MSNBC
SHOW: Nachman
December 16, 2002 Monday
NACHMAN: "SNL" fans will recognize my next guest. Al Franken wrote a lot of the material Al Gore preformed on Saturday night and also appeared with him in sketches. Al, welcome. I was thinking today I remember you in the year 2000 feverishly trying to dissuade some of your show business confreres from going with Ralph Nader, fearing that might make the difference. You were right. You were prescient about that. AL FRANKEN, COMEDIAN: Yes. NACHMAN: Yes. FRANKEN: Yes. Not just my friends in show business, but people -- I actually went all around the country to a lot of the close states and went to universities and urged kids who were thinking of voting for Nader to vote for Gore. NACHMAN: I remember you handing me a note or getting me a note to get to Tim Robbins on "Saturday Night Live" trying to have a last-minute campaign discussion with him. Did you know on Friday... FRANKEN: I don't remember that. NACHMAN: I do. FRANKEN: OK. NACHMAN: I do. FRANKEN: You make things up. NACHMAN: I don't make things up. FRANKEN: OK. All right. NACHMAN: I'm a mild-mannered reporter. FRANKEN: I know you are. NACHMAN: Did know about this on Friday? FRANKEN: About Gore's decision? NACHMAN: Right. FRANKEN: I was there when he called Lesley Stahl. But he had only told me, Lorne, Jim Downey, and a few members of the cast. NACHMAN: Is that true? FRANKEN: No. No. NACHMAN: So, you didn't know about it. FRANKEN: I didn't know. NACHMAN: So, were you shocked last night? FRANKEN: I was surprised. I wasn't shocked, but I was surprised. I had asked him about 2:30 in the morning on Sunday morning at the party afterwards -- I said, "Do you consider this decision whether or not to run to be a big decision?" And he said he did. But he didn't tell me which way he was going. NACHMAN: Are you disappointed? FRANKEN: I feel, yes, a little disappointed. I would have liked to have seen him run. I think he kind of won two years ago. I think it was stolen from him. And I'm a little sad about that. But I think that he had good reason not to. And I think he articulated those very well last night and today. NACHMAN: I want to you to put your Stuart Smalley hat on here for a moment while I play amateur shrink. And you can tell me if I'm full of it. I got a sense in hearing him on "60 Minutes" last night and again today from Raleigh that he either didn't like the process of running or didn't like what the process of running did to him as a person. Does that make any sense to you? FRANKEN: Well, no. Yes and no. I don't think he necessarily wanted to go through this again, with people sniping at him about doing it, which, inevitably, when you run for president, you have to do that. I think he thinks that a lot of this would have been about 2000. And I don't think he thought that served the process well. And I don't know if he felt that he could have beaten that down enough to make it a race about the right things. NACHMAN: Let's go back to last week, the whole week of rehearsals and table readings. How did he intermingle with your lunatic colleagues on that show? FRANKEN: Well, first of all, they aren't lunatics. NACHMAN: I mean that in the comedic sense, Jerry. FRANKEN: Well, comedic means funny. And it's not funny. NACHMAN: What's not funny? FRANKEN: To call people lunatics. NACHMAN: I think you're probably a little short-tempered today because your guy dropped out. FRANKEN: That could be it. I'm a little on edge. NACHMAN: Obviously, it's a... FRANKEN: He mingled very well with the madcap crazies at "SNL." NACHMAN: OK. If I say madcap, is that better? FRANKEN: I guess that's fine. NACHMAN: OK. Tell me what that mingling with the madcap people was like. FRANKEN: Well, I think he had a good time with the cast. I thought he was very loose on the show. And he had a lot of interaction with me and with Jim Downey and with other writers and during rehearsals with the cast. And he was very loose. NACHMAN: Did you write the hot tub scene with him and... FRANKEN: I did not. I did not. NACHMAN: OK. Did you like it? FRANKEN: Yes. I liked it very much. I thought it was very funny. I thought that moment especially was funny. NACHMAN: It was through your good offices that the "West Wing" scene was done. And that was remarkable. FRANKEN: I thought -- I was very happy with the way that came out. I wrote that with Jim Downey, and went out to L.A. to shoot it. And the people on "The West Wing" couldn't have been better. NACHMAN: Aaron Sorkin gave you the keys to the store. FRANKEN: He really did. He really did. It was incredibly gracious of him. And that cast is amazing. They are an amazing cast. And it was a real thrill to do it. And it was kind of a very Pirandello kind of thing, because when Gore did walk into that, I could -- into that set, he was just -- he was pretty floored. NACHMAN: With the authenticity of it. FRANKEN: It is an amazingly authentic -- it is the room. And so I was thrilled with that. It came out great. NACHMAN: Well, Al Franken, you want to tell me who your pick for 2004 in the Democratic Party is? FRANKEN: I think there's so many great candidates. Here's one observation I'd like to make that I haven't heard anyone else make. Howard Dean... NACHMAN: Governor of Vermont. FRANKEN: ... is Joseph Califano. NACHMAN: You mean he doesn't like cigarettes and drugs and booze? FRANKEN: No. But next time you watch Howard Dean, think about Joe Califano. NACHMAN: Former HEW secretary in, what, Johnson administration. FRANKEN: Yes, the same affect, the same intelligence and affect. NACHMAN: Al Franken, thanks for being here. Come back when we are feeling better. Go back to the main page.
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