Citation Needed - Pat Robertson

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson (March 22, 1930 – June 8, 2023) was an American media mogul, religious broadcaster, political commentator, presidential candidate, and Southern Baptist minister. Robertson advocated a conservative Christian ideology and was known for his involvement in Republican Party politics. He was associated with the Charismatic movement within Protestant evangelicalism. He served as head of Regent University and of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

I don't think they made Gwen Stacy trans. I'm not saying they made her trans, I'm saying they made it a possibility. Look at the color palette they use for her and the flag. I just think you're reaching a little bit. I thought it was Kevin Spacey. Oh, okay, Tom. You did Spider-Man two weeks in a row Noah. Oh my gosh.

Okay, you guys are here. Hello. Hi. Hey Eli. What's with the big curtain? I hate it when he has the big curtain. No, you guys are gonna like Hello! Hi! Hey Eli. What's with the big curtain? I hate it when he has a big curtain. No, no, you guys are gonna like this one. Trust me. So, you know how this week's episode is about Pat Robertson?

Yeah. And of course, we are edgy atheist comedians, unafraid to really push the boundaries of humor. Say it like that, I hate that description. Yeah, I know you didn't say racist, but it's sound like you were calling us racist just now. No, no, we're not racist. but we are, I'm afraid to push the boundaries of humor. So what better way to show that than doing this week's

episode with Dr. Dada Pat Robertson's corpse, huh? To the hum. No, guys, guys, guys, think of all the edgy stuff we could do we can we can kick him and we can mush his face around I can do a puppet voice that's right. You know I was a real sack of shit. It's gonna be amazing It's gonna really really good dude Eli that that's super funny. It's just that that's not Pat Robertson That's Robert Pattinson You from from Twilight. Oh, I wondered why he looked so young. Yeah, and he was definitely alive.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. No, I assumed he was like a zombie or something and that like it was lucky that I got there in time and I had this shovel. So I just sort of went to town with the shovel on him and I was like, well, he wasn't and you didn't. Yeah. Well, obviously, I see that now. Any chance Robert Pattinson's dead body would have any relevance to this week's episode about Pat. I probably don't do. He's just an actor. Yeah. No, I figured. Oh boy. My face is red.

Yeah, you got Robert Pattinson's blood all over it. No, but underneath it, now, too. Do you experience that emotion? Not evidence suggesting you don't. Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts. Because this is the internet, and that's how it works now. I'm Eli Bosnick and I'll be leading this funeral dance party, but I'll need some fellow

revelers. First up, a man who hated p-robes before it was cool. No illusions. Yeah, I mean, it is, it is someone, all your examples of how old you aren't to keep dying, right? It's a damn close man. Also joining us tonight, two men who are still mad that the 700 Club is in a sandwich, Keith and Todd. Everything is a sandwich if you're willing to bite hard. I would eat a cannibal sandwich if it was a piece of pet opportunity. A bacon in there. Absolutely.

Unity as a podcast. Before we begin tonight, I'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons. Patrons literally 0% of our audience give us 10% of their income, but some of you give us some of your income. And for that, we promise not to retire until we're 90. And if you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around till the end of the show. And with that another way, tell us, Tom, this is the big one, the episode for which all

other shows will be worth it. Tell us what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event. We'll be talking about today. Today we will be talking about the original Cryptkeeper now kept in a crypt. Pat Robertson. And Noah, you've been preparing for this day for a time that would put a vengeful samurai to shame. Are you ready to unleash Bhattosa?

It that means talking about what a piece of shit Pat Robertson is, then yes, I am ready to do that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Wikipedia, but I'm actually going to be drawing from two separate articles for this one. One is of course the entry for Pat Robertson. That one is about 4,000 words, Joshi. The other is the completely separate entry for Pat Robertson controversies, which clocks in it over 8,000 words and has no fewer than 35 separate headings. And on top of that, of course, like everyone else here, I'm also going to be drawing from all the knowledge gained from a decade plus career of making fun of him.

