Despite his apology, Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota isn’t sorry for a making a rape joke about Lesley Stahl during the 1994-1995 season of “Saturday Night Live.”
The former comedian published a memoir-style book May 30 in which he reveals that he’s not sorry for any of the crude jokes he made during his long career as a screenwriter.
“To say I was sorry for writing a joke was to sell out my career, to sell out who I’d been my entire life,” Franken wrote in his book, according to the New York Times. “And I wasn’t sorry that I had written Porn-o-Rama or pitched that stupid Lesley Stahl joke at 2 in the morning. I was just doing my job.”
“I give the pills to Lesley Stahl. Then, when Lesley’s passed out, I take her to the closet and rape her. When she passes out, I put her in various positions and take pictures of her,” Franken joked while working as a writer for SNL.
Franken added that he publicly apologized for the jokes after it became clear they bothered women voters in the state of Minnesota. “I learned that campaigns have their own rules, they own laws of physics, and that if I wasn’t willing to accept that, I would never get to be a senator,” Franken said.
His apology paid off. Franken defeated the Republican incumbent by only 300 votes in 2008, an astoundingly close race for a Senate seat. He earned a much wider margin in his reelection effort in the Republican “surge” of 2014.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.