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Matt Lauer grills Al Gore over selling Current TV

January 29, 2013
Wilson

Writer

NBC’s Matt Lauer interviewed Al Gore and, in a rare ‘scattered shower of journalism’ moment, actually got around to asking him some tough questions.

“I don't know what they've done to Matt Lauer. I don't know if they've water-boarded him or if he has just been replicated in a 3 D printer,” Glenn said on radio this morning. “This is one of the only times that I've heard Matt Lauer and I went, ‘that's a question I would have asked.’”

In regards to Gore selling Current TV to Al-Jazeera, Lauer asked:

LAUER: According to reports I've seen, your take on that about $100 million pretax. Was that always just an investment to you? Maybe I was naive.

GORE: Oh, no. No, no. Absolutely.

LAUER: I thought it was something you has an ideological interest in, so why did it become an investment for you in the end?

GORE: Well, it didn't but I'm proud of what my…

“What Matt was trying to say: maybe I was naive but I thought it was an ideological thing. You just sold your network that was all about climate change and everything else and progressivism, you've just sold it to an oil family,” Glenn said. “And [Lauer] says, I thought I was maybe I'm naive, but I thought this was about progressive values. I thought this was about climate with you. But you just sold it to an Islamic regime that makes all of their money destroying the Earth with carbon. Help me out.”

Gore was quick to point out that he is pleased with the work he and partner Joel Hyatt did at Current TV, and he is especially proud that they “won every major award in television journalism.”

“All you've got to be is super progressive and you're going to win those awards,” Pat said.

“Oh, yeah. Just show up,” Glenn added. “Here's what they didn't do: Create anything that anybody watched.”

Current TV was available to nearly 50 million households, which is the reason Glenn and Al-Jazeera were interested in purchasing the network, any yet it averaged about 18,000 people a night in primetime.

“Are you kidding me,” Glenn asked. “Our reruns like in the middle of the night with just DISH and our subscribers are a lot higher than that.”

The hypocrisy runs deep at a lot of these cable companies because networks like Current TV bring in very few viewers but are carried, while TheBlaze TV is only offered one place – on DISH.

Learn how you can request to have TheBlaze added to the AT&T U-Verse channel lineup HERE.

“I mean, [Gore] had 50 million homes. That's why I tried to buy Current. Al Jazeera is not going to do Current. They are going to do Al Jazeera USA. We were going to put TheBlaze on and have 50 million homes. It took him seven years to get 50 million homes. But nobody watched it. Nobody watched it. He's proud of a massive failure, except he got a little trophy? Al, don't you see,” Glenn asked.

Gore went on to tell Lauer that he is proud that Current TV stood as “the only independent news and information network” that could compete in the “age of conglomerates.”

“Independent? He's an independent? Do you know how much money they had coming from other sources,” Glenn asked. “He says, ‘we're having trouble fighting against these conglomerates.’ I'm not. All you have to do is tell the truth. All you have to do is tell the truth. Current never told the truth.”

For his part, Lauer didn’t let Gore off the hook quite so easily.

LAUER: And yet even as you sold to Al Jazeera, you in the book blast other television news programs saying this. Virtually every news and political commentary program is sponsored in part by oil, coal and gas companies. Not just during campaign seasons but all the time year in and year out with messages designed to soothe and reassure the audience that everything is fine, the global environment is not threatened. And the critics jumped. And they said, here's the guy who just sold Current TV to Al Jazeera which gets an undetermined amount of funding from the country of Qatar which gets its money from oil reserves. Isn't there a contradiction in that?

GORE: I certainly understand that criticism. I disagree with it.

“How do you disagree with it,” Glenn asked. “Because I'm trying to do the math on that. There's a lot of times that I can look at somebody's argument and say, okay, I can see how they think that way and I don't think this way because I think this way. I can see that. There's no way. There's no way. If you have a problem with commercials, commercials being on your network, how do you not have a problem with the network being owned by oil people?”

In the interview, Gore goes on to defend the selling of the network “because Al Jazeera has obviously long since established itself as a really distinguished and effective news gathering organization,” but, again, Lauer does not let him get away so easily.

LAUER: But from a country that bases its wealth on fossil fuels and fossil fuels are the enemy, you targeting climate change, isn't there a bit of hypocrisy in that?

GORE: Well, I get the criticism. I just disagree with it because this network has established itself. It's objective. It's won major awards in countries around the world. And its climate coverage as I said a moment ago has been outstanding and extensive.

“So if you have a trophy, if you get a trophy, you can commit whatever global climate scene you want, and Al Gore's all about you,” Pat asked.

“I need a trophy,” Glenn concluded. “I need a trophy because then Al Gore will accept me, and I'll be okay.”

WATCH the interview below:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Did the Left lay the foundations for election denial?

