Is Al Gore philosophically aligned with an anti-American news network?

January 03, 2013

Wilson

Writer

Full Transcript of the segment is below:

GLENN: So Al Gore made a nice little sum of money last night, it was announced.

PAT: Yeah.

STU: Just a hundred mill, though.

PAT: Just below the surface of this deal there are hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.

GLENN: Here's the story from the Wall Street Journal. Al‑Jazeera has agreed to purchase the U.S. cable channel current TV in an effort to expand their Qatar‑based news service U.S. audience.

Now, I just want you to understand this. Current TV is a miserable failure and it spent a ton of money, got into 60 million households and then had no viewership and so they went up for sale. Al‑Jazeera is not going to take over Current and use their current shows or even call it Current. It's going to be Al‑Jazeera USA. All they were buying was access to your home. 60 million households is what Al Gore got that thing up to. That's a lot of households. To put that into perspective, at one point wasn't that HLN? Wasn't that 60 million wasn't ‑‑

STU: I think HLN was higher but like a Fox News is in 90 million give or take. So that's like full distribution is 90 to 95 million, in that range.

GLENN: Yeah. 60 million is huge distribution. So they are not going to ‑‑ what they sold were the 60 million households. Not the programming or anything else.

STU: Yeah, programming will be, quote, dissolved.

GLENN: Dissolved. Okay. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but a person familiar with the matter said Al‑Jazeera paid a few hundred million dollars for Current TV. I don't know what I can say and what I can't say. The network was co‑founded by Mr. Gore and the entrepreneur Joel Hyatt in 2005 and it has been recently struggling with low ratings.

Recently?

Al‑Jazeera, which is owned by the government of Qatar became famous in the U.S. about a decade ago in its Arab language outlet aired videos of Osama Bin Laden in the wake of September 11th.

Now let's put this into perspective of what Al‑Jazeera is. Al‑Jazeera is a Qatar government outlet that ran every terrorist video and hates America.

PAT: Absolute anti‑American propaganda piece.

GLENN: Al‑Jazeera's making a strong push in the American market to ‑‑ with its purchase of Current TV, blah, blah‑blah, blah‑blah.

Now here's where it gets interesting. From the Wall Street Journal. Remember I've said, "Oh, someday I'm going to write a book, and I'll tell you some things that are happening behind the scenes." Well, a few people here at this network know a story that the Wall Street Journal now has revealed. So I can tell you a little bit about it. But someday I will write a book. Here's what the all street journal has printed. Mr. Hyatt said they agreed to sell Al‑Jazeera in part because, quote, Al‑Jazeera was founded with the same goals we had with Current.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: Think of that. This is the co‑owner with Al Gore. We believe that they were founded with the same goals, including to give voice to those whose voices are not typically heard and to speak truth to power. Other suitors who did not share Current's ideology were rebuffed. Glenn Beck's TheBlaze approached Current about buying their channel last year but was told, quote, the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view.

Now ‑‑

PAT: That is astounding.

GLENN: Let me ‑‑ let me tell you what happened. How many months ago? I don't know how many months ago. When we found out that Current TV was going to go up for sale, it was rumored to be, what, $250 million is what they were asking, and I don't have $250 million lying around, but we wanted access to 60 million households and so we discussed it and we thought we can somehow or another find $250 million, $300 million. Somehow or another we might be able to do it.

Now, we didn't know if we were willing to trade whatever it is we would have to trade to be able to get access to that kind of money. Do I want that kinds of debt? Do I want a partner? What am I going to have to give up? So we were very ‑‑ we were exploring and we thought, well, before we put any real thought into this, let's call Al Gore. Let's call Current and find out. And I wasn't involved in any of the negotiations by any stretch of the imagination. We have people who are negotiating all of these things. We called them and said let's just look. Because wouldn't I love to buy Current. And so our people called, and a rough outline of the conversation is this, and I'm only telling you this because the Wall Street Journal has said that it is there. We have conversations that are confidential and we don't ‑‑ I'm not going to tell everybody's story on the air. The Wall Street Journal is reporting this story. So I want to give you the full story.