Yeah, I searched for Pat Robertson on the Google Drive of our scripts, and it just returned our script. Yeah, all of them in the world. So, Marion Gordon Robertson was born in Lexington, Virginia on March 22nd of 1930, which is a really long, fucking time ago. Ha ha ha ha. Right, so this motherfucker is older than FM radio, helicopters, and parking meters. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha So the first time he read a book paperbacks hadn't been invented yet Right the first time he wrote with a pen. He would have been dipping it in a fucking well and can I say He had the morals to show for yeah, never updated those know

You know the pen thing isn't surprising since he's become obsessed with where people were dipping their quills for the next 80 Yeah, he came by and honest. So Marion's dad, Absalom Willis Robertson, was a Democratic senator back when Democratic meant racist. His mom was Gladys Churchill Robertson. She's listed in the Wikipedia article as a housewife and a musician. And apparently he earned his nickname Pat at a very young age. The Wikipedia says that it came from his six-year-old brother who loved to give him pets on the cheek while saying, Pat, Pat, Pat, when Pat was a baby. I have

no idea how people get named. That's not how names happen. Yeah. I have no evidence to directly dispute that, but I also have a big brother. So I would bet a fucking finger that the true origin was more embarrassing and sinister than that, but yeah, absolutely. Why wouldn't there just be a lot of adults around me called like Gucci, Gucci, Gucci, Gucci, other people? Right, yeah, right. Stupidest shit I ever heard. Who's doing some weird shit with butter or something?

Something weird. Well, regardless of how he got it, he thought Marion sounded too girly, so as soon as he was old enough to express a preference preference he insisted that people call him Pat oh you didn't like how that got assigned it birth you fucking think you know that did you stay consistent on that forever so Pat went to good schools growing up daddy had money and power so his kid went to the finest of preparatory schools and shit. This would ultimately culminate in a law degree from Yale, though he would fail in his first and only attempt at the bar exam. His education was delayed however long the way when the nation reinstated the draft in 1948.

Pat joined the Marines where either he saw some real action and performed bravely under fire or the congressman who served with him and said that pat was lying about the details of his military career was right uh... now now i was in well i know it's one of this roberson would eventually sue that congressman peat mcclossi junior for libel uh... but then he would later drop the suit not because it had no chance of success mind you was different he wanted uh to he was busy with other stuff

Don't worry podcast listener. He's still dressed up in various degrees of soldier cosplay whatever it was helpful for TV Yes, right. Yeah, okay, Pat and now we're going to you enter the discovery phase of our proceedings Where we'll establish the basic factual did he just run away? phase of our proceedings where we'll establish the basic factual did he just run away. Also, you didn't join the Marines if they just did the draft. That's not you join. So in 1956, Pat's life would change forever when he met Dutch missionary and author Cornelius Vanderbregan, who convinced the 26 year old unemployed and overrated. It sounds like a fucking racist rooster cartoon. You're something like this.

What? Vander, Vanderbregan. Yep, that's him. Oh, you know the song. So he knows this guy. He knows this racist cartoon chickens. So yeah, so no, but Vanderbredgan convinced the 26 year old unemployed and overeducated Robertson to turn his life over to Jesus and thereby make a fuck ton of money. So Pat enrolled in the Bible Seminary in New York

where he would receive a Master's of Divinity degree in 1959. Two years later, he would be ordained a minister of the Southern Baptist Church because they have way lower standards than the New York Bar Association. Yeah, I mean, something tells me a guy whose dad was named Absalom was probably already a little Christian, but yeah, it's a weird power that Christians have to turn Christian despite being Christian, yeah. So now you may have noticed at this point that Pat Robertson clearly had a fuck ton of family money, right? Like at least enough that he was able to get done with Yale Law School and go, you know, I think I'd like to spend some more

money on whatever the opposite of education is to, you know, go the other way for a while. And then upon earning his divinity degree and still not having a fucking job, he also had plenty of money to buy the license to a defunct UHF station near Virginia Beach. Cool, yeah, classic riches, the richest head. Yep. Boots trapped mine from dad, great job. UHF station, I am very excited for the weird al cameo coming up in this city. Right?

