Jimmy Dore

James Patrick Anthony "Jimmy" Dore is an American "comedian," syncretic political commentator, and conspiracy theorist. He is the eponymous host of The Jimmy Dore Show and former co-host of Aggressive Progressives (with Steve Oh) on The Young Turks (TYT) network. In April 2019, Dore announced he was, amicably, leaving TYT and would no longer host Aggressive Progressives. In 2021, he was accused by Ana Kasparian of subjecting her to sexual harassment and public humiliation. He would later admit to this and apologise. As of February 25, 2023, his YouTube channel, called The Jimmy Dore Show, has over 1.15 million subscribers and over 644 million views. As of February 25, 2023, he also has 456,170 followers on Twitter and over 112,000 followers on Facebook.

Conspiracy theories
As a guest on a YouTube show called Conspiracy Queries in November 2014, Dore said that "conspiracy theorist" is "such an empty, meaningless term." On The Young Turks, he has said "the term conspiracy theorist has an undue amount of negativity attached to it." Dore uses all the tactics of the average, run-of-the-mill conspiracy theorist, such as saying that you should not believe anyone from the government, you should "stop listening to the assholes on mainstream news media", and he has information that you won't hear on "mainstream news." Dore believes the debunked claim that "the term conspiracy theorist was invented by the CIA after the JFK assassination." Dore was also a speaker at the "Tin Foil Hat Comedy Night" in October 2017 and guest on the podcast "Tin Foil Hat with Sam Tripoli" in April 2018 and May 2019.

Despite his belief that "conspiracy theorist" is an "empty, meaningless term", "invented by the CIA" which "has an undue amount of negativity attached to it", he has called Rachel Maddow an "Alex Jones–level conspiracy theorist." Dore also fits his own definition of a "dangerous conspiracy theorist":

9/11
Why would you need to shame people who question the government's view of what happened on 9/11? So that's what makes me suspect. They call them truthers. They name them so you can dismiss them. As soon as you ask a question about 9/11 they go "oh, you're a truther."

In episode 58 of the podcast Comedy and Everything Else in August 2009, Dore talked about his views on 9/11:

Dore talked about 9/11 again in episode 59:

In January 2013, Dore still believed 9/11 conspiracy theories:

In May 2013, as a guest on podcast Skeptic Tank, he doubled down and elaborated on his views about 9/11 and Building 7:

He refused to back down on Twitter:

Dore made similar comments about 9/11 in 2014:

Syria
SO @CNN is so scared of Youtube news channels that they R creating a fake crisis so that youtube will now fully demonetize independent news. My show goes against the Pro Syrian War narrative being uniformly pushed by Est. news, so they smear me hard. “Ads also appeared on The Jimmy Dore Show channel, a far-left YouTube channel that peddles conspiracy theories, such as the idea that Syrian chemical weapons attacks are hoaxes.” We actually De-Bubunk [sic] conspiracy theories, like the one that says Assad gassed his own people

Dore has entertained numerous conspiracies relating to the Syrian Civil War. According to Dore:

Since he does not trust the mainstream media, Dore uses numerous unreliable sources of information about Syria. For example, he described RT contributor and conspiracy theorist Eva Bartlett as an "independent Canadian journalist" even though she openly says she is biased in favor of the Syrian regime. Dore says Bartlett is a "real journalist" who is "willing to tell the truth" and is "reporting facts" about Syria. He has interviewed Bartlett on The Jimmy Dore Show at least three times.

Bartlett's conspiratorial claims about Syria include that footage from the (a volunteer search and rescue group) contains children who have been recycled in different reports, and that the media manufactured a story about a hospital being bombed that she claims never happened. Bartlett also claims that the "corporate media", United Nations, and human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and    are all conveniently lying about what is happening in Syria. Bartlett's claims have been widely discredited and debunked.

Bartlett and Dore have helped a Russia-backed disinformation campaign targeting the White Helmets that positions them as a terrorist organisation.

Bartlett is not the only unreliable source Dore has cited. He has used fellow conspiracy theorist SyrianGirlPartisan as a source. He has cited the conspiratorial, Russian propaganda outlet RT (and has defended them as a reliable source ). He repeated the conspiracy theory that the war is actually about a pipeline. His source for this claim was the conspiracy-pseudoscience website Ecowatch.

Dore believes that there have been multiple false flag attacks during the Syrian Civil War, including the in April 2017.

He has also said the April 2017 gas attack was "fake":

He believes the attacks have been proven to be false flags:

Unsurprisingly, Dore has been proven wrong. In October 2017, investigations from the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria found that Syrian government forces were responsible for the April 2017 chemical attack. After the UN's investigation, Dore admitted he was wrong doubled down, blaming the CIA for "false flag attacks" in Syria:

In February 2018, Dore alleged that U.S. Secretary of Defense admitted there was no evidence Assad used poison gas on his people, citing an opinion piece from Ian Wilkie in Newsweek.

