Al Gore has agreed to his first TV interview since pocketing a reported $100 million from the sale of his struggling cable channel, Current, to Al Jazeera, the Arab news service.
Gore is set to appear next Tuesday on the “Today” show and David Letterman and on Wednesday on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
Ostensibly, Gore is promoting a new book, “The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change,” that trashes TV news.
Al Jazeera, which is owned by the government of oil-rich Qatar and is widely regards as anti-American, bought Current last month for a reported $500 million.
Gore has so far refused to publicly defend the sale — which, according to some reports, left him richer than GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney — to a new owner that made its money selling fossil fuels.
Gore campaigned for years against global warming he claims is caused by those fuels.
He even insisted the deal be completed before the end of 2012 to avoid the biggest tax bite coming this year, according to reports
Staffers at the left-leaning cable channel — which aired Keith Olberman’s show briefly and now anchors its primetime schedule with liberal Joy Behar — were incensed not just by the sale but Gore’s refusal to appear before his own employees to explain it or answer questions about future job prospects.
— Michael Shain