Very. So now as a- I want Pat Robertson to drink from the firehouse. All right now so as a great reminder of just how fucking old I am I should explain what a UHF station is so these were like the UHF stations were stations with more limited broadcast ranges than their accompanying VHF stations it that existed in major media markets. They were basically the equivalent of mom and pop TV channels that mostly had either

old syndicated crap or educational programming or religious shit. Pats of course would be religious shit. From that UHF stations, WYAH TV, Robertson would build the Christian Broadcasting Network, which would go on to make him one of the wealthiest religious leaders in American history. So the CBN started broadcasting in October of 1961, and you have to understand that this is the very dawn of televangelism. Okay, so like even the word televangelism was brand new, having only been coined in 1958 as the title of a Southern Baptist Convention miniseries. in 1958 as the title of a Southern Baptist Convention miniseries. So Pat was on the absolute leading edge of this shit. And he was one of the people that really helped to create the modern stereotype of the sleazy

televangelist. In the early parts of his career, he was such a blatant huckster that in his eulogy, the guardian described him as, quote, almost a caricature of a snake oil salesman. End quote. Bill, you're gonna want to put an almost in there. We don't want to insult snake oil salesman. You're gonna be a liar soon. So now included in the huxedrism of his early career was,

of course, prolific work in the sinister con of faith healing. You know, where people with very real medical problems are told that they don't need doctors anymore because your prayer just healed them. One of his producers would eventually grow so disillusioned by the blatant Khan artistry that he'd write a book exposing Robertson's fraud called Salvation for Sale where he pointed out among other things the way Pat's ability to perform miracles always seem to coincide with the television broadcast schedule oh i'm sorry that god works through me at prime time usually at the street a lot because he cares because god cares about hearing the cancer that he invented yeah god wants a lesser audience like a smaller like No, it's not taking a bullshit slot. This is America

Now it's worth noting that despite Robertson's miraculous ability to cure cancer and Give sight to the blind and whatnot the station wasn't an immediate success Huh feels like that would do it though if anything was gonna do it right? Yeah But five years after its launch, it famously faced bankruptcy. So Pat held a teleath on seeking $10 a month donations from 700 viewers to keep the operation afloat. The teleath on yield did not just the money to save them from bankruptcy,

but it also gave the station the name for its flagship show, The 700 Club. So we got our start in the entertainment business on the Pat Robertson model. Yo, love it or hate it That appears to be the truth one second adding a patreon category right now We were the one club with apropos. I should also place all of this culturally right so Pat's televangelism career is ramping up place all of this culturally, right? So Pats Televangelism career is ramping up kind of at the height of the civil rights movement. At a time when the country's two major political parties are realigning, right?

This would be the beginning of the so-called Southern strategy where Republicans basically said, uh, hey, we'll take be in the racist ones if the Democrats don't want it anymore. If they're giving up dibs. Yeah. Okay, but what if they want it still, but just, you know, quieter? Well, Republicans would take it then too, as it turns out, yeah. You're gonna finish that racism? Oh, yeah. That's cool. And so, and, and of course, Pat Robertson was a prominent voice in that

realignment. Robert P. Jones, the guy who started the Public Religion Research Institute, called Robertson one of the chief architects of the highway between the Democratic and Republican Party through the 60s and 70s. Yeah, awful. Like I know he wasn't officially in the clan, but if you're driving right next to him on a highway and you built the highway, it's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, you are. Yeah, you are. You're in it.

