Al Franken to launch 15-stop comedy tour

Former Minnesota Sen. Al Franken (D) is launching a comedy tour nearly four years after he resigned over sexual misconduct claims.

The 15-stop tour, dubbed “The Only Former U.S. Senator Currently on Tour Tour,” is scheduled to kick off in Massachusetts in September.

“My promise is that you’ll laugh, you’ll think, and you’ll leave hopeful about our future. Unless I’m in a bad mood that night,” Franken wrote in a tweet announcing presale tickets for the tour.

The presale for my fall tour is LIVE today at 10 AM local time. Use code word SENATOR to purchase tickets at https://t.co/wpc7fIbqpu. My promise is that you’ll laugh, you’ll think, and you’ll leave hopeful about our future. Unless I’m in a bad mood that night.

— Al Franken (@alfranken) June 23, 2021

Franken, before he was elected to the Senate in 2008, was a founding writer and later a cast member on “Saturday Night Live.” 

He resigned from the Senate in 2017 amid accusations of sexual misconduct from eight women and after a photo showed him groping a woman who was asleep.

Franken who was facing mounting pressure from his colleagues to step down, said at the time that some of the allegations against him were not true, while other incidents he remembered differently.

Franken in July 2019 said he “absolutely” regretted resigning from the Senate after The New Yorker published a deep dive into the allegations against him.

Seven current or former senators who called for Franken’s resignation told The New Yorker that they regretted doing so.

Presale for tickets for Franken’s comedy tour began on Wednesday. The tour will run until December, with stops in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., New York, Missouri, Chicago and Colorado.