Donald Trump drew outrage in October 2016 for his “Access Hollywood” boast about kissing and grabbing women without their consent. Now Los Angeles radio host Leeann Tweeden says Sen. Al Franken kissed her without consent on a 2006 USO tour — and produced a photo of him groping her while she slept.
So how did Franken respond when the video emerged of Trump talking about doing something very similar to what Franken is now accused of doing?
Cautiously.
Appearing on NBC’s “Late Night” just days after the 2005 Trump video emerged, Franken made light of Trump’s defense that his chatter with Billy Bush was just “locker-room banter.”
“I’ve been in a lot of locker rooms. I belong to a health club in Minneapolis — I think you can tell,” Franken told Seth Meyers. “Our locker-room banter is stuff like, ‘Is Trump crazy? … So I don’t know what locker room — he may work out with Roger Ailes.”
The conservative site Breitbart on Thursday called that reply “timid,” saying that he “seemed to hold his fire, not calling for Trump to step down as even other Republican candidates did.”
Franken also tried to turn the conversation with Meyers into one about Trump’s knowledge, rather than his behavior.
“I think these stories are gonna make it hard for Trump to focus on his message that he knows nothing about public policy,” Franken told Meyers.
During Franken’s Senate race in 2008, Republicans tried to use a rape joke he made while working on “Saturday Night Live” against him. In an interview with CNBC in September, Franken said his past conduct was nowhere near as bad as Trump’s.
“I would be happy” to compare the two, Franken said.
Lots of other people are making that comparison today. But we doubt Franken is very happy about it.