And so, and I know this is hard to believe from today's vantage point, but back then, the highly visible religious leaders largely stayed out of politics. And they did so for the same reason that fucking restaurant chains stay out of politics, mostly like why divide the brand if you don't have to? But Robertson kept politics at the exact

Center of his ministry and that made him one of the first people in the media world to truly recognize the profit margins that go along with catering to white fragility and that made him a millionaire a hundred times over at least So in 1977 the Christian broadcasting network was spin off its own cable channel called the CBN Satellite Service, but very quickly they realized the advantage of people not knowing right away that it was a Christian network and they renamed it the Family Channel. That venture quickly grew so lucrative that it couldn't stay under the umbrella of Robertson's tax exempt operation. So he sold it to Rupert Murdoch for $1.9 billion in 1997. Now it would trade hands in the entertainment world a couple more times. It would be re-dubbed ABC family and most

recently in 2016, it would be rebranded as freeform. But throughout all of this, whether it was being produced by Fox or ABC or Disney or whatever, because of the contract that Robertson originally signed with Rupert Murdock in the 90s, the station has been required to continue airing both the 700 club and the Christian Broadcasting Network's annual telethought. Yeah, horrible. But at least Disney learned their lesson about contracts from that. And now Ron DeSantis can't change the Disney zoning rules until the house of Windsor stops. That's right, right, the world.

What is the fucking telephone pitch when you're worth billions though? Right, okay, we're gonna need y'all to donate. We promised the CPAs that count our money. We'd send them to the Meldives. Right, yeah. Well, no, the pitch was, I'll cure your cancer with it. You know, that was the whole thing.

Yeah. So no, it's worth taking a second to soak in just how fucked up it is that Disney is shilling for Pat Robertson Station. Because again, this motherfucker started as a faith healer. In 1976, he started regularly guaranteeing his audience that Jesus was gonna return and judge the world in 1982. In fact, his, no, no, as it turns out. Okay.

In fact, his apocalypse flameout was so infamous that in 2011, he and several other, you know, apocalypse predictors were awarded a joint ignoble prize for, quote, teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations and quote, you know, all those apocalypse profits always herald a date and find themselves camping out. All right.

Yes. Harold camping. Nice. Idiot. By 1988, he was desperate. You the math better. Yep 1988, he was desperate. You're the math better. Yep. You're going to add.

But by 1988, Pat Robertson was desperate to put both the faith healing and end his nigh portions of his career behind him and focus on his latest effort in influencing American politics. Because in 88, after watching a B list Hollywood actor fucked the country sideways from the Oval Office for the last eight years and be Beloved because of it. He realized that if Ronnie could do it anybody could so he decided to run for president All right, well, I don't think Pat Robertson was president and was president. So, I'm just thinking about the second half of the essay. Also, he dies, so that's that to look into. Either way, we're going to take a quick break for some apropos of nothing.

Alright folks, come on up here. It's time for Miracle Healing. Yes, you young sir. What's your realness? Wow Pat Robertson. Yes indeed. Really you. Yes, how can I help you? Ah yeah, so just sitting in the audience watching you cure all these people, watching them throw away their heart medicine and diabetes stuff. It's so amazing what you do. You got it, it's great. Now what can I do for you? Yeah, so I lost my leg in the war. Your leg?

Yep. Yep, so what do you say? Help me out? Oh, um, well how did you lose it? I was saving a baby from a suicide bomber. Jesus, Mary, Joseph. Okay, well, um, God doesn't really do legs per se. Oh, oh, well, I lost some fingers too.

Let me finish, let me finish, don't interrupt, please. He doesn't do blown off stuff. Oh. Son, do you have maybe any invisible conditions, something people couldn't like, film getting better? Hmm, not really, no. Oh.

All right then, well I guess you should. I have terrible PTSD. Can you cure that? Nope. I cannot, sorry. Sure, yeah. No, it's okay. It's no problem. Sorry. It's no big deal. Really? Not a big deal.

