'Saturday Night Live' Ridicules Al Franken After Photo Scandal

Saturday Night Live took shots at Senator Al Franken this week, opening their "Weekend Update" segment with jokes and comments about his recent scandal.

After a quick mention of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, the spoof newscasters cut right to the recently released photo of Senator Franken groping a Leean Tweeden while she sleeps.

"Sure, this photo was taken before Franken ran for public office," Colin Jost said, "but it was also taken after he was a sophomore in high school."

Franken is facing accusations of sexual harassment from Tweeden, who says that in addition to the photo, he was sexually aggressive with her throughout the USO tour they were on together.

The radio host said that Senator Franken forced her to kiss him during a comedy sketch they performed for the troops. Seeing as how comedy sketches are their bread and butter, the folks at SNL couldn't let that one slide.

"C'mon, man," Jost said, as if speaking directly to Franken. "Didn't the troops in Afghanistan have it hard enough without having to sit through sketch comedy? I mean, people can barely stay up to watch sketches after 'Weekend Update!' "

SNL has been criticized by some for being too hard on the current administration while sparing their liberal counterparts -- particularly by the president himself. Opening with jokes at the expense of Franken helped to even the scales a little, and from there they pivoted right into mockery of President Trump and GOP Senate hopeful Roy Moore.

Before his political career, Franken wrote and performed on SNL.

Senator Franken has released a statement regarding Tweeden's accusations, asking that an ethics investigation be undertaken with his full cooperation. Franken has not announced any plans to step down from office.