ON POLITICS

Al Franken likes Elizabeth Warren. Ted Cruz? Not so much

Susan Page

USA TODAY

In an interview on his new book, Minnesota Sen. Al Franken dishes on his fellow senators.

After all, who could do it better? The tongue-in-cheek title of the memoir, being published May 30 by Twelve, is Al Franken: Giant of the Senate, by Al Franken.

Here's what he told us.

On Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

"The day you're sworn in, especially the first time, is just amazingly exciting, and Elizabeth comes up to me (just after being sworn in). ... She goes, 'Which one of us is the most unlikely to be a senator? And I said, 'Me!' She said, 'No, no. Girl from Oklahoma, had to waitress to get her family through, married at 19!' I went, 'I'm a comedian; you're a law professor.' "

They didn't settle the debate. "We sort of agreed not to resolve this so we can continue to have the argument."

On Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas

"You have to understand that I like Ted Cruz probably more than my colleagues like Ted Cruz, and I hate Ted Cruz." He is "just a special guy."

On then-senator Jim DeMint, R-S.C.

"He came up to me and said, 'How are things on the far left?' And I said, 'Great; how are things on the nutcase right?' And he laughed and that was the basis of our relationship that we give each other crap."

On then-senator Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

"Like the first four or five exchanges with him, he didn't get me at all. So I went up to him and said, can I take you to lunch? He said, take me to breakfast. ... We sit down and I say, the next 45 minutes let's just have fun. ... So I said — careers: You're a doctor. ... Let me ask you something. To be a doctor in Oklahoma, do you have to have any formal education? And he goes, Yes! You've got to go to medical school! And I said, OK, that was a joke. That's what I used to do in my profession. And he said, OK, and we proceeded to have a very nice breakfast."

On then-senator Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

"He's an easy laugh, it turns out. When you're a comedian, you like anyone who's an easy laugh. His wife and my wife became friends. ... He would every once in a while give me a call if the Republicans were mad at me." Even so, "I was pretty tough on him in the hearings" by the Judiciary Committee to confirm him for attorney general.