Jimmy Dore

Dore has made appearances on late-night television on shows such as ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live!, CBS's The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, and NBC's Late Friday. He was the lead performer in a Comedy Central Presents half-hour special on April 9, 2004, and Comedy Central's Citizen Jimmy, a one-hour stand-up special which was chosen "Best of 2008" by iTunes. He was a writer–performer for the off-Broadway hit The Marijuana-Logues. He has also performed at Just for Laughs in Montreal, the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the Amsterdam Comedy Festival, and for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.[4] Dore had a role in the 2008 documentary film Super High Me and hosted the podcast Comedy And Everything Else with his wife Stefane Zamorano and previously with Todd Glass, who departed from the show in late 2009.

Much of his material is focused on the corporate news media, social criticism, and politics. He also hosts his monthly show, Left, Right & Ridiculous, at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Hollywood. Dore's first book, Your Country Is Just Not That Into You, was published in 2014. A comedy special, Sentenced to Live, was released on October 6, 2015.

In June 2009, he began producing The Jimmy Dore Show, a weekly one-hour comedic look at the news, which originates at KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles, airs nationally on the Pacifica Radio Network. It aired online on TYT Network from 2009 to 2019. Dore appeared as a frequent guest host on Current TV's political commentary show The Young Turks with Cenk Uygur. Dore continued working with Uygur on The Young Turks as it became an on-line network. In July 2017, Dore began hosting his own show on the network called "Aggressive Progressives."[5]

Dore supported Bernie Sanders' campaign in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries, being called "Sanders-obsessed" by The Washington Post.[6] He was critical of Senator Elizabeth Warren for not endorsing Sanders in the primaries.[7]

In 2016, Dore said a Hillary Clinton presidency would be worse for progressives than a Donald Trump presidency, saying "don't freak out about a Donald Trump presidency! I think, in fact, my theory is that it's even better for progressives in the short-term, meaning in the two-year term, and in four years for sure."[8][9]

A Washington Post article in January 2017 stated that since the presidential election, Dore had "lit into Democrats for blaming hackers for their loss, raised doubts about the credibility of intelligence agencies, and seen the heavy hand of war hawks hyping the Russia connection to destabilize Europe and the Middle East."[10] Dore has been a staunch critic of the Special Counsel investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.[11]

On April 13, 2019, during a livestream, Dore officially announced his departure from The Young Turks Network, citing a desire to focus on his own show and his live performances.[12]

In a July 2020 video, Dore erroneously said Joe Biden had once "hosted a black face affair with a bunch of rich white people" before Dore showed an altered clip circulating on social media since January which had darkened the face of black singer Jerome Powell.[13][14] One day after the video was uploaded it received over 100,000 views, and has since been removed from YouTube.[13]

In December 2020, Dore began circulating a plan to make Nancy Pelosi's re-election as House Speaker conditional on Medicare for All receiving a floor vote. The plan was endorsed by Justin Jackson of the Los Angeles Chargers and political commentators Krystal Ball and Briahna Joy Gray.[15] Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized the proposal to use her leverage for scheduling a vote that was unlikely to pass.[16] Dore told his viewers Ocasio-Cortez was "standing between you and health care" and, in response to her argument that progressive breakthroughs require years of organising, Dore said "I figured this out in two weeks, AOC! You liar. You coward. You gaslighter."[9] Journalists David Sirota and Ryan Grim also joined the debate to suggest that progressives should use their leverage for other purposes.[17] Dore and his supporters countered that the formality would help to cement the public record about which elected officials oppose popular reforms.[18][19]

In January 2021, according to Newsweek, Dore conducted a "largely uncritical" interview with a member of the far-right extremist Boogaloo movement.[20] The interview aired soon after the storming of the United States Capitol.[20]

In 2014, Dore expressed doubt in the official narrative of the 9/11 attacks, saying "I don't know what happened. I know what didn't happen. What didn't happen is what the government said happened."[21][20] According to Newsweek, Dore has falsely suggested that Hillary Clinton has Parkinson's disease.[20]

In May 2017, Dore discussed conspiracy theories over the murder of Seth Rich and questioned statements by law enforcement and Rich's family.[20][22] Dore cited a retracted Fox News story to substantiate his claims, and continued to insist that there were "a lot of red flags" and there "is probably something more to this story" including after the Fox News retraction.[23] In December 2020, an article in New York magazine said Dore's discernment was questionable due in part to his "promotion of conspiracy theories implicating the DNC in Seth Rich's death".[9]

The investigative journalism site Bellingcat reported in 2019 that Dore had received $2,500 from The Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees in 2017, described by Bellingcat as a pro-Assad lobby group.[24] In 2017, Dore argued that the Syrian government's chemical weapons attack on the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhun was likely to have been a "false flag," orchestrated by groups opposed to Bashar al-Assad.[24]

In 2018, an article published in CNNMoney described Dore's show as "a far-left YouTube channel that peddles conspiracy theories, such as the idea that Syrian chemical weapons attacks are hoaxes".[25] Dore responded by saying of his show that, "We actually debunk conspiracy theories like the one that says Assad gassed his own people".[26]