August 2, 2017

Al Franken Recounts the Extraordinary Moments Leading Up to Health Care Vote

The Minnesota senator also reveals when he realized John McCain might vote “no.”

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) appeared on the Late Show on Tuesday to unpack the dramatic moments leading up to last week’s health care vote, telling Stephen Colbert that he had a hunch Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) might shoot down the Republican bill to repeal Obamacare when a certain someone left the chamber.

“He didn’t want to be at the scene of the murder?” Colbert joked.

“The last vote he was there for the entire vote,” Franken explained. “And he had left the room, and that told me that [McCain] was going to vote no.”

Watch below to see whose exit tipped it all off:

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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