RUSH: Now back to the Franken situation. Al Franken is now calling for an investigation into himself, saying that women need to be believed, women needed to be applauded for their courage in coming forward, they need to have their stories heard. It is much more important that these women’s bravery be acknowledged over what anybody thinks of Al Franken.
But if they go in the other direction and try to protect and harbor a man accused of sexual harassment with a photo to prove it, if they try to save that guy, if they try to harbor him, keep him there by running out the clock or by relying on the media to not report it, which I think they might do, I think they might have full confidence that the media will ignore this, stay focused on Moore, say stay focused on Trump, say focused on anything and just ignore the Franken circumstance.
Now, that’s a risky move because there is social media, which will pick up any slack. And, of course, we will pick up any slack here. But this is why I think that might be the objective. I want to play for you some audio sound bites. Before we get to media sound bites, there’s one of Franken himself. This is from seven years ago, September 21st of 2010.
This is a speech on the Senate floor where Franken is talking about Leeann Tweeden, who is the woman who has accused him of sticking his tongue halfway down her throat and about whom the photo was taken with Al Franken groping her breasts while she slept on a C-17 on the way back to LA from Afghanistan. This is Al Franken September 21st, 2010, on the Senate floor.
FRANKEN: I was kind of the cohost with a beautiful woman named Leeann Tweeden, and we’d do comedy routines, and we’d introduce music, we’d introduce cheerleaders. I’d go out and do a monologue, this is something I would do, I’d done for a number of years.
RUSH: And it is one of those USO tours where Leeann Tweeden alleges that Franken demanded to rehearse the kiss that was not going to happen, there was not gonna be a kiss during the show, but he said it was in the script that he wrote, and he said to her that (paraphrasing), “Look, all of us actors, we rehearse everything. We have to rehearse it. I want to rehearse the kiss.” And she tried to say, “No, there isn’t gonna be a kiss, I’m not gonna rehearse it.” He kept insisting, so she went along with it to shut him down. He grabbed her by the back of her head and stuck his tongue down her throat. And she appropriately went “yuk” and the kiss did not happen.
When he tried it on stage, he actually, according to her, tried it on stage, she put her hand over her mouth and looked away, during the actual performance that Franken was talking about there at the USO show. So when this news broke today, CNN was apoplectic. And after they played the Leeann Tweeden sound bites from Los Angeles TV this morning describing what happened, CNN national political reporter MJ Lee spoke with anchor Kate Bolduan about Tweeden’s allegations and this is the exchange that they had.
LEE: What is really interesting about this and really important about this, Kate, of course, is that this is a member of Congress, a sitting member of Congress who is now being named. What’s interesting is that Tweeden, who wrote about this account, actually said that she met with Congresswoman Speier a couple of weeks ago. And when she heard Congresswoman Speier actually tell her own story about, you know, being on the receiving end of sexual harassment herself on Capitol Hill, that was an important moment in which Tweeden decided this is exactly what I myself experienced back in 2006. Kate?
RUSH: So there was the story from the reporter with all the details on the possible things that could go wrong here and, oh, my gosh, what a problem we’ve got, and the CNN infobabe, “Thank you. Thank you. Glad you got that in. And now let’s go to Alabama. Now let’s really focus back on Roy Moore.” Had no desire for any more information about Al Franken.
But later on, CNN impaneled a group of people who ended up being in agony over this, and they were very, very worried about the implications. Dana Bash speaking with Margaret Talev of Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, Michael Bender, about all of this. Dana Bash says, “Margaret, what’s your reaction to the Leeann Tweeden story about Franken?”
TALEV: Whether he stays in that race, whether the debate or discussion about his past actions in Alabama are now diffused or kind of divided, whether it becomes Al Franken versus Roy Moore instead of Roy Moore versus himself. The nature of the allegations is certainly different, both in terms of volume and in terms of specifics, the age of the person, the nature of the accusations, and the fact that the person who’s being accused in one case has suggested he doesn’t know these people or that their reports are false. In the other case, naming the person by name and apologizing immediately at least for the fact that they were uncomfortable. So I think they’re different, but politically you can see how this all becomes one thing.
RUSH: They’re very worried about this. Did you see what this woman tried to do? This was Margaret Talev, and she is at Bloomberg, and what she said (imitating Talev), “Well, well, you know, whether it becomes Franken versus Moore instead of Moore versus Moore, the nature of the allegations is certainly different in terms of volume and specifics.”
So what she’s saying is “Moore is far worse than Franken. Look at all the women so far with Moore. There’s only one of ’em here with Franken. And of course we’ve got many more specifics on Moore than we do with Franken, so Moore is much, much worse than Franken.” They’re trying even this morning on CNN to balance this in such a way as to enable them not to go after Franken.
Then she went further. The age of the person, the nature of the accusations, the person who’s being accused has suggested he doesn’t know these people, the reports are false, and then versus Franken who’s apologizing immediately versus Roy Moore who’s not.
