S8 Ep273: DISNEY'S POLITICAL MISSTEPS AND ESPN'S IDEOLOGICAL SHIFT Colleague Charles Gasparino. Focusing on Disney, Gasparino details how CEOs Bob Iger and Bob Chapek mishandled political conflicts with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, damaging the company's finances
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 4 January 2026
⏱️ 13 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Batchel. This is CBSI on the world visiting with Charles Gasparino, the TV star Charles |
| 0:11.8 | Gasparino on Fox breaking news, Fox business breaking news all the time about corporate America here in |
| 0:17.4 | 2024. How did we get here? Why are some companies still entangled with what we now |
| 0:24.4 | regard is woke capitalism? Is woke capitalism coming back? Is the presidential race going to clear |
| 0:29.9 | the air? We don't know. But we can look at examples because everything's in the example. We're going to go to |
| 0:36.5 | the Walt Disney Company, a place in |
| 0:39.4 | Florida where I took my children happily in the 1990s. It was a joy. The last time we went there was |
| 0:45.7 | the beginning of the 21st century. They're all grown up now, and we have wonderful memories and |
| 0:51.7 | pictures everywhere. And then, Charlie, this is a crime to take Walt |
| 0:57.0 | Disney and turn it into a political act. Was it Bob Eiger who started this and then Bob Cheapik |
| 1:04.3 | inherited it and then Bob Eicher took it back? I can't figure out where it began at Disney |
| 1:11.0 | because clearly it wasn't there when I was there in the 90s. |
| 1:14.8 | It was a jungle cruise |
| 1:16.6 | in the 1990s. You know, they shot |
| 1:19.0 | at rhinoceruses. There were people in the jungle. |
| 1:22.3 | They're all gone. They're all gone. |
| 1:25.2 | Yeah, I mean, |
| 1:26.5 | also, the Disney that you experienced, which was this sort of brainchild of Michael Eisner, |
| 1:35.4 | who wasn't quite a, he's not like a raging conservative, by the way, John. |
| 1:39.9 | I mean, he's, he's, you know, Democrat, you know, but he was a business guy. |
| 1:44.5 | And, you know, his whole theory of Disney was a sort of entertainment conglomerant that was along the lines of GE. |
| 1:52.1 | And he kind of ran it that way. |
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