Transcript of ‘Fell in love with the guy’: Al Franken tells story about Tim Walz starting his political career

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Has announced he's suspending his independent presidential campaign, endorsing former President Donald Trump, but he's staying on the ballot in the states he wants to stay in the ballot in, so his name can still be there, but he's taking his name off the ballot in the states where Trump is in key swing states, so he doesn't in any way hurt Donald Trump. There. All of this happening, of course, is Democrats home in their efforts to paint the former President as small and serious and weird. Here's what Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota governor, Tim Wall, said this week at the DNC.

In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.

You know, when I was teaching every year, we'd elect a student body president. And you know what? Those teenagers could teach Donald Trump a hell of a lot about what a leader is. I'll join me now with someone who served as US Senator from government, Walsh State of Minnesota Community, Al Franken, and former Senator Al Franken. I want to talk about the commission in a second. Just in terms of Robert F. Kennedy Jr, what do you make of him, this choice that he's made?

Well, I think the bear cub was it.

You think that was the breaking point?

I think that was the breaking point. I don't know. What was he at before? Like 9% or 10%? And then suddenly down to 5% and 6 %. Yeah.

Maybe Harris's entry might have had something- I missed your last something.

I didn't hear it, but you were talking about it.

Yeah, I was. I just was going to the details because he went to Peter Luger's Steakhouse with the bear in the trunk.

Yeah, that was the thing. He found this bear cub on the side of the road and decided he might want to eat it for dinner. Right.

As one does. Who has not had that thought.

After you've been falconing. That was the other nice detail. So he goes in the city and then he realizes he has dinner. He's got dinner at Peter Luger's Steakhouse.

This guy likes meats. Classic steakhouse. He likes his meats.

He likes his meat. And then he also realizes he's got a plane to catch after dinner. So he really doesn't have time. First of all, he's got to have dinner. He's having dinner anyway.

By the way, there is the bear. That's the bear. That's him in the back. Oh, that's right. The bear in the back.

Well, there he's got a sense of humor, you see.

He's posing He's posing with the dead bear, pretending the dead bear is biting his hand. He's not quite as jacked up there, I will say, as he is now.

So he takes the bear and he dumps it in the park, right? Yes.

Next to a bike. So that people would think the bike collided with the bear. I'm not sure where the bike came from.

I think he must have been Bobby's bike. I don't know.

He just had the bike in his car for those purposes.

When When you're falconing, you have a bike to move quickly. I don't know.

Yeah, I can't make it up. Do you think it will help Trump in the swing stage?

I don't know. I think it's hard to tell. I mean, who are the 5% who are people who are left? Are they people who maybe they're going to stay home? Or maybe they're going to equally divide between... I mean, Does his endorsement mean a lot to these people?

You know Governor Walsh. For his first race, he talked about running for Congress. He was a high school teacher, coach. Everybody knows that. Most people know that story by now. But when he chose to run, he said he had no money, no real connections, but he just decided to go for it.

Yeah, I went to somebody's house for a fundraiser. My wife and I went. There was nobody There's somebody else there, and they had two mortgages on their house.

This is when he was running for his first campaign.

In the sixth district. You have to understand this is the Southern tier of Minnesota. It's a rural district. It has a couple of cities, and it has Rochester, where the Mayo Clinic is, and it has Mankado, where he's-So you show up, nobody's there, except- I show up, no one's there except me and my wife, and he's incredibly great. He was giving his pitch to you, basically, in this living room. Yeah, and the hosts. And so my wife and I fell in love with him, and I said, well, and then we maxed to him. And I had a pack at the time, a political action committee. And so it maxed to him. And then I hosted some big fundraiser for him.

What was it about him? Because the guy we saw on the stage, was he like that already? He was clearly not as polished.

No.

But what was it about him?

His essence was. His essence was not polished, but his essence was there. And I immediately liked him. And I did a fundraiser where we got him enough money so he could keep going. And I started campaigning with him around the sixth. And Ram Emmanuel was head of the DCC at the time. And I called him up and I go, This guy is incredibly talented. And he goes, He can't win. He can't win Because it was a red district. It's a completely red district. I think no one had won. A Democrat had not won since the 1800s or something like that. So I just kept going around the sixth district with him and introducing him. And I kept calling Ram up or his guy, Ram's guy, and say, You got to support this guy. And then one day, I finally got a call Ram's guy. He said, We're going to put $50,000 in the Mankato. And I said, Manketo. He said, Oh, I'm sorry. I go, No, no, no, no. Call Manketo. Give him $50,000. And so they did. And then he ended up winning.

How was he able to do that in a red district?

He's a great campaigner. And it was also... That was '06. And '06 was the year that Democrats took over the Congress because of the war, the war in Iraq.

Even though this was his first campaign, you were out on the trail with him. He was- He was connecting with people. That was the bottom line.

Yeah. And he would go to college campuses and connect with the college kids, and they'd volunteer. He did it all the right way, but it just took a while to build.

What did you make of his speech? Seeing his son- The convention was amazing. Seeing his son there crying and saying, That's my dad. That's somebody who has two little kids. That's my dad. I dream that my kids will one day say that about me. They won't.

I doubt that. But no, I was very moved by it. And of course, there are some people who criticized, which is crazy. But no, what a beautiful moment. That's my dad.

Yeah, it's the best. We're out of time, but I would love to talk to you longer. Okay. You know what? Let's go to Peter Luger's Steakhouse.

Yeah, let's go there.

Find a bear. Yeah.

Well, no, not on a day I find a bear. He roasted a dog.

Did you hear this? I saw some a picture. Was it an actual dog?

According to Jonathan Alter, who said he checked up on it, that yes, he roast it where the worm from the brain worm could have come from, I would think.

Senator Franken, thank you for your time. You bet. I appreciate.