BENDER: I think it’s shocking, his statement here. This is not a full-throated apology. Franken in a sort of overlay here. We now see that this is a part of the culture in Hollywood, which he was a part of. We know this is part of the culture on Capitol Hill. Franken is at the center of both of these and comes out with a statement today with a half apology saying that’s not quite the way he remembers it. Well, the point is, is that that’s the way she remembers it. I think he’s gonna have a lot of trouble getting away with trying to parse this that the way she remembers it is different or the way it was intended. That’s beside the point. I think this helps the Roy Moore — I think it gives credence to those accusations. Now this is not just an attack on a Republican candidate; there’s bipartisan accusations. This is not a partisan issue.
RUSH: Well, that may be wishful thinking. His point here is this helps the Roy Moore allegation. This helps the Roy Moore search-and-destroy mission because now we can say to people it’s not just that he’s a Republican that we’re going after him. We’re going after him ’cause he’s a reprobate, and it’s gonna help us do that now that a Democrat’s joined the fray and has been accused of this.
And of course he’s acknowledging here that where we are with this today, the women are believed. It doesn’t matter what Franken thinks. It doesn’t matter what he remembers. It doesn’t matter at all. It matters what she remembers. It matters what she thinks. It matters how she felt. And so now that we have a Democrat in the crosshairs, that’s gonna help us go after Moore. That was his point.
Well, yeah, if they actually go after Franken. That remains to be seen. ‘Cause I can tell you — and do not doubt me on this — if they have the slightest chance, if they seek, if they foresee the slightest opportunity to give Franken a pass on this, they’re gonna do it. They will not just sit idly by and let Franken be taken out by anybody. If they can maintain this dogged pursuit of Roy Moore while giving Franken a pass, if they think they can pull that off, they will do it. Do not doubt me.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, what is happening now is that people are finding things in the past in news archives and other places about Al Franken that confirm and back up the behavior noted today in the story by Leeann Tweeden. And as you go through these things, you ask yourself how in the world did this guy get past any of this? Who overlooked this?
The guy runs for the Senate, it gets overlooked. He becomes a big spokesman for the Clinton White House, traveling with Clinton, making speeches, and he’s always been a reprobate. We learn that he has always been a dubious character reprobate and that everybody knew it and looked the other way! ‘Cause it was Al Franken and he’s a comedian. Before Franken was a Senator, he was a writer on Saturday Night Live and one time he wrote a script. They didn’t air it, but he was in the writers room writing potential skits for a show, and he joked about raping Lesley Stahl.
This is from a writing session from somebody who was there, a reporter that sat in on it, a reporter watched this, knew all of these years what Al Franken fantasizes about, “raping Lesley Stahl, or if he doesn’t rape her, when she passes out after I give her the pills, I put her in various positions and take pictures of her.”
We’ve got a picture. We’ve got Al Franken in a picture of a sleeping woman while he feels her up. That is one instance. Newsweek: “Al Franken Has Long History of Sexual Misconduct Jokes Before Accusation of Groping Woman’s Breast — Franken rose to fame as a comedian and writer for NBC’s Saturday Night Live, and some of his quips and performances were touchy subjects well before he ran to represent Minnesota in the Senate.”
He laid out a scene in one proposed skit where Carl Reiner would invite famous friends over to rape his son. “On a typical night, Carl would slip into Rob’s bed, roll him over, swab him down and say something like, ‘I’m thinking about hiring Morey Amsterdam to play Buddy Sorrell, what do you think?'”
Anyway, folks, who knew? Everybody knew this kind of stuff that knew him!
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Senator Franken continues to release statements that get more confusing and self-focused with each one. We’re dealing with somebody here who’s not all there, folks. It’s becoming glaringly obvious and probably has been for a long time. And that’s the thing. This guy has been sick, a perverted puppy for many, many moons.
Look at all the people who had to be aware of this. I mean, writing jokes in the comedy writing room about raping Lesley Stahl or having Rob Reiner be raped by his dad in a skit they were doing on the old Mary Tyler Moore show, I mean, what?
And now these statements (imitating Franken), “I apologize. I really respect women who come forward. I really think I need to be investigated. I would cooperate with any investigation. It’s not about me. I think women ought to be believed. I think women are courageous in doing this.” It’s confusing.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Al Franken, Kevin Spacey, Harvey Weinstein. You’ll find pictures, they all have something in common, folks: Bill Clinton.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: April 16th, 1976, Al Franken at Harvard — this is a story posted at the Harvard Crimson, the school newspaper. “I just don’t like homosexuals… Hey, I was glad when that Pudding homosexual got killed in Philadelphia.” That’s what Franken said in this Harvard Crimson story. Drudge has pulled that quote out of this story and that’s the link at the Drudge reported.
The Lesley Stahl rape story, that he wanted to write a skit about him raping Lesley Stahl after giving her a bunch of pills, that story’s popping up now. And like I say, I am not certain, folks, that the New York Times and Washington Post have reporters now dispatched to Hollywood and New York and Minnesota to dig up all of the dirt on Al Franken. (laughing) Not. But it’s gonna continue to surface.
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