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.

Media cover-up: Why Clinton deported six times more than Trump

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MSNBC and CNN want you to think the president is a new Hitler launching another Holocaust. But the actual deportation numbers are nowhere near what they claim.

Former MSNBC host Chris Matthews, in an interview with CNN’s Jim Acosta, compared Trump’s immigration policies to Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust. He claimed that Hitler didn’t bother with German law — he just hauled people off to death camps in Poland and Hungary. Apparently, that’s what Trump is doing now by deporting MS-13 gang members to El Salvador.

Symone Sanders took it a step further. The MSNBC host suggested that deporting gang-affiliated noncitizens is simply the first step toward deporting black Americans. I’ll wait while you try to do that math.

The debate is about control — weaponizing the courts, twisting language, and using moral panic to silence dissent.

Media mouthpieces like Sanders and Matthews are just the latest examples of the left’s Pavlovian tribalism when it comes to Trump and immigration. Just say the word “Trump,” and people froth at the mouth before they even hear the sentence. While the media cries “Hitler,” the numbers say otherwise. And numbers don’t lie — the narrative does.

Numbers don’t lie

The real “deporter in chief” isn’t Trump. It was President Bill Clinton, who sent back 12.3 million people during his presidency — 11.4 million returns and nearly 900,000 formal removals. President George W. Bush, likewise, presided over 10.3 million deportations — 8.3 million returns and two million removals. Even President Barack Obama, the progressive darling, oversaw 5.5 million deportations, including more than three million formal removals.

So how does Donald Trump stack up? Between 2017 and 2021, Trump deported somewhere between 1.5 million and two million people — dramatically fewer than Obama, Bush, or Clinton. In his current term so far, Trump has deported between 100,000 and 138,000 people. Yes, that’s assertive for a first term — but it's still fewer than Biden was deporting toward the end of his presidency.

The numbers simply don’t support the hysteria.

Who's the “dictator” here? Trump is deporting fewer people, with more legal oversight, and still being compared to history’s most reviled tyrant. Apparently, sending MS-13 gang members — violent criminals — back to their country of origin is now equivalent to genocide.

It’s not about immigration

This debate stopped being about immigration a long time ago. It’s now about control — about weaponizing the courts, twisting language, and using moral panic to silence dissent. It’s about turning Donald Trump into the villain of every story, facts be damned.

If the numbers mattered, we’d be having a very different national conversation. We’d be asking why Bill Clinton deported six times as many people as Trump and never got labeled a fascist. We’d be questioning why Barack Obama’s record-setting removals didn’t spark cries of ethnic cleansing. And we’d be wondering why Trump, whose enforcement was relatively modest by comparison, triggered lawsuits, media hysteria, and endless Nazi analogies.

But facts don’t drive this narrative. The villain does. And in this script, Trump plays the villain — even when he does far less than the so-called heroes who came before him.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Can Trump stop the blackouts that threaten America's future?

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If America wants to remain a global leader in the coming decades, we need more energy fast.

It's no secret that Glenn is an advocate for the safe and ethical use of AI, not because he wants it, but because he knows it’s coming whether we like it or not. Our only option is to shape AI on our terms, not those of our adversaries. America has to win the AI Race if we want to maintain our stability and security, and to do that, we need more energy.

AI demands dozens—if not hundreds—of new server farms, each requiring vast amounts of electricity. The problem is, America lacks the power plants to generate the required electricity, nor do we have a power grid capable of handling the added load. We must overcome these hurdles quickly to outpace China and other foreign competitors.

Outdated Power Grid

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Our power grid is ancient, slowly buckling under the stress of our modern machines. AAI’s energy demands could collapse it without a major upgrade. The last significant overhaul occurred under FDR nearly a century ago, when he connected rural America to electricity. Since then, we’ve patched the system piecemeal, but it’s still the same grid from the 1930s. Over 70 percent of the powerlines are 30 years old or older, and circuit breakers and other vital components are in similar condition. Most people wouldn't trust a dishwasher that was 30 years old, and yet much of our grid relies on technology from the era of VHS tapes.

Upgrading the grid would prevent cascading failures, rolling blackouts, and even EMP attacks. It would also enable new AI server farms while ensuring reliable power for all.

A Need for Energy

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Earlier this month, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt appeared before Congress as part of an AI panel and claimed that by 2030, the U.S. will need to add 96 gigawatts to our national power production to meet AI-driven demand. While some experts question this figure, the message is clear: We must rapidly expand power production. But where will this energy come from?

As much as eco nuts would love to power the world with sunshine and rainbows, we need a much more reliable and significantly more efficient power source if we want to meet our electricity goals. Nuclear power—efficient, powerful, and clean—is the answer. It’s time to shed outdated fears of atomic energy and embrace the superior electricity source. Building and maintaining new nuclear plants, along with upgraded infrastructure, would create thousands of high-paying American jobs. Nuclear energy will fuel AI, boost the economy, and modernize America’s decaying infrastructure.

A Bold Step into the Future

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This is President Trump’s chance to leave a historic mark on America, restoring our role as global leaders and innovators. Just as FDR’s power grid and plants made America the dominant force of the 20th century, Trump could upgrade our infrastructure to secure dominance in the 21st century. Visionary leadership must cut red tape and spark excitement in the industry. This is how Trump can make America great again.

POLL: Is K2-18b proof of alien LIFE in the cosmos?

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Are we alone in the universe?

