Pat Robertson transcript

MICHAEL EISNER:
I am really excited to have you on the program for a lot of reasons. One, I’ve --oh, in the last four or five years and spent some time with you because the Walt Disney Company bought the Family Channel, and I've gotten to know you. And I've-- I've learned about you. And-- it's fascinating because you're an entrepreneur.

PAT ROBERTSON:
That's right.

MICHAEL EISNER:
That's the way I look at it. And—

PAT ROBERTSON:
That's right.

MICHAEL EISNER:
You-- unlike some of my guests-- you-- you're-- you're not a rags-to-riches success. You're a educated-- strong family success-success. Phi Beta Kappa-- undergraduate. Father, senator and congressman. Yale Law School. This is not the background that you generally think about that a person would be a minister until you then went to New York Theological—

PAT ROBERTSON:
Yeah.

MICHAEL EISNER:
--School. So did you-- did you even think for a minute when you were working those summers and a young man out on the prowl like most young men that-- I mean that pejoratively. (LAUGHTER) But-- but dating and being inquisitive and having a senator father, did you ever think that you would be going into the-- and creating the world's biggest ministry?

PAT ROBERTSON:
Never.

MICHAEL EISNER:
Occur to you?

PAT ROBERTSON:
Never in my wildest dreams, Michael, that-- never did I think that I-- I thought that-- I'd be a lawyer. My father was a lawyer. And then there were times I thought-- I grew up in politics. I laugh at-- you know, he went to Congress when I was two years old. I said the first word I learned was "mama," then "daddy," then "constituency." (LAUGHTER)(OVERTALK)

PAT ROBERTSON:
--what the constituents had to say. So I-- I grew up in a political environment, you know? Statecraft and my father in Washington-- drafting legislation. And I-- I thought I'd probably-- wind up in politics or in law. But I never, never thought of the ministry nor did-- of course, television when I was growing up, there was no television. So I didn't know anything about it.

MICHAEL EISNER:
All right. So you grow up in this, I would say, privileged environment. You-- I mean, your father's a senator and your mother's committed. And you go to these great schools. And all of a sudden you wake up and you say-- as my father did-- he didn't quite go the direction you went, "I don't wanna be a lawyer. This is not for me." So then you have a choice between I guess business, politics, or the ministry. So why did you pick the ministry?

PAT ROBERTSON:
I went to work for WR Grace down in New York or down in Wall Street. And-- later in the South American manufacturing. And I thought I can make my-- my fortune, and it'll be a good deal. But-- in the middle of chasing money-- and I chased it pretty hard—

MICHAEL EISNER:
And successfully.

PAT ROBERTSON:
And successfully. And the Lord showed me there was something more. You know, Saint Augustine said our hearts are restless 'til they rest in thee. And I had a restlessness in my heart. Something just wasn't quite right.

MICHAEL EISNER:
So the money didn't do it.

PAT ROBERTSON:
No. And-- and the pursuit of money didn't do it. I wasn't making all that much money. But it-- it was a possibility of making a lot.

CNBC VIDEO Pat Roberston interview, part 2 June 20: Pat Roberston talks with ex-Disney CEO Michael Eisner talks about how he started his broadcasting empire. CNBC

MICHAEL EISNER:
But you discovered early on-- and if you'd been just a regular old businessman finding an FM station before anybody else found it and then a UHF station to create-- cable networks-- you'd-- you parlayed your knowledge, your prophetic knowledge of the media business into the biggest worldwide ministry.

PAT ROBERTSON:
Yeah.

MICHAEL EISNER:
That could have been Time Warner. It could have been the Walt Disney Company. But you chose to do it in-- in worldwide philanthropic area.

PAT ROBERTSON:
That's right. Well, we were-- you know, I-- I started up with a UHF station, and nobody much wanted UHF. And I-- (LAUGHTER) I actually left New York with a wife, three children, and a U-Haul trailer and 70 bucks to buy a TV station. That was my total capital was $70.

MICHAEL EISNER:
At Portsmouth? Was that Portsmouth?

PAT ROBERTSON:
Portsmouth, Virginia. Yeah.

MICHAEL EISNER:
But why? What made you think that it—

PAT ROBERTSON:
Well, I-- I really felt the Lord was calling me. I felt that I was being led by God to-- to-- to claim the airwaves for-- (OVERTALK)

MICHAEL EISNER:
But wait a second. The Lord may be calling you. But who told you the pro forma of the UHF station was gonna work? He's not that analytical.

PAT ROBERTSON:
Actually—

MICHAEL EISNER:
The Lord. (OVERTALK)

MICHAEL EISNER:
Somebody must have said-- 'cause I was thinking about UHF stations. And everybody was-- was dismissing them, saying—

PAT ROBERTSON:
Well, they-- nobody wanted them. I mean, it was terrible. It was only later-- when Congress-- passed a law mandating each television set to have a UHF converter that those things began to have any potential.

MICHAEL EISNER:
Yeah, but the Lord didn't tell you that Congress was gonna do that.

PAT ROBERTSON:
No, no, no, no, no. (OVERTALK)

PAT ROBERTSON:
He just said go-- go-- go claim the station. He didn't give me all the details. I just—went out and I contacted the owner. I said, "Look, I hear you got a station." And-- the Lord had given me a number-- it was cheap. It was $37,000. And—

MICHAEL EISNER:
The Lord-- the Lord told you $37,000?