However, Mattis was not claiming there was no evidence that Assad was responsible for the Khan Shaykhun attack. Mattis was actually referring to recent allegations of sarin use after the Khan Shaykhun attack. The source used for Ian Wilkie's opinion piece was an article written by Robert Burns. On Twitter, Burns has also pointed out that Mattis was referring to recent allegations:

Mattis' actual view about the Khan Shaykhun attack is that "there is no doubt the Syrian regime is responsible for the decision to attack and for the attack itself."

After the in April 2018, Dore said it was a false flag attack and he is the "best journalist in the country" because MSNBC and CNN won't say that it was a false flag:

He said it fits a "pattern of false flags by ISIS who we're funding":

According to Dore, the CIA admitted they were training ISIS and al-Qaeda:

Despite Dore's strong opinions on Syria, in reality he is incredibly ignorant about the country. For example, in one video he admitted to not knowing if Bashar al-Assad was the President or King of Syria. Additionally, in a video intended to mock Gary Johnson's ignorance about Syria, Dore incorrectly described Aleppo as "Syria's capitol [sic]" in the description of the video. In December 2018, Dore admitted he did not know that

Investigations from the United Nations (UN) and (OPCW) have concluded that Assad's forces were responsible for chemical weapons attacks in  in 2014, Qmenas and  in 2015, and Khan Shaykhun in 2017. UN investigators have documented 27 chemical weapons attacks by Assad's forces according to a report in September 2017. Despite this, Dore has said Caitlin Johnstone is "debunking the conspiracy that Assad gassed his own people":

After he was called an apologist for Assad, Dore said several of his critics were al-Qaeda supporters and apologists. This included fellow TYT contributor Francesca Fiorentini. Dore also sent her direct messages on Twitter calling her a "fucking liar and a page chill [sic]" (paid shill), a "fucking coward", a "sack of shit" and "a dishonest piece of shit". Dore went on to say:

After Fiorentini made his direct messages public, Dore said she was "crying victim" and "played victim cuz [sic] I rightly called her a paid by Qatar lying piece of shit." He also called journalist a CIA "operative", "shill" and "plant". In October 2018, Dore released a statement where he apologised to Fiorentini and Bauer, saying he "crossed the line from passionate to nasty & hurtful" and "someone who calls himself a progressive should be more careful, measured, and respectful when interacting with fellow journalists, especially women, no matter the context." He went on to say it was "unfair for me to accuse Francesca of being a pawn of the Qatar government" and he "should not have alleged that [Bauer] is affiliated with the CIA, because I have no evidence to support that allegation." His statement did not include an apology or retraction for saying Fiorentini and Bauer are "pro Alqaeda [sic] in Syria". Dore also did not apologise to the other people he called al-Qaeda apologists or supporters, including an Arab journalist. In September 2019, the investigative journalism site Bellingcat reported that Dore had received $2,500 from The Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees in 2017, a pro-Assad lobbying group.

Murder of Seth Rich
We're gonna talk about Julian Assange and the Seth Rich case. We're gonna talk about that because there is some interesting stuff going on. I know a lot of people have dismissed that and if you think anything about it you're crazy – that's where I come in.

Dore was sympathetic to theories that Seth Rich's murder was connected to the Democratic National Committee leaks. His first video about Rich was originally titled "DNC Staffer Seth Rich’s Murder Tied To WikiLeaks", but a question mark was later added. During the video, and on Twitter, he said he was reserving judgment until he gets all the evidence:

Dore also made the following comments during the video:

The next day, he made more videos about Seth Rich:

After one of the sources for the story was exposed as a fraud, Dore refused to back down, claiming that it didn't prove the story wrong.

Dore later suggested that right-wingers were "actually onto something" when they covered the Seth Rich story:

Dore has since said that he did not push a conspiracy theory about Seth Rich:

JFK assassination
Dore has said he does not believe the and he doesn't think Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone:

2017 Las Vegas shooting
In October 2017, Dore was a speaker at the "Tin Foil Hat Comedy Night". Dore and discussed conspiracy theories relating to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting:

Other
In a comedy sketch with alt-right character "Saint Himmler", Dore said he doesn't believe in Pizzagate. Despite that Dore does not believe Pizzagate is real, he has enabled the views of Pizzagaters. At the Tin Foil Hat Comedy Night, after brought up Pizzagate and suggested that everyone at the top is fucking babies, Dore replied "there's something to what he's saying" and "you're not far off":

Dore has said the in March 2018 looked like a false flag and was obvious propaganda:

