Excerpts From the Gore Interview

By Al Gore; Robert Conrad Sunday, June 25, 2000
    • CONRAD: And how did the events, the calls and the coffees factor into [the] ability to raise more money?

    GORE: Well, this was not prepared by me. This was prepared by, apparently by Ron Klain. But among the activities that were intended to help raise the funds were telephone calls to potential donors to ask if they would contribute to the D.N.C. And the coffees were in a somewhat different category, and I don't--that was not an activity that I--I may have attended one...

    CONRAD: Did you have discussions with anybody concerning the role coffees would play in raising that type of money?

    GORE: Well, let me define the term raising, if I could, because if you mean by it, would they be events at which money was raised, the answer is no...

    CONRAD: When I use the term coffee...I mean it in terms of the coffee being a tool by which those funds are raised.

    GORE: Well, it's the same definitional. I mean, they are, they were what they were. They were sessions for the exchange of ideas during which, it was my understanding, that the President would cultivate a closer relationship with the individuals who were there...

    CONRAD: In terms of a fund-raising tool, what was the purpose of the coffees?

    GORE: I don't know. They were on his [the President's] side of the house... It was certainly not my understanding that they were fund-raising events... Well, I never heard [the coffees] described as fund-raising tools. Again I've described what I felt that their role was. And as to whether I agree or disagree with somebody else's label being placed on it, I hesitate to wordsmith it. I would not call them fund-raising tools.

    CONRAD: You are not familiar with the cost of $50,000 being the...

    GORE: No.

    CONRAD: ...cost to attend the fund raiser?

    GORE: Absolutely...a coffee?

    CONRAD: A coffee?

    GORE: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And it is my belief that that would have been considered wildly inappropriate, if not worse by those who talked about those coffees. They were not considered in that, in that way... But I would be shocked if, if any of my colleagues who participated in the meetings I was at, or any other meetings at the White House that I was not at, thought of those coffees in that way.