So we call up, and I don't even know who we talked to but, you know, it was the person handling the negotiations. And our person says, "We would like to talk to you about buying Current." Great, great, fantastic. So who is Mercury exactly? "Umm... (mumbling)... but let's talk about, so how much are you..." "Excuse me. Who is Mercury exactly?" "It's a wholly owned subsidiary of Glenn Beck." "Excuse me?" "It's Glenn Beck's company." "It's Glenn Beck's company?" Silence. "That one is going to probably have to go to the vice president. Al Gore's probably going to have to answer that one. I don't... we'll call and we'll get an answer and then we'll call you back." No kidding, within 15 minutes, brrrppp, we get a call back. "Yeah, umm‑umm, no, not even interested. We ‑‑ our legacy is too important and there would quite frankly be too many people, too many friends that the vice president would have to explain why he's selling to Glenn Beck."

STU: I'm sure there would be.

GLENN: Our legacy is too important. We're not ‑‑ no. No."

Okay. Not surprised.

STU: No.

GLENN: Not surprised. Not a shock that, I mean, I wouldn't sell to Al Gore. I'm not going to sell to Al Gore.

STU: Yeah, you're going to sell the plays to Al Gore? No.

GLENN: Now, now let's look at it, let's look at this. If I'm ‑‑ let's use a neutral nonpolitical party. If I'm Walt Disney and I believe in creating Walt Disney World and it's ‑‑ and I'm going to sell it now, I don't sell it to Wal‑Mart. And Wal‑Mart says, "You know what we're going to do? We're going to take the parking lot, we're going to plow all that stuff under and we're going to put a big huge box store at the end where that castle thing is. We'll just put a Wal‑Mart there." I'm not going to sell it unless I have ‑‑ unless my park is out of business and I have no choice anyway because I'm just out of business. And so I'm a capitalist and I say highest bidder gets the land, man. I tried something, it didn't work, I'm going to go ‑‑ I'm going to go try to figure out how to add a third hour, I'm going to try to figure out how to, you know, how to open a park and make it work. I'll come back to this at some point. So ‑‑ but it's highest bidder because I'm a capitalist.

Then I sell it to Al Gore. Then I sell it to Al Gore because I'm going to take that money out and I'm going to start something new again.

STU: Right. You don't test the ideological purity of people when you sell your home. They can come in like you're selling your land to the highest bidder.

GLENN: I have sold homes to people I do not like. I don't care. I don't care. So here's the thing. That's not what happened. That's not what happened. He didn't sell to the highest bidder. We were not allowed to the table. He didn't sell to the highest bidder. He looked for, who do I ideologically align with.

PAT: And that is Al‑Jazeera. That is amazing.

GLENN: The vice president of the United States of America tells you that he is more ideologically aligned with Al‑Jazeera than an American broadcaster who believes in America, just doesn't believe in what he does, believes that America is a good place, that America is ‑‑ has a bright future ahead of it if we just do the right thing, a guy who believes that global warming is nonsense. But being responsible with our planet is a good thing. Finding new ways to pioneer energy is a good thing. He finds ‑‑ Mr. Global warming finds that less connectible than a foreign government that makes all of its money through oil and gas reserves. That's amazing.

PAT: Just that part is astounding.

GLENN: That's amazing.

STU: And not to mention the guy who is ‑‑ was vice president of the United States and was 537 votes away from being president during 9/11 is ideologically aligned by his own definition with the network that Osama Bin Laden went to every time he wanted to get a message out.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: That's incredible.

PAT: And they were credible, too.

STU: Of course.

PAT: They weren't ‑‑

STU: This is his distribution channel.

GLENN: Mmm‑hmmm. So now listen.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: We in the end didn't have a choice when it came to this network, but we in the end continued to ‑‑ I mean, we had a ‑‑ believe me, we had lots of laughs. We wear this as a badge of honor. We wear this as a badge of honor. We had lots of laughs, but in the end we decided that we would have to give up too much control to somebody if we had to borrow that kind of money. We're just not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. I've been reading an awful lot about people like Edison and people like Walt Disney. You know, Walt Disney, I don't know if most people know this. Walt Disney was so frustrated in the late 1950s that he almost left his own company. He almost left Walt Disney studios, Walt Disney productions because he couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't take the ‑‑ he couldn't take the micromanaging, he couldn't take the shareholders and having to answer to anybody else. He almost left. They almost sold RKO to him. RKO, if anybody ever ‑‑ you know, It's a Wonderful Life is an RKO picture. RKO was huge, huge, and then it hit a rough spot and it just disappeared. And I never knew what happened to RKO. Who knows.

