Televangelist and longtime friend of the show,
Pat Robertson has died at the young, young age of 93.
The cause of death was that he was 93, but in all seriousness, his family confirmed
that he has passed away, but they did not give a reason for his passing.
Obviously, he was up there in age.
Now, before we get to some details about his life,
how he became a prominent force within the evangelical movement,
why don't we remember him for who he really was?
>> What is this?
Mac and cheese?
Is that a black thing?
>> It is a black thin, Pat.
>> You might get AIDS in Kenya.
If people have AIDS, you got to be careful.
I mean, the towels can have AIDS.
The Bible says, if any man will not work, let him not eat.
Now that didn't say, if any man will not work,
let him go to the soup kitchen and let the government pick up the tab.
Something happened a long time ago in Haiti.
They got together and swore a pack to the devil.
They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French.
I'm talking about the cheating.
He cheated on you.
Well, he's a man, okay?
There are a bunch of people who are just bombs.
And if these people are out drugging themselves, let them start to do.
>> May he rest in peace, Cenk.
>> Yeah, so look, Pat Robertson was an interesting
cat because he seemed like they described him as a cherub.
He was almost cute, right?
His appearance hold on- >> There's nothing cute
about that appearance.
>> No well, okay, certainly not earlier in his life, but I think later-
>> Who calls him cute?
Who calls him cute, Cenk?
>> No, his name is not Pat, it's Marion.
The reason why his nickname became Pat is because his brothers would pat
him on the cheeks.
Cuz he had big cheeks, okay?
That's where he gets Pat Robertson from.
And then later he actually turned on Trump and
he said that Trump was exhibiting very erratic behavior and
inhabited an alternate reality, okay?
And as he was like doing these crazy but like hilarious things in his eighties and
nineties, we were showing it to you guys on air, etc.
But that is a giant lead up to don't get it twisted.
He's a terrible guy or he was a terrible guy.
>> I love that you front-loaded his cute chubby cheeks [LAUGH] in your comments.
>> Because I'm the fairest man in America.
>> Right.
>> Okay, so look, I think actually the very worst and
there's tons of terrible stuff we're gonna show you in a second.
Was- >> No, we showed you a lot of it.
>> Yeah, I've got more quotes.
>> Okay.
>> But was the one in the middle there, if you noticed.
He said that the Haitians had made a pact
with the devil to be free of slavery.
Like liberating themselves was a devil-inspired thing to do.
Like they should have just remained slaves.
They should have just remained slaves but since they freed themselves,
that Haiti had the earthquake coming to them because of that deal with the devil.
And this was one of the most popular preachers in American history,
people would watch that crap and go, yeah,
those black people after liberated themselves.
How dare they?
That was obviously a deal with the devil.
And America would cheer.
So that's why it's partly brought up like, now he was in his nineties and
people were like, it's okay.
No, it's not okay.
It's not okay.
He was a terrible guy, and he drove this country into a disastrous situation when
he combined Christian nationalism with the Republican Party.
>> Now, he did have some influence.
The show that he hosted was a 700 Club, and I'll tell you a little bit about it.
Not only the impact it had here in the United States but
apparently that show was carried internationally.
So for decades, he was a host of the 700 Club,
a casual talk show that combined hard-right politics, faith healing,
and lifestyle news broadcast in dozens of languages and in more than 200 countries.
I didn't know about that.
The show made Reverend Robertson the world's most-watched TV preacher,
which, given what he would say is pretty terrifying.
Now, Robertson often predicted doom for
those he deemed insufficiently righteous and attributed natural disasters and
other calamities to perceived political and moral failings.
For instance, when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005,
he suggested the storm was God's punishment for legal abortion.
>> And you would believe that if you were mentally insane, like a total lunatic.
And guys so he actually was super privileged.
He grew up the son of a congressman and senator and went to Yale Law School.
Very, very privileged, okay?
But at some point he turned to religion and he started speaking in tongues.
I have a translation for that.
It's called losing your mind, okay?
So now some people get offended if you're Pentecostal and
you believe that when I speak in tongues, it's God speaking through me.