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

Did Glenn predict the future?

Just a few days after the election and President Trump's historic victory, the New York Times published a noteworthy article titled "How Russia Openly Escalated Its Election Interference Efforts," in which they made some interesting suggestions. They brought up several examples of Russian election interference (stop me if you think you've heard this one before) that favored Trump. From there, they delicately approached the "election denial zone" with the following statement:

"What impact Russia’s information campaign had on the outcome of this year’s race, if any, remains uncertain"

Is anyone else getting 2016 flashbacks?

It doesn't end there. About two weeks before the election (October 23rd), Glenn and Justin Haskins, the co-author of Glenn's new book, Propaganda Wars, discuss a frightening pattern they were observing in the news cycle at the time, and it bears a striking similarity to this New York Times piece. To gain a full appreciation of this situation, let's go back to two weeks before the election when Glenn and Justin laid out this scene:

Bad Eggs in the Intelligence Community

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / Contributor | Getty Images

This story begins with a top-secret military intelligence leak. Over the October 19th weekend, someone within the U.S. Government's intelligence agencies leaked classified information regarding the Israeli military and their upcoming plans to Iran. The man responsible for this leak, Asif William Rahman, a CIA official with top security clearance, was arrested on Tuesday, November 12th.

Rahman is one of the known "bad eggs" within our intelligence community. Glenn and Justin highlighted another, a man named Robert Malley. Malley is an Iranian envoy who works at the State Department under the Biden/Harris administration and is under investigation by the FBI for mishandling classified information. While Malley was quietly placed on leave in June, he has yet to be fired and still holds security clearance.

Another suspicious figure is Ariane Tabatabai, a former aide of Mr. Malley and a confirmed Iranian agent. According to a leak by Semafor, Tabatabai was revealed to be a willing participant in an Iranian covert influence campaign run by Tehran's Foreign Ministry. Despite this shocking revelation that an Iranian agent was in the Pentagon with access to top-secret information, Tabatabai has not faced any charges or inquires, nor has she been stripped of her job or clearance.

If these are the bad actors we know about, imagine how many are unknown to the public or are flying under the radar. In short, our intelligence agencies are full of people whose goals do not align with American security.

Conspicuous Russian Misinformation

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

The story continues with a video of a man accusing former VP candidate and Minnesota Governor, Tim Walz of sexual assault. The man alleged to be Matthew Metro, a former student of Walz claimed that he was assaulted by the Governor while in High School. The man in the video gave corroborating details that made the claim seem credible on the surface, and it quickly spread across the internet. But after some deeper investigation, it was revealed this man wasnot Matthew Metro and that the entire video was fake. This caught the attention of the Security Director of National Intelligence who claimed the video was a Russian hoax designed to wound the Harris/Walz campaign, and the rest of the intelligence community quickly agreed.

In the same vein, the State Department put out a $10 million bountyto find the identity of the head of the Russian-owned media company Rybar. According to the State Department, Rybar manages several social media channels that promote Russian governmental political interests targeted at Trump supporters. The content Rybar posts is directed into pro-Trump, and pro-Republican channels, and the content apparently has a pro-Trump spin, alongside its pro-Russia objectives.

Why Does the Intelligence Community Care?

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

So what's the deal? Yes, Russia was trying to interfere with the election, but this is a well-known issue that has unfortunately become commonplace in our recent elections.

The real concern is the intelligence community's uncharacteristically enthusiastic and fast response. Where was this response in 2016, when Hillary Clinton and the Democrats spent months lying about Donald Trump's "collusion" with Russia? It has since been proven that the FIB knew the entire story was a Clinton campaign fabrication, and they not only kept quiet about it, but they even played along. Or what about in 2020 when the Left tried to shut down the Hunter Biden laptop story for months by calling it a Russian hoax, only for it to turn out to be true?

Between all the bad actors in the intelligence community and their demonstrated repeated trustworthiness, this sudden concern with "Russian disinformation" that happened to support Trump was just too convenient.

Laying the Foundations for Election Denial

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

This is when Glenn and Justin make a startling prediction: the Left was preparing for a potential Trump victory (remember, this was two weeks before the election) so they would have something to delegitimize him with. They were painting Trump as Putin's lapdog who was receiving election assistance in the form of misinformation from the Kremlin by sounding the alarm on these cherry-picked (and in the grand scheme of things, tame) examples of Russian propaganda. They were laying the foundation of the Left's effort to resist and delegitimize a President-elect Trump.

Glenn and Justin had no idea how right they were.

Trump's POWERFUL 10-point plan to TEAR DOWN the Deep State

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Since 2016 President Trump has promised to drain the swamp, but with Trump's new ten-point plan, do we finally have a solid roadmap to dismantle the deep state?