I'm the worst possible person. Seems like you really found the bedrock, yeah. Right? And we're back. When we left off Disney gave the worst possible kind of charlatan an international satellite based platform. How did that work out for him Noah? They just let him keep it. But yeah, so now I would love to tell you that Pat Robertson was just a joke candidate

in the 88 Republican primary, but he wasn't. Despite the fact that his campaign promise included not allowing anybody who wasn't Christian or Jewish into his administration, he would end the contest with the second most delegates, and in the first contest in Iowa, he would finish way ahead of eventual nominee George Bush senior. But ultimately, his presidential bid was no more successful than his apocalypse prediction, And he did drop out of the race before the end of the primaries. And we never relied on the insane results of I was jackass political primaries. I have a round hour lesson. Listen, if anybody's going to win like, okay,

cook it. It would be like Pat Robertson. Exactly. Right. Got cancer carrying over here. Can't secure it over here. Come on over to cancer. Karen, can't secure it over here. Yeah, now and I should point out he didn't win. He just took second place. Bush took fourth, I think, and that one.

But, but just because he was out of the presidential race didn't mean he was out of politics. As the host of the 700 club, Robertson would maintain a powerful voice in evangelical and therefore Republican circles into his nineties. And as he was recording Republican voters and conservative politicians, he was also courting controversy. So at this point, I want to shift gears to the Pat Robertson Controversies article that I mentioned earlier.

And we're going to start in 1986 when he famously called non-Christians termites. So, yeah, so this comment came in an interview with New York magazine and apparently the point he was making was that termites don't build things of their own. Instead they come in and destroy shit that other people built. The analogy being of course that Christians built America and now all we heathens and godless commies are coming to destroy it. Yep, deal with it. That is exactly what's happening. All that, we're stealing your country and eating your wood, fucking deal with it. I mean, thank God nobody but a Christian

has ever had to eat Pat Robertson's wood. Yeah, what? That's what it's like. Yeah, it's also not for nothing, but termites pretty famously build quite a lot of work. Yes, they do. That's the thing you look almost anything that each shit you would have been okay with,

but he picks one of the four animals that famously build shit. You know, like the lazy beaver. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But he didn't reserve his bigotry solely

for non-Christians. In 1991, he attacked several Protestant faiths as well. Specifically, he complained that they say your quote, supposed to be nice to Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing, nonsense, I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist. Antichrist.

Antichrist. Okay, if Methodists are the spirit of the Antichrist, he's really slow-rolling his master plan as he's like, right? Right? Okay, first we're gonna sing songs and Easter and have a big roast in a block party and then we'll enslave all humanity.

That's, now of course, when it comes to religious bigotry, he reserved his highest level of vitriol for Muslims. He denounced Islam so frequently that I'm not going to bother to point to a specific date or whatever, but throughout his career he said that Muhammad was, quote, an absolute wild-eyed, fanatic, a robber, and a brigand. A milk toast, barbarian, and Haberdashir. He also said that Islam added its courtigious violence and in addition to this, he also said some untrue

stuff about that religion as well. Like that Islam was... I mean, it stopped cloning. Right, right. Now, he also said that Islam was satanic, that it was a Christian heresy and that it was, quote, motivated by demonic power and quote and don't dare think that he left Hindus out in 1995 he attacked them on a show where he called Hinduism a demonic form of idol worship and said that belief in Hinduism across India had quote put the nation in bondage to spiritual forces that have deceived many for thousands of years." Hear that, India? It was in England that put you in bondage. It was that...

Pagan faith of yours. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure the Hindu people of India are fighting the demonic Christian heretics of Islam in India, right? Right? Yeah, and the Muslims are fighting the pagan idol worshipers of Hinduism in India. They're both your allies, Now for some reason, the Pat Roberts and controversy page lumps his derogatory comments about feminism, homosexuality, abortion, and liberalism together in one subheading, though each could easily get their own. He wants to describe feminism as a, quote, socialist anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.

End quote. Okay, for the record, I feel like that's way more accurate than eat hot chip and lie and I am. Yeah. I'm in for all of that. Devoris abortion witchcraft eat the rich lady sex eat hot chip lie. That's like a delightful little Saturday. That's great. Sure. So, let's see, in the way of the abershafell decision in 2015, he likened gay marriage to bestiality. And in one of my favorite moments in his career, in 1998, he predicted that

Hurricane Bonnie, which was bearing down on Florida at the time, was going to hit Disney World as holy retribution for their acceptance of privately sponsored gay days. I know what's gonna happen. The hurricane would turn northward and actually come ashore in Virginia Beach, which is where his studios were located. Okay, that looks bad from a thing. However, timeout interference with my angle. I was my angle, it was charged.