General madness
Dore has entertained, supported or enabled many bullshit claims. This has resulted in Dore losing a portion of his audience, who feel he has stepped over the line in some cases. Highlights include: Dore has helped the GOP by railing against Obama and other Democrats for not passing legislation that wasn't passed because the GOP blocked said legislation. He has misled his audience with his constant revisionism and created a false equivalency.
 * He presented unsubstantiated rumours about Hillary Clinton as if they were factual, including that Clinton started the birther movement in 2008,  and that she wanted to murder Julian Assange with a drone (yes, Dore really believed this).  He has also promoted fake stories relating to Hillary Clinton such as that Google manipulated search results to favor her,  and he wrongly speculated that she has Parkinson's disease.   In October 2017, Dore said he still thinks Hillary Clinton had Parkinson's:
 * He has described Snopes as "completely worthless" and "Democratic propaganda."
 * He seemed to feel "investigative journalist" James O'Keefe's CNN undercover videos help prove that the mainstream media has gone dangerously overboard in its zeal to undermine Trump.
 * A December 2014 video on Dore's YouTube channel showed that he does not agree with the current scientific consensus on genetically modified food, because of course. Mark Thompson, who was the voice actor for Dore's video, stated that Monsanto has been "genetically modifying Americans for over a century." Earlier, in November 2013, Dore supported the pseudoscientific claim that GMOs cause cancer. Later the same month, Dore acknowledged that studies do not support the claim that GMOs cause cancer, but said that he still hates them.
 * In July 2020, Dore spread a fake video claiming that Joe Biden engaged in a "blackface affair with a bunch of rich white people". The video was doctored to darken the face of black singer Jerome Powell to appear that a white performer is wearing blackface.

Other controversies
Nitzky 89: "Jimmy Dore Hot Take Series 01: Water Fluoridation" (Jan 17, 2019) YouTube. (Jimmy Dore Show: "Solid Chat Saturday". January 12, 2019.)
 * In July 2016, at the Republican National Convention, Dore was filmed spitting his drink in the face of Alex Jones after Jones crashed The Young Turks' live convention coverage. In 2019, Dore said he thinks Alex Jones is controlled opposition:


 * In February of 2023, he backtracked on his spitting of Alex Jones and said he only spat in Alex Jone's face because he thought Alex Jones was funny.
 * After it became clear that Bernie Sanders would not be the Democratic nominee for President in 2016, Dore remained staunchly anti-Clinton and strongly advocated against voting for her in the presidential election.  He even released a video where he asserted that a Donald Trump presidency would be better for progressives than a Clinton presidency.


 * of The Young Turks was strongly critical of Dore's position in a heated on-air exchange. was also critical of the reasoning behind Dore's position.


 * Dore believes that the Clinton campaign invented the Trump-Russia story to cover their failures. He has described the idea that Trump colluded with Russia as "propaganda" and has also said that "Hillary Clinton colluded with Russia to get negative information on Donald Trump":
 * Dore also said that "should be in prison".


 * While the police in the United States are certainly not above criticism, Dore has made generalisations about police officers that are hyperbolic and inflammatory. He has said that all cops are criminals, people who become cops never do it for the right reasons, and that heads of police unions are worse than any ISIS terrorist. Along with these generalisations, Dore's views on the police are occasionally conspiratorial. In November 2014, Dore endorsed the conspiracy theory that police in Ferguson, in a false flag operation, deliberately started fires in order to blame the crowd.
 * Dore has said he doesn't feel good about water fluoridation.
 * Dore has said the New York Times, the Washington Post, NBC, and journalist are the "enemy of the people."
 * In February 2019, Dore paraphrased a quote from Kevin Strom, a neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier, to defend Ilhan Omar from allegations of antisemitism:
 * Dore did this again in March 2019 on RT America:


 * In May 2019, Dore said "the Jewish lobby buying our politicians" is a "100% accurate fact":


 * In January 2021, Dore invited a socialist to his program with the false pretense of discussing workers strikes, but instead promoted the agenda of fostering a Red-Brown alliance with the Boogaloo boys. Dore falsely claimed that Michigan Boogaloo member Magnus Panvidya is an "anarchist", when in reality he participated in the 2021 U.S. Capitol riot and a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. When the socialist rightfully objected and pointed out that the Boogaloo boys are a far-right, anti-government group pretending to be anti-police and pro-BLM and should not be given a platform by left-wing movements, Dore went on an expletive rant and accused the socialist of promoting censorship:

Anti-vaccine hysteria

 * Dore has touted Ivermectin as a "safe and effective" treatment for COVID-19, even calling it a "Nobel Prize Winning" medicine (see Association fallacy)
 * Dore has misrepresented a Harvard Study claiming it proved vaccines were not effective
 * In July of 2021, Jimmy Dore said on his show that people, "not allowed to speak out about adverse reactions from the 'experimental' vaccine", referring to the COVID-19 vaccines.
 * In January 2023, on the Viva and Barnes podcast (hosted by two right-wing, conspiracy-hawking lawyers), Jimmy Dore said the COVID vaccine "causes more myocarditis than COVID does."

Sexual harassment
Dore has admitted to sexually harassing Ana Kasparian (the main host and a producer of the online news show The Young Turks) while making excuses on why he did it and slut shamed her for dressing “inappropriately,” big yikes. He has revealed to making inappropriate sexual comments about Kasparian "ass" and subjected her to social humiliation in front of her coworkers. Dore was defended by the Neo-Nazi "paper" The Daily Stormer.