PAT ROBERTSON:
Yeah. Yeah.

MICHAEL EISNER:
Wait a second. Wait a second. (OVERTALK)

MICHAEL EISNER:
How many things has the Lord told you to do that didn't work out?

PAT ROBERTSON:
Nothing he's told me. I may have thought he's told me some things that

didn't work out. But— (OVERTALK)

MICHAEL EISNER:
--like you misinterpret it.

PAT ROBERTSON:
That's right. But this one, that was right on the money. And—

MICHAEL EISNER:
Some friend didn't call you up and say, "Hey, Pat"-- (OVERTALK)

PAT ROBERTSON:
Not at all.

MICHAEL EISNER:
--there's a UHF station down there.

PAT ROBERTSON:
Well, I had gotten a letter from a friend saying this UHF station, would you like to claim it for the Lord? But I had—

MICHAEL EISNER:
He said you'd claim it for the Lord?

PAT ROBERTSON:
This friend. Yeah.

MICHAEL EISNER:
So he was a minister?

PAT ROBERTSON:
Yeah. Yeah.

MICHAEL EISNER:
So it was his idea?

PAT ROBERTSON:
His idea to-- to-- to-- to buy this thing. And-- but I didn't even own a TV set, Michael. I knew nothing about TV. Honestly. (OVERTALK)

MICHAEL EISNER:
So this was a--vision?

PAT ROBERTSON:
Yeah. I—

MICHAEL EISNER:
Why can't I get these visions?

PAT ROBERTSON:
Well, you did. You ran Disney. (LAUGHTER) (OVERTALK)

MICHAEL EISNER:
So I-- okay. So then you piece together a lot of UHF stations.

PAT ROBERTSON:
I did. I started with this. Struggled for a couple of years. It was tough. I mean, really tough. And then we added an FM station, little tiny FM. And it-- it-- we expanded, put in a new transmitter. Then we put a new transmitter into the UHF. And then I was able to get a-- a station down in Atlanta, a new license. And then we were able to pick up the station. It had gone dark in Dallas on Channel 33. And then we were able to get Channel 25 in Boston. And the next thing you know, we had a-- and then we began syndicating programs and sending them around.

MICHAEL EISNER:
But you --learned that the Lord's voice is much louder if you had a national television network.

PAT ROBERTSON:
Helps a lot. It helps a lot. And—

MICHAEL EISNER:
So you figured that out.

PAT ROBERTSON:
But we-- we grew a network-- you know, I-- I-- I learned-- you learn as you go along-- we began to bicycle programs because we didn't have satellite in those days. And we-- we would tape shows, and then we'd send them among our owned and operated stations. And that was kind of like our network.

MICHAEL EISNER:
But you consider yourself a religious broadcaster, not a televangelist.

PAT ROBERTSON:
That's right. I'm a religious broadcaster. Because, I mean, I-- I run stations. I've managed stations. I've managed the network. We had a-- we had a sales rep firm up here. You know? And then, of course, later-- when-- when satellite came along, instead of bicycling our tapes-- we wanted new technology. And so RCA said, "Look, we'll rent a transponder, your own transponder. You can have it 24 hours a day." And-- we said, "Okay. We'll take it." And-- it was HBO first. Then it was Turner. Then it was us. We were-- third on the Sat Com 1 satellite of RCA. And that gave us the ability to talk to the whole nation. So suddenly we could hook up America live. And we could have real-time news, real-time programs.

MICHAEL EISNER:
So can you-- bench lift 2,000 pounds? That was-- (LAUGHTER) I can't help it. (OVERTALK)

MICHAEL EISNER:
No, I'm looking at the man who's 75? Seventy- (OVERTALK)

MICHAEL EISNER:
--six years old who's in incredible health.

PAT ROBERTSON:
Yeah.

MICHAEL EISNER:
So most people that are watching this would like to look like you look at 76.

CNBC VIDEO Pat Robertson interview, part 3 June 20: Pat Robertson talks with ex-Disney CEO Michael Eisner about his 1-ton bench press and the controversial political remarks he has made. CNBC

PAT ROBERTSON:
I-- I have a doctor who is a very strong person, who played on the football team of Miami of Ohio. He's one of the strongest people I've ever encountered. And-- he said, "I wanna teach you how to do-- strength work with your legs." I said, "Okay." So I started working. And I got up to 570 pounds on the leg press, one of those inclined things. And I thought it was such a big deal. I called everybody in the gym around to look. And, "Look, look, just"-- well, Saturday my coach comes in. And he gets me up. Next thing you know it's 750, then it's 800. Then he starts moving again. Let's do it again. A few days later and a few months later. And then it was 1,000 pounds, then it was 1,200. And then one day it was 1,500. And he almost killed me. I could hardly walk when I got through. And then a few months after that he said, "I wanna give you bragging rights. We're gonna go to 2,000 pounds." I said, "It's impossible to do that." Well-- I went up. It was amazing. That one afternoon it was 1,400 and then ten reps at 1,500 and then at 1,600 and 1,700, 1,800, 1,900. And finally they put more weight on that thing you've ever seen in your life. He measured it at 2,000 pounds. A couple of guys pushed it up. I-- I-- I didn't-- lift the-- the-- break off of the thing and do a full squat 'cause it'd have killed me if I'd have done that. But anyhow, they-- they lowered the weight down on me, and I said, "Okay, here we go." And I pushed up 2,000 pounds once.

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