Now, I'd say that my nomination for the worst thing he ever said came in 2013 when he claimed that members of the gay community in san francisco were intentionally infecting people with aides using poisoned rings with secret needles uh... what is he picturing physically does that need to look like uh... What is he picturing physically does that needle look like? In words, I said on the inside of the ring just pointing in, I guess, and you shake their hand a lot of mishaps. You would think, yeah, hey man, did you just stab me during our handshake? No, you got to wait six weeks for it to come in the mail or other back of a comic book.

So there's a lot of competition obviously for the worst thing that he ever said, but that one always really stood out to me. Though it probably wasn't his most controversial statement, I feel like that award goes to the words, I totally concur, which was his response to Jerry Falwell coming on his show to blame 9-11, unquote, pagans abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the American civil liberties union, and the people for the American way. End quote. Man, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson in the same studio.

Now there's a world improving earthquake. Right? Huh? I believe it was a satellite interview. But yes, yeah, no, still, still. Good about a big earthquake. Now, of course, Robertson's bigotry didn't always conform to our preconceived notions of prejudice He was something of a bigotry pioneer if I do say so myself

So in addition to going after the usual suspects like feminists liberals in the LGBTQ community He also threw us occasional curveballs like when he called Scotland a dark land that was overrun by gays Or the time that he blamed the devastating 2010 earthquake and and Haiti on the fact that early Haitian leaders had quote signed a pact with the devil and quote sounds like somebody about a time share Scotland is a dark land. Have you met a Scott? Call them what you little bit of all the adjectives. Dark is not going to leave us to mind. No, not mine.

It's sharing. Now, to this point, you could be forgiven for thinking, come on Noah, sure this guy was a terrible bigot who helped set in motion the very force that our nation is being crushed beneath as we speak. but it's not like he buttied up with war criminal dictators in african provided them with the funds to exploit their country's natural resources while turning a healthy profit for himself but that's only because i haven't mentioned former president of library

ria and convicted war criminal Charles Taylor yet. Oh God. Who Robertson repeatedly defended on the 700 club without ever mentioning that he was heavily invested in a Liberian gold mine that was directly financing Taylor's regime. Hey Pat, maybe tone it down with the evil thing you're doing and smuggle some apartheid crew grand instead. If you're going to invest in some, you know, ethical gold said the bad guy from lethal weapon to to bedrovers. Yes, yes.

But defending a guy who, Mel Gibson, I was the, I'm sorry, there's no way Mel Gibson doesn't own crew grants. There's no shout. No doesn't own crew grants. There's no shout. No, you're right. You're right. Absolutely. But defending a guy whose reign of terror included rape slavery and child soldiers might actually not have been his least moral action vis-à-vis Africa.

In 1994, during the height of the Rwandan genocide, Robertson went on the air to give this impassioned plea for a charity drive called Operation Blessing, which he claimed would be used to fly refugees out of Rwanda to the relative safety of Zaire. And unless we're granting that diamond mining equipment that he owned could count as a refugee if you're flying out of a war zone,

that is not where that money went wound up going. Okay, to be fair, by 1994, you probably needed diamond mining equipment to reach under his jowls. So I think it is. It's just the price of a cup of coffee a day. You could sponsor a blood diamond auger like this one, right? Sarah McLaughlin. Now, I should note that this whole thing was looked at by the Virginia's office of consumer affairs who recommended that Robertson be prosecuted for fraud over it. But Virginia's attorney general at the time, Mark Early issued a report saying that while

Robertson may have made deceptive appeals, he didn't believe they rose to the level of fraud. and may have made deceptive appeals he didn't believe they rose to the level of fraud and i'm sure the fact that robert's and was the single biggest contributor to early's campaign had nothing to do with that decision uh... it's not fraud it's deceit for more yep is what it was and slipper he's loping all that and i'll admit that of all three dozen or so headings on the Pat Robertson Controversious page that I read, none of them got me quite as excited as when I saw leg press claims.

