This month, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) sat down with Northern California education non-profit The Commonwealth Club for a taped program for its Good Lit series. Franken was there to talk about his latest book, Senator Al Franken: Giant of the Senate. 

In a clip posted to YouTube, the comedian-turned-politician explained why he is a Democrat, a subject to which he devoted the entire first chapter of the book, and was reduced to tears describing his love for big government handouts.

Franken recalled growing up in a middle-class family in 1950s Minnesota in a two-bedroom, one-bath house and yet, feeling like “the luckiest kid in the world.”

“I was growing up at the height of the middle class in America,” Franken said. “I thought I could do anything.”

He went on to lament that people don’t feel like that anymore, “and for very good reason,” and said that’s why Democrats lost the 2016 election. 

But Franken’s wife had a different upbringing, he said, as her dad died in a car accident when she was young. The only way her mom made it work for their family was through Social Security benefits but even then, sometimes the heat didn’t get turned on in the winter. However, the family made it just fine, with all the siblings going to college thanks to Pell grants and government loans, which paid 80% of the tuition back then. That family went on to rise into the middle class because of government assistance and that’s why, Franken said, he is a Democrat.

“You know, they tell you in this country, you have to pull yourselves up by your bootstraps — first you have to have the boots,” Franken said, fighting back tears. “And the government gave my wife’s family the boots. And that’s why I’m a Democrat.”

We would cry, too, if we were Democrats.