Well, they approached Walt Disney and said, "Would you want to ‑‑ are you interested in buying RKO, the library and also all the studios and everything else?" And he said, you know what, yeah. And he sat down at the negotiating table as Walt Disney. Not Walt Disney company. Walt Disney. And was going to leave the Walt Disney company and go to RKO and start a new movie company because he was so frustrated with Hollywood and everything else in his own company that he couldn't do it. And he had leveraged himself and everything else and he was frustrated. By the way, RKO eventually was sold to Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. That's Desilu Studios, for anybody who cares.

So we're not going to ‑‑ I'm just not going to give control, which is so frustrating. I had a meeting this morning Stu was in and he was mocking me yesterday on the air and this idea that I have, and I'm not giving up on it, is mid‑seven figures, maybe closer to eight figures in cost, and I'm telling you we need to figure out a way to do it. Now, I don't know how to do it. I had the another meeting right after Stu left the office where I'm like, "Get these people on the phone. They will know how to." Anyway, we're just not going to get ourselves into debt and we're not going to do crazy things that will have us answer to anybody but our principles. We answer to our principles alone. And I am proud to say that Al Gore finds my principles reprehensible but aligns himself with the principles of Al‑Jazeera.

Now here's what I want to tell you: We were looking for a shortcut to get into 60 million homes. There is no shortcut. There is no shortcut. If you want to retain your soul and your principles, there is no shortcut, and we know that. What we want to say to you is in a few weeks there will come a time where we ‑‑ we want to ask you to look at your cable provider or your satellite provider and ask, out of the nine million channels that I'm paying for, are they providing ‑‑ are they providing the news and information and the entertainment that you want, that you want. Because you're the ones who control the ‑‑ it's not the corporations that control all this stuff. You do. If you say to your cable operator, "I want this channel and I don't want ‑‑ I don't want you to take off Al‑Jazeera. I don't want you to take off Current TV."

I mean, did anybody ask themselves, why did I do a deal with DISH where I was debating Eliot Spitzer? Do you have any idea what hell that was for me? I mean, my business partner said, "Glenn, I can't believe you're doing this and I can't believe you're doing it with a good attitude and I am so sorry that I have to ask you to do this." And I said, you're not asking me to do it. I'm willing to do it. I'm willing to do it. I believe in what I'm doing. I am not going to say I believe in Eliot Spitzer or Current TV, and I'm not going to debate him. I'm just not going to do that. However, I believe in DISH. I believe DISH said, "Here's Current TV and here's TheBlaze and we believe in diversity. We believe in providing what customers want." That's why I did it. Because they're carrying us. Because they believe in you.

In a couple of weeks we're going to ask you and if ‑‑ you know, I just want you to look at your cable operator or whatever and if you have ‑‑ if you're so moved, call your cable operator and just say, "Hey, are you going to carry TheBlaze?" We'll ask you in a couple of weeks if you would look into that for us. But there are no shortcuts in life. No shortcuts in life. And a victory again, a strange victory. Again, Al‑Jazeera, as we predicted, there will come a time when they will not be afraid to reveal who they really are. Al Gore says that he is more aligned with Al‑Jazeera than anybody else that came to the table and wanted to buy Current TV. Wow. Congratulations, Mr. Vice president of the United States of America. Back in a minute.

Kamala Harris dropped the ball at CNN's town hall

CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / Contributor | Getty Images

Vice President Kamala Harris held a town hall on CNN Wednesday night, asking voters questions about the swing state of Pennslyvania. It was a train wreck.

Harris could not give a single straight answer to any question, and would instead lapse into long, word-salad answers. At times even Anderson Cooper, who was hosting the event, seemed fed up with her answers and tried to steer her back on track. There were even a few times that felt like Cooper was practically spoon-feeding the answer to Harris, who still managed to drop the ball.

This town hall was a flop at a time when the polls revealed Harris really couldn't afford it.

She talked more about Trump than herself.

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

Throughout her campaign and the CNN town hall, Harris repeatedly promised that her administration would break away from the "hate" and "divisiveness" that supposedly characterize President Trump and his campaign. But despite these promises, it seemed like Harris's answer to every question was to bash Trump. From questions about how she would support or not support Israel to questions about potential Supreme Court reforms, the answer was the same: Orange Man Bad.

