An interview with Al Franken

"We need to set room tone," Al Franken jokes after asking one of his associates to prop open the front door to keep the electronic ringer from being picked up while recording. "I'm proud to say that I'm the only politician that will remind people to set their room tone before recording."

Yes, Al Franken is a politician and he's running for U.S. Senator in Minnesota. No, that's not a joke so no need to wait for a punch line. The St. Louis Park-native is serious in his campaign against Republican-incumbent, Norm Coleman.

While Greg Hugh, publisher, Will Ahern, director of marketing communications, our videographer and I waited for Franken to emerge from the depths of his headquarters located off of University Ave. SE in St. Paul. His offices are unexpectedly casual, with a simple set up. No outlandish furniture, fancy gizmos or hoity-toity decorations one might expect a celebrity to outfit their workplace with. Definitely not what may be expected from a celebrity satirist, radio host and former-Saturday Night Live writer.

The three of us China Insight staffers were given the opportunity to meet with Franken to discuss issues concerning the Chinese American community. Franken strolls out, coffee mug in hand wearing a blue shirt, dark blue suit and blue tie. He's also wearing his trademark circular-shaped spectacles and a big grin.

Walking towards us to greet us, as if unable to resist his natural comedic bravado that has helped him pioneer a career as a Saturday Night Live writer, to political satirist author to radio host, he said hello to our Caucasian colleagues Will and the videographer with, "Hey! You're not Chinese!"

Greg Hugh sits down with Franken first.

HUGH: There's a lot of attention being paid to China right now because of the Olympics. Minnesota also recently celebrated twenty-five years [in a Sister City relationship] with the Shaanxi province in China. What are some things that you view might affect U.S. and China's relationship and what you would do about that when elected?

FRANKEN: We have a very complex relationship with China that reflects just how complex China is as a country. China is obviously emerging as a super power. Economically, China is growing 10 percent a year. I think last year it was over 11 percent. You see gleaming skyscrapers in Shanghai, for instance. It has gone from a communist country to be being a capitalist country but authoritarian. At the same time of this economic growth and building military. It is a very fragile super power. A country that has protest all the time and about a 130 million people living on less than a dollar a day. The leaders of the communist party now, really its only justification is to create economic growth for the country and its people. There's a tremendous amount of pressure to do so. They are constantly dealing with discontent in the country-side. You see it as an emerging super power but it' average per capita GDP is still very low. As a military power, it doesn't have more than regional capabilities.

We have an enormous trade deficit with China, which is a big part of our relationship. China also holds a tremendous amount of our debt. All of this tension seems to be growing. Sometimes you're asked where China is going... I think that is opaque. Not just for people in American government but also Chinese government. A lot of their government is being used to hold down civil strife. People, aside from living in poverty, are also living in terrible environment conditions. This is a situation that is evolving. This is 1.3 billion people.

HUGH: There's a growing concern over immigration difficulties for foreign professionals to obtain H1B Visas. There are discussions about expanding that program to bring more talent to the United States. This trend may reflect on U.S. education. As part of your domestic program, would you like to improve on education so we don't have to rely on foreign students or foreign talent?

FRANKEN: A lot of what you're talking about with the H1 Visas are involving engineers and such. America has always been successful in bringing in talent. I think for that purpose, I support the H1B Visas. I think, though, there needs to be more transparency to it. There are some companies using H1B Visas to bring in workers and the question is if they're doing it because they can't find Americans to do the job, or whether they are trying to save money. If it's the latter, we shouldn't be doing it. Americans, especially in the 80's and 90's, were told if you go to college and master computers, you'd be set for life. People were expected to pay for college and put that on themselves but now their jobs are outsourced to places like India. I've heard people who have been replaced by people who get H1 Visas and I think that's wrong. A lot of America traditionally brought in the smartest people in the world and they created jobs here. If you look at Silicon Valley (Calif.), a lot of　 the jobs there were created by immigrants. I support expanding H1 Visas but I am also in support of transparency to make sure these companies are ethical in their use of H1 Visas.

You're right though that we have to expand our math and science programs. When I was a kid, Sputnik happened. It was 1957 and it scared us because the Soviets had nuclear weapons and they beat us to space. We made a huge investment in math and science education, and math and science R&D (research & development). I was a product of that (era). My brother was also a product of that (era) and he went to MIT and majored in physics. I was lucky enough to go to Harvard because I was very good in math and science. I turned out to be a comedian but never the less, the innovation that came out of the space program from the country, it created so many jobs: It created the computer industry, it created the internet. I am so much supportive of math and science education. My son just graduated in mechanical engineering. I am a big proponent of pulsing that kind of education.

HUGH: Continuing on the topic of education, Minnesota has been very progressive in the teaching of Chinese and Mandarin in the schools. To the extent that there are quite a few of immersion schools, charter schools doing that. What is your view on continuing that vein?

