Disney CEO Bob Iger has emphatically denied that he will ever run for president of the United States—although he did consider it twice.
There have been rumors that he would stand for years. Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that Oprah Winfrey publicly supported a potential run by the media executive in 2020.
Now in a conversation with Kelly Ripa for an episode of her podcast Let's Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa, Iger has put the rumor to bed. He also revealed that a powerful member of the Democratic party once encouraged him to run for the highest political office in America.
Newsweek emailed Iger for further comment on Friday.
Ripa explained that she was at a lunch with "heavy hitter Hollywood people" and said when she told them she was talking to Iger for the podcast, they all thought the same thing.
"Everyone there had the same universal sentiment. They all believe you should run for president, they all thought you would run for president when you left [Disney] for your brief hiatus," she explained.
When asked if that was something people approached him about often, Iger said it was, adding: "First of all, let me set the record straight right away, I'm not running for president."
Ripa then asked if Iger was sure about that and if he actually wanted to announce he was running. "Absolutely positive, no no no, I am not announcing anything," he responded.
"If you announce it somewhere else, I am going to be very upset. I am going to haunt your dreams," Ripa quipped.
"Well I could promise you the scoop but you would be forever unfulfilled. I am not running for president but it is something that people over the years have mentioned often and some quite powerful people, including people in government," Iger said.
"And it is something I seriously considered twice. Once in 2015 before the Trump-Hillary Clinton election and Willow [Bay, his partner] was adamant about me not doing that, for very deep, personal reasons. She basically said, 'You can run for any office in the land but not with this wife,' is kind of how she put it.
"It's interesting because at the time, the premise that I had was that America was ready for an outsider and was tired of, kind of, the same old people and political parties. In a way I was right, because we—America elected an outsider and Donald Trump did not come from the Washington world."
Iger revealed that the second time he considered running for president was in 2017. He said he "studied it quite seriously," meeting with various people and researching what it would take to determine whether it was even plausible.
He continued: "And actually, people who should remain nameless—a few elected officials—came forward and encouraged me to do so and suggested they would give me their full support.
"And I was thinking about it but I was far from making the decision to do it when the opportunity for the Walt Disney Company to buy assets from Rupert Murdoch and 20th Century Fox came up, which was a large acquisition and one that I knew that if I recommended to the board they would say—rightfully so—'You're supposed to leave.' I think at that time I was supposed to leave at the end of 2018, 'If we're going to make this acquisition you have to agree to say.'"
He said Murdoch had also wanted him to stay, as he was taking stock in the Walt Disney Company.
Iger added: "And I put that over everything else and I was not—again, let me stress the fact that I had not decided to run for president but I was taking it seriously."
The second time around, Iger said his wife was a lot more supportive of the idea of him running for president. However, she wasn't fully on board. He then went on to reveal that an unnamed powerful member of the Democratic party once encouraged him to run.
"It's funny because one of the people that I met with at the time, that shall be nameless, but consider them a powerful member of the Democratic party at the time ... He said to me, 'You should run for president,' and I said, 'Tell me why?' And his first words out of his mouth were, 'Well, you really look the part.' I said, 'Give me a break, that's not enough.'"
When Ripa guessed whether the politician was Bill Clinton, Iger said: "I've never discussed running for president with Bill Clinton."
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