Even the CNN after-show panel complained that she spent far too much time talking about Trump. Her performance lacked substance and proved that her campaign isnot about anything she has to offer the American people, it's solely about hating Donald Trump.

She missed the opportunity to further define herself.

CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / Contributor | Getty Images

Harris spent so much time Trump-bashing that she never got into any detail about her policies. This was an event designed to give her the chance to lay out her platform and define who she is as a candidate and she utterly failed to do so. As mentioned before, all she really spoke about was Trump, a candidate who almost every voter is highly familiar with. This was a critical failure on Harris's part, she missed possibly one of, if not the last chance to make an impression on voters before the election and according to recent polls, this was a chance she could not afford to miss.

She gave several radical and dangerous remarks.

CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / Contributor | Getty Images

The few times Harris managed to reveal some of her policy ideas it became clear why she was being so coy: they are blatantly dangerous. In between her anti-Trump tirades where she makes Trump out to be the biggest threat to the Constitution the country has ever seen, Harris let slip that she is open to Supreme Court reforms, including adding more Justices to the bench. This is known as court-packing and is most certainly unconstitutional, as well as one of the hallmarks of an authoritarian takeover, as Glenn has pointed out.

Harris also spent the first several minutes of the event making dangerous accusations against Trump, calling him a fascist and comparing him to Adolf Hitler. She would echo this sentiment the following day in a surprise address. Glenn explained on his radio show just how dangerous and inciteful this kind of language is and the kind of damage it can do. This looks like a desperate, last-ditch attempt to sway people away from Trump during this critical time of the election cycle.

Meet Trump's dream team who will make America healthy again

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Americans are sick of being sick. In a recent TV special, Glenn revealed one in three Americans suffer from a chronic disease, and it's only getting worse.

But there is hope! President Trump has taken notice of our dysfunctional and corrupt system and has assembled a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) dream team who plan on making big changes once Trump gets back into office. This team plans on fighting back against federal regulatory agencies such as the FDA, which are bought out by Big Pharma and Big Food and allow toxic ingredients that most other countries have banned into our food.

So who is this dream team? Below, we've compiled a list of the most prominent figures who are working with Trump to make America healthy again:

RFK Jr.

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Former Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made the declining health of Americans a focal point in his campaign. After dropping out of the race, he combined forces with President Trump, promising to assist Trump in reinventing federal health agencies, such as the FDA and CDC, to purge them of corruption, and to reduce the dominance of ultra-processed foods full of toxic additives. RFK Jr. has adopted the slogan Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) in reference to Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) slogan.

Casey and Calley Means

Over this last month, Dr. Casey Means and her entrepreneur brother Calley have taken the Conservative sphere by storm after testifying in front of the U.S. Senate. The siblings have been making the circuit, speaking alongside Jorden Peterson, appearing on Joe Rogan's podcast, getting a shoutout by RFK Jr., and even joining Glenn on his most recent TV special. Casey and Calley are trying to expose the corruption in the upper levels of industry and federal agencies and fight back against what Dr. Casey describes as a "genocidal health collapse."

Dr. Robert Redfield

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Former CDC Director Dr. Redfield has recently rejoined Trump's Make America Healthy Again team. His experience as the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control means he is familiar with the corruption that rots our federal agencies and has good reason to believe that the Trump administration can turn things around. Dr. Redfield has shown concern for the alarming rate of chronic disease that plagues Americans. He expressed special concern for children, given that over 40 percentof American children suffer from at least one chronic condition.

Can fear win the vote? Democrats have a dangerous strategy to demonize Trump.

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The Democratic Party’s nominee is deliberately spreading false, fear-driven narratives to turn her base against Donald Trump, regardless of the consequences.

Have you noticed how Kamala Harris and her allies in the corporate left-wing media have become bolder in labeling Trump a “fascist”? A recent New York Times article revealed that Democrats have shed their reluctance to use the term. In fact, it has become their rallying cry as Election Day approaches.

What’s the real goal here? According to John Daniel Davidson at the Federalist, Harris and her supporters are using this rhetoric to energize their base — and more disturbingly, to prepare them for violence if Trump wins. The fearmongering isn’t just about driving people to the polls; it’s about creating an atmosphere of rage and chaos.

