Al Franken is back on stage and, doggone it, he’s bringing politics right along with him.

While Al Franken is a veteran comedy writer, he didn’t have to come up with much material for his current tour. “A lot of stuff in the show is from the Senate – some of it exact, word for word,” he says. An eight-year stint in Congress with the likes of Ron Johnson and Josh Hawley, providing reams of absurdities, there’s not much to add. “Some of it is spectacularly stupid, some of it is spectacularly awful, some is of-no-consequence stupid.”

Franken says his talent as a satirist helped him in public office. He was able to pierce thick political rhetoric and approach issues from different perspectives. He was also quick to recognize the nonsense – oftentimes dangerous – that comes when politicians stretch party logic for any occasion.

He remains incensed at the lack of direction from the Trump White House as the pandemic enveloped the nation. Yet the comic who declared the Al Franken Decade, created the Stuart Smalley character on Saturday Night Live and drafted best-sellers like Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations can quickly find an angle on even a sober topic.

What if, for example, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and Franklin D. Roosevelt shrugged and left the response to individual states? “This is Hawaii’s problem,” Franken says with a chuckle.

Franken occupies a unique space – he’s the only person to serve as an SNL writer and U.S. senator (from Minnesota). He can now add stand-up comedian to that list.

The public likely hears only a small portion of the inanities uttered during hearings or through the course of a day in Washington. What makes it to print – the “legitimate rape” comment, Trump’s insistence that a Covid mask made him “look like the Lone Ranger” – is agonizing enough.

Franken’s 2018 departure from the Senate without due process – over allegations of groping women – rankles now. He promises to tell the story one day. Many Democrats who urged him at the time to resign now regret their haste.

Franken is considering a return to politics. For now, however, those in Washington unwittingly write his routine. “Expect to laugh, to be entertained and to be rewarded for knowing stuff – but not punished for not knowing stuff,” he says.

AL FRANKEN: THE ONLY FORMER U.S. SENATOR CURRENTLY ON TOUR TOUR 8pm Saturday, Dec. 10. Golden State Theatre, 417 Alvarado St., Monterey. $30-$100. 649-1070, goldenstatetheatre.com