Yes. You know what's coming? Yes, so it's about leg press already crazy. Oh, it's, yeah, it just gets worse from here. So this came about when a then 76 year old Pat Roberts and teamed up with that bastion of retail credibility and integrity GNC to release an age to flying energy shake. And while shilling for this product, Roberts

and claimed that since he started drinking it, he was able to leg press 2,000 pounds Which would be an impressive feat for an athlete in his fucking prime let alone a septiginary and talk show host I genuinely think that if he had said a million bajillion pounds it would have been think that if he had said a million bajillion pounds it would have been less embarrassing. He couldn't leg press the British money two thousand pounds. There's no shot. Two thousand pounds the weight. That's a full grown rhinoceros. He said he can pick up a fucking rhinoceros with his legs at 76. Actually he said I couldn't quite pick up a rhino,

and then I had a shake from GNC, and my legs got all yoked up like a plop-eye, and then I picked up a rhinoceros. Ridiculous. This went literally what happened in the world. Now, okay, so the best part about this is that when he was called out by being to higher fucking universe on this claim He stood by it. He Went so far as to post a video where he proved he could leg press two thousand pounds by leg pressing one thousand pounds And thousand pounds and I don't know shit about tits when it comes to fucking leg presses but people who do Looked at his video and they said that what he was doing definitely doesn't count as leg pressing a thousand pounds Even if we accept his claim that the weight on the machine was equal to a thousand pounds. Yeah So the all-time record is like thirteen hundred. The guy who did that was 21 years old.

He went on to play in the NFL and the blood vessels in that guy's eyeballs burst when he did it. They had to rebuild the leg press he was using just to make it physically possible for the machine to hold the weight, to even do the feet. Did he have a shake from jeans? Right. If he did, shake from GNC? If he did, he would have shot the whole press across the world.

Like a fucking train. Anyway, so all this controversy happened in May of 2006. In June of that year, GNC discontinued Robertson's energy drink without explanation. Can I say, I know that this is about much worse common, but GNC has weird lines. Yeah. Now, of course, to be fair, I should point out that everything Pat Robertson ever said in his entire life wasn't terrible. He did famously push back against young earth creationism, saying that, quote,

you have to be deaf dumb and blind to think that this earth that we live in only has six thousand years of existence to deny the clear record that's there before us makes us look silly and quote he also supported marijuana legalization until some states actually started to legalize marijuana and then he shifted to being opposed to it. Well, I didn't see that happening. Gonna have to backtrack. Unlike the leg press thing. That's...

That's canon, that's canon, guys. And as a quick reminder that he continued to be a dangerous asshole right up to the end, I should point out that the last heading in the controversy's article is about p-robes trying to justify the invasion of Ukraine by explaining that Putin was compelled by god to do his part to fulfill the end time prophecy in israel. The Wikipedia article follows that claim with this delightfully understated gem quote. His claims have been described as having a lack of evidence to support them. He's differently truth able. It's cool. It's so spicy. Don't worry about it. So over the years, he outlived a lot of controversies and he managed to maintain his influence

over the evangelical community through six decades in a smidge of a seventh, but in October of 2021, on the 60th anniversary of CBN's first broadcast, he announced that he would be retiring from the show at the age of 91. Two years later, he would die and there would be much rejoicing. No, too much knowledge. Nobody's actually published a cause of death in this instance, which with celebrities is usually a sign that it was a heroin overdose, so I'm assuming it was that The low-end estimate of his fortune at the time of his death was well over $100 million. I like to believe he was trying to do a leg press when he died A rhino squished him. That's how he's dead

And Noah if you've had to summarize what you learned in one sentence, what would it be? Oh, we're in the wrong business. Tell me about it, man. All right, are you ready for the quiz? Always. All right, Noah, which of the below are real quotes from the past? I like this. This is A, just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews. So liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. Oh my God.