FRANKEN: I think anytime we can get American students to study other languages is a boon. I don't know if you've noticed, but I think you probably have, we have this thing called 'globalization.' Hahaha, and I think it's partly because we have these two oceans. I think it's a shame. If you go over to Europe, you see kids that speak multiple languages very fluently. I have a nephew and niece in Paris that speak Dutch, German, French and English. We're a melting pot (in the U.S.). We, of all countries, should be able to have all these people speaking multiple languages, including obviously English. We should cultivate the studying of languages and China will be such an important country in this century. It'd be crazy not to put emphasis on Chinese.

HUGH: Olympics has drawn a lot of protests around the world. Is there concern about U.S. participation?

FRANKEN: I don't think we're going to see a boycott of the Olympics because of what is happening in Tibet. But the Chinese are very invested in these Olympics. They are very proud and this is a signal that China has emerged. I think we can use the Olympics as leverage to effect Chinese policy on Tibet. No, we're not going to boycott but we can protest, our athletes can wear arm bands or the President can say something when he's over there. There are things that we can do. It would be nice to use this as a bargaining chip to get the Chinese government to stop cracking down on Tibet. I'd love to see this being used as a way to get the Dali Lama and Chinese talking.

HUGH: In regard to trade issues, I think in Minnesota's quarterly statistics China fell in what was being exported to China. The trade balance is a concern. I guess the best way to equalize that we need to be able to export more goods as opposed to import more goods.

FRANKEN: Yes, I guess mathematically it works out. But the reason for the trade deficit is a number of reasons. China is the place where goods in Asia go to be finished. Part of the trade deficit to China reflects the overall trade deficit in Asia. Another reason is how the Yuan is under valued. That gives China a tremendous unfair advantage in trade... if you under value the Yuan, you are making the Chinese products cheaper than they should be. The Chinese have also created barriers to certain kind of products of ours. They have also been subsidizing such as steel and forestry. We should be enforcing fair trade. We should also be creating products that the Chinese want and need. One of those, in my mind, is clean energy technology. China is experiencing a great deal of environmental devastation. China is building one coal fired power plant a week. This is one of the reasons that I've argued that we need, in this country, to develop clean coal technology as something we can sell to China.

HUGH: I know that the department of agriculture is working with Hormel to trade of all things, turkey. There's 1.3 billion consumers right there.

FRANKEN: There are a lot of consumers there. The building of the middle class there is a building of a perfect storm for the rise and cost of commodities. Chinese middle class is eating meat. A lot of it is pork but that means cost of livestock feed has gone through the roof.

HUGH: Evidently we're going through a period of change in the United States. Your background is a comedian and writer. Why have you decided to run for office?

FRANKEN: You're the first to ask me that... no, you're not. To me it's a very natural transition. I've been a comedian and comedy writer, as well as a satirist. More and more I started writing a lot of the political satire on Saturday Night Live then I started writing books more pointedly about policy and subsidies. I also did a radio show that always dealt with policy and issues.

I decided to run (for Senate) because we can't leave this up to career politicians. I also did not like the direction of where this country was going in the last seven years. I think we need to change the political culture in Washington. We need people who are willing to stand-up for working families and to special interest groups. We need politicians and elected officials in Washington who will say what they mean, stand for something, fight for what they stand for and not go all over the place depending on where the people are. We need someone with a spine. We need a voice for people who feel like they don't have a voice. I want to be that kind of Senator.

There is a new progressive majority that has emerged. We've seen it in the Democrats and the turn out in Minnesota. In Minnesota, which is a caucus state, the previous record was 65,000 people. They predicted it would be a record this year and 215,000 DFL'ers showed up. There is a new progressive majority that has emerged. We know what we want. Universal healthcare (for example). We need this in order to balance our trade deficit. We spend more on healthcare than any other industrialized country. It's all in the price of our products. Secondly, we want an economy that works for everyone in the country and not just the special interest and the super rich. We now have the biggest gap in income and wealth since the 20's and maybe the Gilded Age. We need better trade agreements. We need to enforce trade agreements. We need to put in labor standards, environmental standards and safety standards into our trade agreements and enforce them. There is certainly a problem with that in China. We want a green economy that will create jobs and address global warming and China fits in there too.

China, like I said, is building one coal fire power plant a week. We have a President that completely withdrew from Kyoto. China and India will not go into a post-Kyoto or second Kyoto agreement if they're looking at the U.S. and the U.S. isn't doing it. They're saying, 'We're at the point of our industrial revolution and economic growth. When you were at that point, you were belching greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Our response is that since then we've discovered better ways to do this. We've discovered that there is a problem. China's proper response to that is, 'what are you doing?' Well, we have to lead. We have to lead in the fight against global warming. China, who I think is forward thinking in this issue, is waiting for us to lead. I think in leading, we can develop technologies that we can sell to China and India and help our trade imbalance with China. Also, we want a world class education for all our kids. That means math and science and languages.

