Samantha Bee and Al Franken read unkind things the other has said about Ted Cruz


Sen. Al Franken's (D-Minn.) new book, Al Franken: Giant of the Senate, has 47 chapters, but all anyone seems to want to talk about is Chapter 37, "Sophistry," about one of his colleagues. Samantha Bee was no exception when she had Franken on Wednesday's Full Frontal for her book club, Ladies Who Book. "Don't you think you were a little hard on Ted Cruz?" she asked. "No, I definitely was not," Franken said. "Really? Because you wrote a whole chapter about him and you called him the Dwight Schrute of the Senate," she noted, referring to a character from The Office. Franken picked up a sheet and started reading things Bee has called Cruz, starting with "rodent-faced soup sponge."
At one point, Franken pulled back and explained why he devoted an entire chapter to the widely disliked Cruz, and at another he reminded a skeptical Bee that Cruz is a human being with feelings, but mostly it was trading insults the other had lobbed at the junior senator from Texas. If that's your thing, watch below. Peter Weber
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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