SNL), bestselling political books, and a brutally contested Senate campaign, to the daily realities of legislating in a deeply polarized Congress.

Franken roots his political identity in his family. His father, Joe, who never finished high school, moved the family to Minnesota to open a quilting factory; when the venture failed, they settled in St. Louis Park, a suburb of Minneapolis. A liberal Republican, Joe switched to the Democratic Party in 1964 after the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater, who had voted against the Civil Rights Act, and Franken followed. His wife, Franni, whom he met during their first week at Harvard, grew up in poverty after her father died when she was eighteen months old; her family climbed into the middle class through federal programs including Social Security survivor benefits, Pell Grants, and the GI Bill. These contrasting childhoods anchor Franken's central conviction: Government should provide people the means to lift themselves up. He cites Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone, his political hero, whose motto encapsulates that philosophy: "We all do better when we all do better."

From childhood, Franken channeled his energy into comedy. He formed a partnership with Tom Davis at a Minneapolis prep school, and the two performed at local venues as teenagers before being hired as writers for the original SNL in 1975. Franken spent fifteen seasons at the show, writing and occasionally performing. He addresses the drug culture that pervaded SNL, including the overdose deaths of John Belushi and Chris Farley, and reveals that addiction touched him personally: Franni developed alcohol dependency after postpartum depression following their second child's birth and entered rehab in 1986. The experience led Franken to Al-Anon, a twelve-step program for families of people with addictions, where he recognized that Davis also had an addiction. An intervention failed and ended their partnership for years, though they reconciled before Davis died of cancer in 2012.

After leaving the show, Franken pivoted to political satire. His 1996 book Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and his 2003 follow-up, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, sold over a million copies. In 2004, he launched a daily progressive radio show on the Air America network, covering the Iraq War and interviewing policy experts like Elizabeth Warren. Between 2003 and 2006, he made four United Service Organizations (USO) tours to entertain troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, witnessing firsthand troops lacking adequate equipment and waste by military contractors.

The spark for Franken's Senate run came in April 2003, when he read an interview in which newly elected Senator Norm Coleman called himself "a 99 percent improvement over Paul Wellstone." Wellstone had died in a plane crash just months earlier alongside his wife, daughter, three staffers, and two pilots. Coleman's remark crystallized Franken's resolve. Over the next several years, Franken moved back to Minnesota, set up a political action committee, and traveled the state attending bean feeds, the potluck gatherings central to the organizing culture of the state's Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party.

He announced his candidacy on Valentine's Day 2007 and immediately confronted the central challenge of his campaign: Republicans systematically stripped his comedy writing of its satirical context, a tactic he calls the "DeHumorizer," presenting jokes at face value to portray him as unfit for office. The campaign nearly collapsed before the June 2008 DFL convention when Republicans published a crude humor piece Franken had written for Playboy. On the convention stage, Franken delivered an apology, telling delegates it killed him that his writings had sent a message they could not count on him to champion women. He won the endorsement with just over 60 percent of the vote.

In the general election, Coleman's campaign attacked Franken as a "tax-dodging, rape-joking pornographer." Franni broke through the attacks by filming an ad publicly discussing her alcoholism for the first time, describing how Franken had stood by her during recovery. The ad shifted Franken's favorability among voters, particularly women, and became the campaign's turning point. The September 2008 financial crisis further reshaped the race when Coleman supported the Wall Street bailout and Franken opposed it without protections for taxpayers and homeowners.

On election night, the race was extraordinarily close. A hand recount gave Franken a lead of 49 votes; a court then ordered 933 wrongly rejected absentee ballots counted, expanding his margin to 225. Coleman filed an election contest, which a three-judge panel unanimously dismissed, then appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court. Franken was not seated until July 7, 2009, eight months after election day, when he took the oath on Paul Wellstone's family Bible.

In the Senate, Franken adopted what he calls the "Hillary Model," based on advice from Hillary Clinton's former chief of staff: Attend every hearing, do the homework, avoid national press, and focus on constituents. He passed his first legislation within two weeks, a bill funding a study pairing service dogs with veterans with PTSD, inspired by a veteran he met at President Obama's inauguration. He channeled his combative energy into committee hearings, catching hostile witnesses in misleading testimony on issues from mandatory arbitration to dental care shortages on reservations. He joined the Indian Affairs Committee, fought for tribal court jurisdiction over domestic violence, and helped bring an eye doctor to the Red Lake Reservation after witnessing its poverty firsthand. Building on Wellstone's legacy, he also secured a hundred million dollars in funding for mental health services in schools.

Much of the book chronicles Republican obstruction during the Obama presidency. Franken describes how Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell implemented what Franken labels "Operation Curdle": refusing to cooperate on anything, forcing unprecedented filibuster votes, and waiting for public hopefulness to sour into disillusionment. He provides a detailed account of the Affordable Care Act's passage, explaining its structure of protections for preexisting conditions, an individual mandate, and subsidies, and documenting Republican efforts to undermine the law at every turn. He also recounts bipartisan achievements, including the 2015 education reform bill replacing No Child Left Behind, and devotes considerable attention to Ted Cruz, whom he describes as intellectually gifted but impossibly toxic as a colleague.

Franken addresses fundraising, climate change, and media policy, charging that the Koch brothers' spending network transformed the Republican Party into a party of climate denial. Drawing on his show business background, he fought the Comcast/NBCUniversal merger and championed net neutrality, the principle that internet providers must treat all online traffic equally.

After winning reelection by ten points in 2014, a terrible year for Democrats nationally, Franken traces a direct line from decades of right-wing media dishonesty to the normalization of lying that made Trump's candidacy possible. He attended Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017, and describes the experience as deeply dispiriting. In the new Congress, he questioned Trump's cabinet nominees, most memorably exposing Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos's inability to discuss the basic distinction between measuring student proficiency and measuring student growth.

The book closes at the 2016 graduation ceremony of Willmar Senior High in south-central Minnesota, where Somali-American student Muna Abdulahi, a former Senate page, delivers the class speech and a diverse graduating class cheers for every one of its 236 members. Contrasting this scene with Trump's rhetoric targeting Minnesota's Somali community, Franken calls on citizens to stay engaged through marches, phone calls, and advocacy, and affirms his commitment to serving Minnesota regardless of what lies ahead.