We want to restore our standing in the world. That means engaging our allies and advisories. Not only is the crackdown in Tibet on the table, I think China has been recalcitrant in Darfur and human rights in its own country. We have to engage, China, the rest of the world, China has been very helpful in (North) Korea. China has been very helpful in (North) Korea to get them to back off their nuclear arms production.

HUGH: Looking forward and you are elected to the Senate, do you have an ideal committee that you would like to serve in?

FRANKEN: I would like to be the chairman of the China Committee... I'm kidding, hahaha. There is no such committee. It was a joke. Foreign relations, I want to be on healthcare, and labor and pensions. I'd like to be on, Indian affairs. We have a lot of American Indians in Minnesota and we have a historic debt that has yet to be addressed. It must be continually addressed. I would definitely like to be on energy or natural resources in the environment. Both committees are addressing this move to a green economy which we and much of the world is moving to. There are so many committees you would want to be on. If you're from Minnesota, you'd like to be on the Agriculture Committee. Minnesota has historically had someone on the committee. Amy Klobuchar is on that committee now and so is Norm Coleman. When Norm Coleman leaves, there will be a spot open for a Minnesotan. And I want to be on Veteran Affairs because I don't think we've done right with our veterans.

Greg wraps up his time with Franken and I get to step in for the remaining few minutes. After having a microphone affixed, I approach Franken with eagerness. My delight did not last long. As I stepped towards him, I accidentally step on his foot.

Mortified, I take my seat with my eyes fixated on his black polished wing-tipped shoe that I just crushed with my foot. I slow draw my eyes towards Franken's face and utter, "I'm so sorry." He laughs heartily as if understanding the hilarity in the unexpected incident -- small-time kid embarrasses himself in front of important, well-known, high-standing man. We share a chuckle and dive into the questions.

LEUNG: Star Tribune recently reported an Education Week report that rated Minnesota below average in integrating technology into its school curriculum. As a U.S. Senator, what can you do to impact that?

FRANKEN: It doesn't surprise me. Our Governor has taken the position that we're going to have no new taxes in Minnesota. My argument is that Ronald Regan would be thrown out of the Republican Party because he raised taxes many times. But as a result, since integration is relatively new and we've had this governor for a while and have had a few governors that haven't invested in education. It doesn't surprise me at all. As a Senator, I'm a huge believer in science, community and math. Again, as I was telling Greg, I was a Sputnik kid. In 1957, Soviets put the first satellite in space. It scared us because they had nuclear weapons and they were first in space. So we invested in science, math, engineering and R&D and created a tremendous innovations that led to economic booms. To me we need to encourage that. I will do everything I can to encourage that.

LEUNG: Okay, so I have a real hard-ball question for you. What is your favorite Chinese food and where do you have to get that at? Where is your favorite Chinese restaurant in Minnesota?

FRANKEN: You know, I don't have a favorite Chinese restaurant. We order out from a place near the office. I order hot and sour soup a lot. So that's my favorite dish. Although, I have to say, I am a real sucker for a great Peking duck. When I went to China, I got a lot of ducks. I like ducks. You know though, I don't like the plum sauce. I just eat the duck and I like duck skin. And so our offices are at 2575, what are we... Southwest University? Yes, Southwest University (Ave.). So if you have a really crisp, Peking duck (please deliver). I really like it with salt too. With the sea salt or burnt salt. So I just like your plain old duck. I love the crispy skin. All I want is duck.

LEUNG: I think we need to get him some duck for lunch.

FRANKEN: You know what I liked as a kid? I grew up in the 50's and 60's. The kind of Chinese food that was here was all Cantonese. It was just egg foo young and fried rice. We'd go right at Calhoun. And that was my favorite. That (restaurant) was The Nanking.

We would go to Calhoun and I remember getting my first MSG headache. I'm someone who gets headaches. I get migraines and stuff like that. But this headache was different because it didn't hurt. It just was, 'Thurt, thrut. Thrut, thrut.' It was really weird. Do you remember accent? The seasoning accent? It was just MSG. Americans would just pour MSG on their anything. But I remember I just loved egg foo young.

When, I went to college, in Harvard square there was this place called The Hong Kong. Franny, my wife, is from Portland, Maine. She had never had Chinese food. She had her first Chinese meal at The Hong Kong. And of course, I got egg foo young and fried rice. The thing is, it's still there and it's still the same stuff. Whenever we go to Boston, and my daughter went to Harvard too, we still go to The Hong Kong.