Let’s show the Democrats that our republic doesn’t bend to fear and certainly doesn’t bend to those who twist the truth for political gain.

Harris is deliberately spreading false, fear-driven narratives to turn her base against Trump, regardless of the consequences. This is the same Kamala Harris who, during the George Floyd riots in 2020, encouraged bailing out rioters and urged the violence to continue both before and after the election.

For example, Harris has claimed that Trump will use the Department of Justice as a weapon against his political enemies if he returns to office. But let’s pause for a second: Who is using the Justice Department as a political tool right now? Harris’ own administration, led by Joe Biden, has weaponized federal agencies against Trump and conservatives for years.

Harris also recently entertained the idea that Trump would round up people who “don’t look white” and throw them into camps. During an interview with Charlamagne tha God, a caller suggested this scenario. Instead of refuting the caller’s paranoia, Harris nodded and said, “You have hit on a really important point.”

This kind of divisive rhetoric fuels fear and division in our country. Let’s not forget: Trump was president for four years, and there were no camps, roundups, or authoritarian crackdowns on dissenters. Leftists claim Trump and his supporters spread conspiracy theories, but they are the ones pushing baseless and dangerous claims.

While Democrats claim to defend democracy, they are increasingly aligning with authoritarianism. For example, the EPA funneled billions of dollars to left-wing organizations, including one tied to Stacey Abrams, for “voter mobilization” efforts. This funding came through the Inflation Reduction Act — a taxpayer-funded omnibus bill. Imagine the outrage if Republicans in Congress gave billions of taxpayer dollars to right-wing groups. The media would be in an uproar, and there would be protests at the White House gates. But because it’s Democrats doing it, the mainstream media turns a blind eye. These are the warning signs of an authoritarian regime.

This is why it’s more critical than ever for Americans to see through the left’s manipulation. Trump’s not the fascist here — he’s a threat to the left's power. The real danger lies in the left’s escalating rhetoric, which is designed to incite chaos if things don’t go its way. And let me be clear: That’s exactly what leftists are preparing for.

Don’t let them succeed.

The best way to counter their lies is by getting out to vote and encouraging others to do the same. If every single one of us does this, we won’t let the fearmongering and lies being peddled by Harris and the Democrats succeed. Let’s show them that our republic doesn’t bend to fear and certainly doesn’t bend to those who twist the truth for political gain.

'Get involved': Here's how YOU can join Glenn on election night

America is currently standing at a fork in the road. Which path we take will determine our fate as a nation.

One path is “we try something entirely new,” as in “not the Constitution,” and the other path is “we go back towards the Constitution,” says Glenn Beck.

The stakes for this decision are higher than they’ve ever been.

“We're deciding this year whether or not our kids are going to grow up in a country that gives them the opportunity to be themselves and to move forward and chart their own course, or we're going to continue to live in a place where we're not sure if our kids are going to have a better life than we did,” Glenn warns.

Regardless of who you vote for, Glenn says that one thing applies to everyone: “You’ve got to get involved this year,” which includes voting.

Election Day is rapidly approaching, and it will undoubtedly be a night that goes down in history, which is why BlazeTV will be broadcasting it live.

“We’d love to share it with you,” says Glenn.

Go to BlazeElection.com for exclusive access to our election night broadcasting. Your BlazeTV+ subscription also gives you access to all BlazeTV content as well as Blaze News.

“Sign up and be a part of the family as we go through this together,” invites Glenn.

Get $40 off your first year of BlazeTV+ with code ELECTION.

Glenn's Show Prep

Is Al Gore philosophically aligned with an anti-American news network?

Kamala Harris dropped the ball at CNN's town hall

She talked more about Trump than herself.

She missed the opportunity to further define herself.

She gave several radical and dangerous remarks.

Meet Trump's dream team who will make America healthy again

RFK Jr.

Casey and Calley Means

Dr. Robert Redfield

Can fear win the vote? Democrats have a dangerous strategy to demonize Trump.

The Democratic Party’s nominee is deliberately spreading false, fear-driven narratives to turn her base against Donald Trump, regardless of the consequences.

Let’s show the Democrats that our republic doesn’t bend to fear and certainly doesn’t bend to those who twist the truth for political gain.

'Get involved': Here's how YOU can join Glenn on election night