Be about Hugo Chavez. You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting And while giving advice on the 700 club to a woman whose husband cheated on her he had this gem see Like or not males have a tendency to wander a little bit So what you want to do is make a home so wonderful that he doesn't want to wander Rough oh And the fact that you can go through that whole thing without mentioning the one where he said that like you can get demons from Thrift store sweaters that

Oh, yes, I'm can you what did he really say that and can you yeah, he really said that yeah So I'm gonna go with said that recently enough that I remember covering it with Cecil on a cogniz Yeah, I'm gonna go with D, all of the above and then some. All of the above. Yes, indeed. I got bed bugs from that. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. All right, Noah.

As listeners to our other program, the Skaving Atheist already know, Pat Robertson committed one last act of violence against me by dying right at the start of my vacation last month. Right. Why did this happen? A, because there actually is a God, and this is the best way he could think of to punish me, or B, fate was setting us up for when you go on vacation in August with a deadly fire in the conservative Supreme Court justice collector. Oh, I can I can I dare to dream that it's be it's beat. You are usually have to let legally you are allowed to dream.

We say this all the time you have to be allowed to hope. All right, I got one more for you know, um, what the fuck happened to his face? A terrible accident while filming a Honeynut Cheerios commercial. The drizzler went haywire. Lodr is on his face. Never got it off. B, his face got slowly rejected by venom for being too evil as if a bad transplant and renaumat distance himself from that Robertson or see his face died in fear and terrible pain along with the rest of his big itself. Oh, I see. I'm sorry. Can you repeat see again? His face died. I didn't understand it. I just want to hear it again. and terrible, terrible, terrible pain as a rhinoceros crushed down on him slowly, slowly and try to halt,

and then the metal burst apart and he was dead. Cause his bigot self was stupid and a bigot. It's my new porn right here. It is C, but the modified C, the last C. We're gonna release just that audio to the new 700 club page. Oh man. Do it in what you wish.

Correct or something? I don't know. He's dead. Yeah. No, that's nice. All right. Well, the winner is the world because Pat Roberts just said it. I love it. Who do you want to do an essay next week? Tom?

You want to do one. I do want to do one. I think. I was looking at you your bets there and I believe you want he's to do one okay we'll find out it'll be all right well for Tom Cecil Noah Heath and Carl the Pugelpegricorn I'm Eli Bosn. Thank you for hanging out with us today We'll be back next week and by then heath will be an expert on something else between now and then hey if you like Listen to us make fun of our shitty religious people. I've got great news Chaka block full of it check those out cognitive dissonance the scathing a the and D minus, the skeptic rat, and T-Rolt ads. And God off of movies. I forget any.

God off of movies, the author wants God off of movies. Anyway, so you can do those things, check us out, make a per episode donation at patreon.com, slash citation pod, or hey, leave us a five star review everywhere you can. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us in social media, or check the show notes.

Be sure to check out citationpod.com. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Which is why we at the Citation Needed Podcast would like to apologize once again to Robert's friends, family and fans, patent stands, as they prefer to be called. For the careless act of our coworker, we hope that in time you can forgive us and that the brief violent end of Robert's life does nothing to dull his incredible work. I feel like brief violent end as a phrase brings to mind the shovel thing. We want to avoid

that, right? Hmm. Hmm. So just like you think just the end of Robert's life? As a phrase brings to mind the shovel thing, we want to avoid that, right? Mm, mm. So just like you think just the end of Robert's life? Yeah, just end of Robert's life. Yeah, no, okay. All right, cool. You ready to face the press? Yeah.

All right, let's do it. Amazingly keep coming to these press conferences. I don't even know why they come to these. But I mean, you like kills a lot of people. Call forward. What? Nothing, the podcast is over now. Why they come to these?

I mean, you like kills a lot of people. Call forward. What? Nothing, the podcast is over now.