No, you should go see a therapist because that means you're either on
the precipice or you have already lost your mind.
You're in a completely alternate reality.
There is no such thing as speaking in tongues.
God's not speaking through you, okay?
So he took that turn where he's like, all right, I'm now a lunatic, right?
And unfortunately, he took a huge portion of the country with him
cuz the minute he started the 700 Club- >> And the Christian Coalition.
>> Right. >> Yeah.
>> He was a huge part of turning the Republican Party into
a fundamentalist, crazed Christian Party, okay?
Before, Christians didn't wanna get into politics.
Pat Robertson is one of the guys who convinced them to get into politics, so
they could basically damage people they don't like.
And I got more evidence of that in a second.
But if you think Hurricane Katrina was because of legal abortion and
made God angry and wanted to punish the poor people of New Orleans who had nothing
to do with abortion in the first place.
Okay, well, yeah, you're a lunatic.
And so in the old days, if you said that they would drive you from media.
How could you say that?
That is the revered Reverend Pat Robertson.
Sorry, those rules are nonsense.
>> Now, in 1988, he was seeking the GOP presidential nomination.
He was running for president.
And at some point in that primary, he actually did well.
And then something stood in the way.
So according to this obit written in the Washington Post,
Robertson had a deeper campaign war chest than any candidate except
the eventual president, George H W Bush.
But members of his old Marine Corps unit,
including former Congressman Pete McCloskey, Republican from California,
came forward to say he had exact this is so quaint.
Very sweet.
He came forward to say that Robertson had exaggerated his record in the Korean War.
Robertson filed a $35 million slander lawsuit against McCloskey but
he later dropped it.
Anyway, apparently, that caused enough damage.
Robertson was actually doing well.
He finished ahead of Bush in the Iowa caucuses, but
the embarrassing episode over his military record helped derail his campaign,
and he quit the race after running poorly in the early primaries.
>> Yeah, so now let me get to more of his heinous stuff.
In 2005,
he said that we should assassinate President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
And then when challenged on and he's like, wow, is that what Jesus would do?
I thought he would turn to other cheek, not murder people, right?
He said no.
I said take them out.
You could also mean kidnapping.
That was his explanation for wow, that sounds much better.
Appreciate it.
He says he supports Israel, but don't get it twisted either.
At the end, Israel needs to be destroyed and demolished in Armageddon.
And he thought that a secret cabal of Jews and Freemasons ruled America.
So a deep anti Semite.
And my whole life,
I've been seeing Pat Robertson cuz I've been covering politics for 25 years.
And the mainstream media for
about 20 of those years would kiss this guy's ass 24 7.
And if you said that guy's anti-Semitic and
actually believes that all the Jews should die at the end and
that they secretly run the country, they'd be like, how dare you quote him?
No, you have to have more reverence for the Reverend Pat Robertson.
And he loves Israel, okay?
So I'm so glad we're past that total propaganda about this awful guy.
He said Hinduism was demonic.
He said feminism was, quote, a socialist anti-family political movement
that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children,
practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.
>> I like the intersectionality of that argument.
Lots of issues packed into one ridiculous lunatic statement.
>> Yeah, and I didn't know that feminists were that powerful.
Jesus, they sound like the most powerful force on earth.
September 11, of course, was because of non-believers,
abortion providers, feminists, and gay people, of course.
But funny enough, it turns out, Mr, you have to be appropriate in sex.
When he was younger and before he was married had lots of girlfriends, okay?
And we'd go clubbing in New York all the time.
And when he and his beloved Dee Dee Robertson got married,
she was six months pregnant.
>> I didn't know that.
>> Yeah, of course.
He's like, no, you don't do premarital sex.
That is very naughty.
That'll lead to hurricanes and liberating black people, it's terrible.
I mean, of course, I get to do it.
Don't be crazy.
>> I guess he really did have those sweet cheeks.
>> [LAUGH] Last thing,
he made hundreds of millions of dollars from that broadcasting network.
And because he helped dictators like Mobutu Sese Seko
in Congo do gold and diamond mining.
Because that's what Jesus would have wanted.