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The Al Franken Podcast

ASF Productions

The Al Franken Podcast

A weekly News, Politics and Government podcast featuring Al Franken

 7 people rated this podcast
The Al Franken Podcast

ASF Productions

The Al Franken Podcast

Episodes
The Al Franken Podcast

ASF Productions

The Al Franken Podcast

A weekly News, Politics and Government podcast featuring Al Franken
 7 people rated this podcast
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Episodes of The Al Franken Podcast

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Feb 16th, 2025
We're celebrating the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live this week! This special episode changes things up a bit as Executive Producer Peter Ogburn asks Al about his history with the show. We pull the curtain back on what a typical week looks like building up to the live show on Saturday and learn about how Al and...
Feb 9th, 2025
Donald Trump ran on a platform of mass deportations. Now that he's back in the White House, what does that look like? We're joined by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Molly O'Toole, whose upcoming book “The Route” details global migration through the Americas. Molly has spoken to hundreds of migrants making their way ...
Feb 2nd, 2025
With a confusing ceasefire deal underway in Gaza, we take a look at the path forward with Peter Beinart. Beinart serves as editor-at-large for Jewish Currents, is a frequent analyst on MSNBC, and has authored a new book, "Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning." The book examines the history of Israel ...
Jan 26th, 2025
President Donald Trump was sworn in (again) this week. Who better than Molly Jong-Fast from the Fast Politics podcast to join us to discuss his first week in office? We relive some quotable moments from his inaugural address and look at his most damaging executive orders. We also rundown some of the Cabinet nominees. I...
Jan 19th, 2025
Donald Trump's unprecedented second term is upon us. As we prepare to endure another (at least) 4 years of this, we are joined by Ian Bassin, the co-founder and Executive Director of Protect Democracy. Trump has already promised to undermine democracy in America. How can we fight back? And how can we mount a defense to...
Jan 12th, 2025
Dana Milbank, Washington Post Opinion columnist joins us this week! His latest book, "Fools on the Hill: The Hooligans, Saboteurs, Conspiracy Theories and Dunces who Burned Down the House", chronicles the ineffectiveness of the members of the U.S House. He makes the case that the MAGA members in the House have turned i...
Jan 5th, 2025
Professor Scott Galloway is our guest in this New Year's Best Of. Galloway has thoughts on the current political climate and how extreme most of the Republican agenda is these days. He also speaks about how modern politics and policies have left our young people disaffected and feeling left out of the political process...
Dec 29th, 2024
In this Best Of episode, we revisit the conversation from earlier this year with SNL writer and producer Jim Downey. Al and Jim worked on several iconic sketches and remember some of their favorite political bits from the history of the show. They also discuss the importance of rewarding audiences for knowing stuff but...
Dec 22nd, 2024
The Atlantic's George Packer joins us to discuss his recent piece titled The End of Democratic Delusions. Packer discusses the new era that Donald Trump has ushered in and what that means to politics moving forward. Trump won a close election, but it's a moment for the Democratic establishment to take a look at their s...
Dec 15th, 2024
We're joined by two of our favorite foreign policy writers to examine what the end of Bashar al-Assad’s regime means to Syria and the region. Frank Foer and Anne Applebaum from The Atlantic also look toward the incoming Trump administration and what lies ahead. Can Trump be a steady hand to stop escalating war around t...
Dec 8th, 2024
As we move closer to the second Trump administration, we are learning more about his incoming Cabinet. Aaron Blake, senior political reporter and author/host of The Campaign Moment newsletter and podcast for the Washington Post joins us to discuss some of Trump's Cabinet picks and their struggles to be confirmed. Also,...
Dec 1st, 2024
In this Thanksgiving Best Of, we revisit our conversation with our friend Anne Applebaum! We aired this a few months ago when Anne's newest book, Autocracy Inc., had been released. She chronicles the rise of authoritarianism around the world and how those autocracies work together to keep themselves in power. With Dona...
Nov 25th, 2024
Cuddly as a cactus and charming as an eel, Whoville's favorite talk show host is back on the mic! The Grinch may hate the holidays, but he loves his new celebrity status as a chart-topping podcaster. With Cindy Lou and Max by his side, join The Grinch each week as he stubbornly refuses the joys of the season, cozies up...
Nov 24th, 2024
Donald Trump's Cabinet selection is about as chaotic as we expected it to be. Matt Gaetz withdrew his name for Attorney General after a number of Republican Senators expressed concern with the pick. We're joined by David Axelrod, who says that Republicans in the Senate have more power than you might expect. David also ...
Nov 17th, 2024
The incoming Trump administration has started announcing some of the picks for the incoming Cabinet. Somehow, they're worse than you could have imagined. We break down some of the unsavory characters who might be making policy in Trump's second term with political reporter for Semafor, David Weigel. Weigel also explain...
Nov 10th, 2024
The nightmare we all feared came true last week. Donald Trump has been elected for a second term as President of the United States. We're joined by our friend Norm Ornstein to make sense of it all. If we take Trump at his word, we should expect mass deportations, economic instability, further deterioration of women’s r...
Nov 3rd, 2024
Live from New York, it’s our pre-election podcast. After a contentious and exhausting election cycle, we have made it to Election Day. Last week, we gathered with some of our favorite guests to help us understand what we might see in the coming days and weeks. Can we finally vanquish Donald Trump? Can he actually win? ...
Oct 27th, 2024
The economy is always one of the most important issues in any election. So how does Kamala Harris's vision for America's economy stack up against Donald Trump's? Catherine Rampell from the Washington Post joins us to discuss. Trump's economic plan seems to revolve around tariffs, an issue that he seems to have a hard t...
Oct 20th, 2024
This election could all come down to abortion. Laura Bassett from The Cut and Sarah Zhang from The Atlantic have both been writing about the issue and how it's playing into this election. Sarah's recent piece in The Atlantic examined how Idaho's draconian abortion laws have set the state's healthcare back for women. La...
Oct 13th, 2024
It's been a year since the horrific attack in Israel that set off the current wars in the Middle East. Frank Foer from The Atlantic and David Rothkopf from The Daily Beast to talk about the painful year and what happens moving forward. If a ceasefire is worked out, what is the future of Gaza and how will it rebuild? Wh...
Oct 6th, 2024
It's been a wild week and we're lucky to have Tim Miller from The Bulwark and Aaron Blake from the Washington Post to help break it all down. Special counsel Jack Smith's case against Donald Trump was unsealed this week. We got the best look yet at Trump's behavior on January 6th. It's filled with criminal activity and...
Sep 29th, 2024
With so much happening on the campaign trail, we turn to Jamelle Bouie for his first visit to the podcast. We discuss Donald Trump and JD Vance's attacks on the truth with their harmful comments on Haitian immigrants and their lies about abortion. We look at different Senate races around the country and what they could...
Sep 22nd, 2024
Trump and the GOP are working harder to disenfranchise voters NOW than they were in 2020. They are no longer a majoritarian party and want to disrupt our electoral process as much as they can. How will we preserve the integrity of this election? What are some of the ways that Trump and GOP lawyers will attempt to derai...
Sep 15th, 2024
Jeremy Peters from the NYT joins us to recap the wild debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. It was a complete meltdown for Trump while Harris delivered strong messages on abortion, democracy and Trump's crowd sizes. Trump rambled, made baseless allegations and looked terrible. Even Fox News had to admit that T...
Sep 10th, 2024
At a time when we’re debating where policing is going, we’re going to tell you where the police came from. Guided by Peabody award-winning host Chenjerai Kumanyika, Empire City will provide the first accessible narrative history of the American police and its place in popular culture. Who are the police? And why were po...
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