Melanie Morgan: Al Franken harassed me after TV appearance

Good evening everyone. We have some incredible stories for you tonight. The capital is in an absolute frothy panic after Senator Al Franken was charged by a radio host with sexual assault, a charge he has since partially admitted to. It went down like this: it was during a 2006 USO tour in Afghanistan. It was good that Franken was actually doing those tours, but Leanne Tweeden remembers that Franken, then a comedian, forcing a really gross French kiss on her backstage. He just put his hand on the back of my head and he mashed his face against mine. It happened so fast and he just mashed his lips against my face and he stuck his tongue in my mouth. Now, this is how Franken himself recalled that very tour, but he recalled it on the Senate floor in 2010. We did a four-hour show because we found out that the troops loved the show. I was kind of a co-host with a beautiful woman named Leanne Tweeden, and we do comedy routines and we'd introduce music and it just hit the cheerleaders. I go out and do a monologue. He says 'um' a lot as well. On the flight home from that USO tour, Franken groped that beautiful woman when he placed his hands on Miss Tweeden's chest and posed for this photo. Check it out. Now Tweeden posted the picture and her story online today, saying that she felt disgusted and violated. Franken responded with this statement: 'I certainly don't remember the rehearsal for this skit in the same way, but I send my sincerest apologies to Leanne. As to the photo, it was clearly intended to be funny but wasn't.' He did a longer statement later on in the day. And this is the same senator, by the way, that just yesterday was grilling a circuit court nominee, Don Willett, about a 2014 tweet. 'Does this display the kind of judgment that we want for a lifetime appointment to the federal judiciary?' 'A tweet was a kind of off-kilter attempt at levity that missed the bull's-eye.' 'I don't get it. I don't get it enough. But sometimes when you don't get a joke, it's because it wasn't a joke.' Hmm. Never have truer words been said by Al Franken. Well, no one was really getting Al Franken's joke today at all. It wasn't funny. It was really juvenile. It was something you'd see at a drunk fraternity party, maybe, or maybe it was too immature for a fraternity party. And other women still may be coming forward, like one of my guests tonight. I'm joined now by Melanie Morgan of Media Equalizer. She's here exclusively to share her claims about how Al Franken stalked and harassed her after a joint TV appearance. And we're also joined by Brian Maloney, also of the Media Equalizer duo, who's been investigating Franken's past for us. Both of you, it's good to see you tonight. Melanie, I want to start with you. Are you really surprised by this story, by Miss Tweeden's story tonight? She still, by the way, likes and respects Al Franken, I should add that. But given your own experience, are you surprised? Tell us what your experience was.

Yeah, well, Melanie, I'm really glad you told the story. I've had some run-ins with Al Franken over the years, and he's so insignificant to me. I remember he was sputtering, so angry he was like spitting at me, and he was arguing with me. It might have been on 'Politically Incorrect' as well. But there's an underlying nastiness. There's a picture of Tucker, myself, Al Franken, and Eric Alterman from like the early 2000s at a New York Times event. But look, I'm on the end. I did not want to go near Al Franken because we got into a really big bad argument, so I stayed away from him in that particular photo. No, things I didn't want. Brian, I want to go to you because you've been documenting and doing some investigative work today, looking back at some of the things that he's done and said that it's kind of makes us not all that surprised that this is where we are tonight.

Well, really, I don't know where to begin. I've been writing about Al Franken for over a decade, and I was going back through some of my old stories today, and I couldn't believe it, but there were so many warnings that the Democrats, why they ever put him forward as a candidate, that they didn't heed. And really, it was amazing because ten years ago I wrote that they would be sorry for bringing him forward as a Senate candidate. And it was weird to read that today and see all that come true. Because essentially, you know, they built him up, the media built him up, the political class built him up with fluffy coverage, so he never had to worry about being scrutinized in any way. But his actual background is unbelievable. In fact, so much of what he's done hasn't even been mentioned today. And I want to bring up one in particular. He used to write a column for Playboy called 'Pornorama.' And a lot of what was in that column we absolutely cannot talk about here on Fox News tonight. Trust me on that. But what I will say, I'll try to make this a PG version or whatever. He talked about his own 12-year-old son doing a report for school on bestiality and how he downloaded visual aids from his computer to show to the class and how amused the students were by this. So that's an example of what was in that column. Then he made a very disgusting, obscene column mentioned about some of his fantasies that he had about what he wanted women to do. And I will not go any further into it than that. But it was damning right there.

Brian, Brian, what you're pointing to is the depravity of the comedy. We've talked about this with Louis C.K. and the most disgusting images that he conjures up in his mind and passes off as humor, which defines who the man is. And it doesn't surprise me with Franken either. This is what Casey Hunt of MSNBC said today when they were discussing this issue. Let's listen. 'He fought, it took a picture which his office now says was a joke that showed him potentially not actually groping but mock groping her. She also published a picture that was given to her of her asleep with Senator Franken mock groping her. Mock groping her.' It's Melanie, it's mock groping her. So I'm sure if that were a conservative Senator from, let's say, Alabama who had a photo mock groping someone, that's how the MSNBC kids would describe it. Correct?

I think we have Donald Trump just tweeted about this. I'm trying to pull it up on my phone, but it's not coming. We'll put up the full screen so we can read it. 'The Al Franken stench picture is really bad. Speaks a thousand words. Where did his hands go in pictures two, three, four, five, and six while she sleeps?' So that's the president, always giving us some humorous commentary there. This is something that he said in 1995. Again, we want to paint for the Fox viewers the picture of the whole person over a course of time, not just in this one incident. This is what was said in a New York magazine article. And he said, 'And I give the pills to Lesley Stahl. Then when Leslie is passed out, I take her to the closet and rape her. Or that's why you never see Leslie until February. When she passes out, I put her in various positions and take pictures of her.' Yes. Oh, so I mean, I don't guess that's supposed to be funny, guys. But again, it speaks to the mindset of the man. And I mean, I don't know if the Democrats are gonna do anything about this. I guess some of them came out and were disgusted today, but they certainly had a lot more to say about Roy Moore. That's for sure. Melanie and Brian, it's great to have you on tonight. Thank you so much for your work on this. And Melanie, thanks for sharing your story.