In March 2023, President Trump released a video detailing his plan to shatter the deep state. Now that he is the President-Elect, this plan is slated to launch in January 2025. Recently, Glenn reviewed Trump's plan and was optimistic about what he saw. In fact, he couldn't see how anyone could be against it (not that anything will stop the mainstream media from spinning it in a negative light).

But don't let Glenn tell you what to think! Check out Trump's FULL plan below:

1. Remove rouge bureaucrats

U.S. Air Force / Handout | Getty Images

Trump's first order of business will be to restore an executive order he issued in 2020 that allowed him to remove rouge bureaucrats. Trump promises to use this power aggressively eliminate corruption.

2. Clean and overhaul the intelligence apparatus

SAUL LOEB / Contributor | Getty Images

Next, Trump promises to oust corrupt individuals from the national intelligence apparatus. This includes federal bureaucracies like the CIA, NSA, and other agencies that have been weaponized against the left's political opponents.

3. Reform FISA courts 

Handout / Handout | Getty Images

Trump's next promise is to reform the FISA courts, which are courts tasked with reviewing and approving requests to gather foreign intelligence, typically through surveillance. These courts have been unaccountable to protections like the 4th Amendment that prohibits the government from unwarranted surveillance, resulting in severe government overreach on American citizens, both on US soil and abroad.

4. Expose the deep state. 

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

Trump want to establish a "Truth and Reconciliation" commission that will be tasked with unmasking the deep state. This will be accomplished by publishing and declassifying all documents on deep state spying, corruption, and censorship.

5. Crackdown on government-media collusion

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

Next, Trump will crack down on government "leakers" who collaborate with the mainstream media to spread misinformation. These collaborators purposefully interject false narratives that derail the democratic process within the country. The plan will also prohibit government actors from pressuring social media to censor content that goes against a particular political narrative, as was done, for example, in the case of the Biden administration pressuring Facebook to crack down on Hunter Biden laptop-related content.

6. Isolate inspector generals

MANDEL NGAN / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump promises to physically separate every inspector general from the department they are tasked with overseeing. This way, they don't become entangled with the department and end up protecting them instead of scrutinizing them.

7. Create a system to monitor the intelligence agencies

SAUL LOEB / Stringer | Getty Images

To ensure that the intelligence agencies are no longer spying on American citizens, Trump proposed to create an independent auditing system. This auditing system, created by Congress, would keep the intelligence agencies in check from spying on American citizens or political campaigns as they did on Trump's campaign.

8. Relocate the federal bureaucracy

SAUL LOEB / Staff | Getty Images

Relocating the federal bureaucracy, Trump argues, will keep the internal politics of the individual bureaucracies out of the influence of DC. He says he will begin by relocating the Bureau of Land Management to Colorado.

9. Ban federal bureaucrats from taking corporate jobs

J. David Ake / Contributor | Getty Images

To keep money ties out of politics, Trump proposes that federal bureaucrats should be banned from working at the companies that they are regulating. American taxpayer dollars should not go to agencies run by bureaucrats who cut special deals for corporations, who will later offer them a cushy role and a huge paycheck.

10. Push for congressional term limits

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

Finally, Trump wants to make a constitutional amendment placing term limits on members of Congress. This proposal has been popular on both sides of the political aisle for a while, preventing members of Congress from becoming swamp creatures like Nancy Pelosi who was just re-elected for her 19th term.

The Democrats are turning on Biden

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

The election is over, Kamala Harris has officially conceded, and now the Democrats are doing some serious soul-searching.

After reflecting long and hard (approximately 24 hours), the Democrats have discovered the real reason Harris lost the election. Was it Trump's excellent campaign that resonated with voters? Was it Harris's off-putting personality? Or was it her failure to distinguish herself from the Biden administration's failed policies?

No, it was Joe Biden. All the blame lies on President Biden's shoulders. The Left sees no need to take any real responsibility for the landslide defeat the Democrats suffered earlier this week; just pass the blame on to 'ole Joe.

Here are the leading excuses the Left is spinning up to explain Harris's crushing defeat:

"Biden should have dropped out sooner."

Kevin Dietsch / Staff | Getty Images

This is the crux of the left-wing media's argument against Biden. They claim that if Joe Biden had dropped out earlier, Harris would have had more time to campaign and would not have had to carry around the baggage of Biden's abysmal debate performance. This could make sense, but what these commentators are conveniently forgetting are the years of propaganda these very same people promoted arguing that Biden's declining mental acuity was nothing more than a right-wing conspiracy theory. If Biden had been as sharp as they had told us, why would he have dropped out?

Also, if a lack of time was Harris's biggest issue this election, she sure didn't act like it. She was practically in hiding for the first several weeks of her campaign and she took plenty of days off, including during the last few crucial weeks. More time wouldn't have helped her case.

"Harris failed to distance herself from Biden."