It's no secret that Glenn keeps one eye on the cosmos, searching for any signs of ET. Late last week, a team of astronomers at the University of Cambridge made an exciting discovery that could change how we view the universe. The astronomers were monitoring a distant planet, K2-18b, when the James Webb Space Telescope detected dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide, two atmospheric gases believed only to be generated by living organisms. The planet, which is just over two and a half times larger than Earth, orbits within the "habitable zone" of its star, meaning the presence of liquid water on its surface is possible, further supporting the possibility that life exists on this distant world.

Unfortunately, humans won't be able to visit K2-18b to see for ourselves anytime soon, as the planet is about 124 light-years from Earth. This means that even if we had rockets that could travel at the speed of light, it would still take 124 years to reach the potentially verdant planet. Even if humans made the long trek to K2-18b, they would be faced with an even more intense challenge upon arrival: Gravity. Assuming K2-18b has a similar density to Earth, its increased size would also mean it would have increased gravity, two and a half times as much gravity, to be exact. This would make it very difficult, if not impossible, for humans to live or explore the surface without serious technological support. But who knows, give Elon Musk and SpaceX a few years, and we might be ready to seek out new life (and maybe even new civilizations).

But Glenn wants to know what you think. Could K2-18b harbor life on its distant surface? Could alien astronomers be peering back at us from across the cosmos? Would you be willing to boldly go where no man has gone before? Let us know in the poll below:

Could there be life on K2-18b?

Could there be an alien civilization thriving on K2-18b?

Will humans develop the technology to one day explore distant worlds?

Would you sign up for a trip to an alien world?

Is K2-18b just another cold rock in space?

Big Pharma’s role in rising neurological disorders: Will RFK Jr. uncover the truth?

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

Our children are sick, and Big Pharma claims to be the cure, but is RFK Jr. closer to proving they are the disease?

For years, neurological disorders in our children have been on the rise. One in nine children in the U.S. has been diagnosed with ADHD, and between 2016 and 2022, more than one million kids were told they suffer from the disorder. Similarly, autism diagnoses have increased by 175 percent over the past decade. RFK Jr. pledged to investigate the rising rates of neurological disorders as Secretary of Health and Human Services, and this week, he announced a major initiative.

Earlier this week, RFK Jr. announced that the HHS has embarked on a massive testing and research effort to uncover the root causes of autism and the sharp spike in recent diagnoses. The HHS Secretary vowed that the results will be available by September of this year, leaving many skeptical about the study's rigor. Conversely, some speculate that the HHS may have unpublished studies revealing critical insights into these disorders, just waiting to see the light of day.

Glenn brought up a recent article by the Daily Wire referencing a New York Times piece in which experts questioned the legitimacy of ADHD diagnoses. Glenn agreed and suggested that people are just wired differently; they learn, work, and study differently, and the cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all school system simply fails to accommodate everyone.

New York Times' ADHD Admission

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Earlier this week, the New York Times published an article that made a shocking admission: there are no concrete biological markers for ADHD. The clinical definition of ADHD is no longer supported by the evidence, and there are no physical, genetic, or chemical identifiers for the disorder, nor is there any real way to test for it. The paper also admitted that people diagnosed with ADHD would suddenly find that they no longer had any symptoms after a change of environment, profession, or field of study. This suggests that "ADHD" might simply be a matter of interests and skills, not a chronic brain sickness.

The most horrifying implication of this admission is that millions of people, including children, have been prescribed heavy mind-altering drugs for years for a disorder that lacks real evidence of its very existence. These drugs are serious business and include products such as Adderall, Ritalin, and Desoxyn. All of these drugs are considered "Schedule II," which is a drug classification that puts them on the same level as cocaine, PCP, and fentanyl. Notably, Desoxyn is chemically identical to methamphetamine, differing only in its production in regulated laboratories rather than illegal settings.

Worse yet, studies show that these medications, like Desoxyn, often provide no long-term benefits. Testing demonstrated that in the short term, there were some positive effects, but after 36 months, there was no discernible difference in symptoms between people who were medicated and those who were not. For decades, we have been giving our children hardcore drugs with no evidence of them working or even that the disorder exists.

RFK Jr's Autism Study

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Autism rates are on the rise, and RFK Jr. is going to get to the bottom of it. In the year 2000, approximately one in 150 children was diagnosed with autism, but only 20 years later, the rate had increased to one in 36. While some claim that this is simply due to more accurate testing, RFK Jr. doesn't buy it and is determined to discover what is the underlying cause. He is an outspoken critic of vaccines, asserting that the true scope of their side effects has been buried by greed and corruption to sell more vaccines.

RFK Jr. doesn't plan on stopping at vaccines. Similar to ADHD, RFK Jr. suspects other environmental factors could increase of autism or exacerbate symptoms. Factors like diet, water quality, air pollution, and parenting approaches are all under investigation. It's time to bring clarity to the neurological disorders that plague our nation, cut through the corruption, and reveal the healing truth.

Neurological Intervention

WIN MCNAMEE / Contributor | Getty Images

Big Pharma has been all too happy to sit back and watch as the rate of neurological disorders climbs, adding to the ever-growing list of permanent patients who are led to believe that their only choice is to shell out endless money for treatments, prescriptions, and doctor visits. Rather than encouraging lifestyle changes to improve our well-being, they push ongoing medication and costly treatments.

All RFK Jr. is doing is asking questions, and yet the backlash from the "experts" is so immense that one can't help but wonder what they could be hiding. Both Glenn and RFK Jr. have their suspicions of Big Pharma, and the upcoming HHS study might be one of the most important steps to making America healthy again.

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