The mention of Ms. Stahl, a veteran journalist for CBS News, was an apparent reference to a 1995 interview in which Mr. Franken, then with “Saturday Night Live,” spoke about a possible skit in which Ms. Stahl would be drugged and raped.

“‘I give the pills to Lesley Stahl. Then, when Lesley’s passed out, I take her to the closet and rape her.’ Or, ‘That’s why you never see Lesley until February.’ Or, ‘When she passes out, I put her in various positions and take pictures of her,’” Mr. Franken said in the article in New York magazine.

Mr. Trump’s comments about Mr. Franken, a frequent critic of the president’s, came even as Mr. Trump remained largely silent about accusations of sexual assault against Roy S. Moore, the Republican candidate for Senate in an Alabama special election scheduled to take place next month.

In recent days, several women have accused Mr. Moore of having assaulted them or pursued them romantically when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s. Mr. Trump issued a statement several days ago saying that if the charges against Mr. Moore are true, he should withdraw from the Senate campaign.

But Mr. Trump has not spoken publicly to condemn Mr. Moore’s actions, nor pulled his endorsement of the Republican candidate, even as other Republicans in Washington have said they believe the female accusers and have called on Mr. Moore to drop out of the race.

“The president believes that these allegations are very troubling and should be taken seriously, and he thinks that the people of Alabama should make the decision on who their next senator should be,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said earlier Thursday.



It is unclear what prompted Mr. Trump to tweet about Mr. Franken. But he frequently watches Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News, and on Thursday night, Mr. Hannity was highly critical of Mr. Franken and mentioned the senator’s joke about Ms. Stahl.