Kevin Dietsch / Staff | Getty Images

This is media gaslighting at its finest. Yes, Harris failed to distance herself from Biden. However, that's because she, along with the rest of the Left, publically went on record defending Biden's policies and his mental acuity. By the time Harris became the nominee, she had already said too much in favor of Biden. Don't forget Harris's infamous “There is not a thing that comes to mind,” quote after being asked on The View if she would do anything differently than Biden. In a way, Harris couldn't separate herself from Biden without drawing attention to the greatest flaw in her campaign: if she knew how to fix the country, why hasn't she?

"Harris did the best anyone could have done in that situation."

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

But did she really? As mentioned earlier, she was noticeably absent for much of the campaign. While Trump was busy jumping into interviews, events, and rallies non-stop, Harris was MIA. Whenever Harris did manage to make an appearance, it almost always did more harm than good by highlighting her lack of a robust policy platform and her inability to string together a coherent sentence. Notable examples include her aforementioned appearance on The View and her disastrous interview on Fox News with Bret Baier. The point is, even considering the limited time to campaign she had, Kamala Harris wasnot the best person for the job and there are undoubtedly many other Democrats who would have run a much more successful campaign.

Glenn: I'm filled with hope. And you should be, too.

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

The election was a major blow to draconian globalist organizations. Now, we could have a true rebirth of freedom and the American dream.

Millions of people around the world were holding their breath on election night. I've talked to Europeans to try to get a bead on what’s happening over there. There are Europeans like you and me who are frustrated with their own globalist, tyrannical bureaucracies telling them how to live and what to believe. If Donald Trump didn’t win, where in the world would they look to for hope that this madness would stop? Which leader could they count on to stand in the gap against their globalist elites? They, too, had a lot on the line in our election last night.

But today brings hope, not only in America but for freedom-loving people worldwide.

We need to restore the balance of power in the federal government — the way America’s founders intended.

We know Trump is going to stop the madness at the southern border. He is going to deport serial criminals and sex offenders who entered our country under Biden and Harris' watch. The media will try to convince you that deportations are something akin to Hitler, but they turn a blind eye to their Democratic predecessors who have deported even more illegal immigrants than Trump. In fact, Bill Clinton deported more illegal immigrants than any president in U.S. history, shipping 11 million out of the country in the 1990s. In contrast, Trump deported less than a million during his first term, which is even less than the 1.8 million under the Obama administration.

Deportations of criminals who are in our country illegally is critical to protecting the safety of the American people, a practice that has been exercised by presidents for decades.

Our friends across the pond have been witnessing the destruction of their societies since EU globalists opened Europe's floodgates to immigrants in 2015. Crime is rampant, communities governed by Sharia law are multiplying, and their social programs are being pushed to a breaking point. Tuesday night gave them reason to hope. America is going to say, "No more," and perhaps this will be the rallying cry for our European brothers-in-arms to stand up as well.

The election was also a major blow to draconian globalist organizations. The United States will no longer be beholden to the Paris Climate Accords. Our nation will no longer give credence to the World Economic Forum. We won’t give the World Health Organization a single penny more. All these very well-planned globalist initiatives are going away.

But Trump can't act alone. Thank God we won the Senate. This is an incredible step forward, but for these big plans to come to fruition, we need the House. If the Republicans — actual freedom-loving, Constitution-abiding Republicans — don't have the House, you’re not going to be able to get things done except by executive order, which we don’t want to do. One reason things were so bad during the last four years is that Joe Biden simply signed executive orders to reverse everything that Trump accomplished, completely bypassing Congress. We have to do it the right way. We need to restore the balance of power in the federal government — the way America’s founders intended.

One of the most hopeful things Trump said Tuesday night is that we’re going to enter a new golden era in America. I believe him. He could have said that in 2020, and I wouldn't have believed him as much as I believe him now. That’s because Trump now has a team of people that's not exclusively comprised of politicians.

Bringing in somebody like Elon Musk is one of the most hopeful things for our country I've witnessed in my lifetime. I know that guy can cut spending. I know he will find the waste in our government because he's not a government guy — he's a businessman. He's going to slash all the redundancies that have been justified by career bureaucrats for decades. We have a chance of cutting our budget and creating a reasonable one.

Trump’s promise to cut regulations also spells hope for our country. He cut more regulation in his first term than any other president, but Biden and Harris have since added a mountain of rules. He will have his work cut out for him, but he will get it done. He must if this economy will roar again.

We could have a true rebirth of freedom and the American dream, and I find that really hopeful. So many Americans are tired of worrying about their kids struggling and seeing Bidenomics and regulation yank from their children's hands the possibility of the American dream that they attained. Donald Trump is the biggest chance of bringing it back.

Today, I’m filled with hope. Real, tangible hope. And you should be, too.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.