Mickey Mouse in the White House: Is Disney CEO Iger Eyeing a 2024 Run?

By J. Max Robins, December 4, 2022

Speaking at a town hall meeting with Disney employees just days after his dramatic return to restore order and prosperity to the Magic Kingdom, Bob Iger reportedly joked that his wife, the journalist Willow Bay, had pushed for his return engagement as CEO because it would keep him too busy to consider a run for the White House in 2024.

By my count, it was at least the fourth time Iger has talked publicly about going after the highest office in the land before citing his spouse as the primary reason he hasn’t taken the leap. So, I have to wonder if the dream of a four-year residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue isn’t still very much alive in his head.

More Fact Than Fiction

The idea of Iger topping the Democratic ticket and swooping in to go head-to-head with Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump (hey, maybe both!) might seem like a plot for a movie soon to stream on Disney+ — an avenging Marvel superhero dropping from the sky to take on Governor “Don’t Say Gay” for declaring war on Disney’s so-called “wokeness.”

One thing is certain, Iger going up against DeSantis or the Commander-in-Chief of Mar-a-Lago would be big box office for right wing websites that have seen traffic dive. This is the kind of cultural war series the Tucker Carlsons of the world dream about.

They may get their wish.

An Iger presidential run could be more fact than fiction. With Joe Biden now 80 and unpopular in the polls, many powerful Democrats, especially establishment ones, are casting about for a 2024 savior. Iger not only comes with the CV of a CEO who could steady the economy, he also has the progressive bona fides on social issues to satisfy the AOC wing of the party.

Bay, currently dean of USC’s Annenberg School for Journalism and Communication, wouldn’t be the first reluctant spouse to do a 180 on the prospect of being First Lady (see: Obama, Michelle). In a candid 2020 CNBC interview, Iger said he believed he had the boundless ambition, smarts and stomach for what he termed “the ultimate sacrifice” back in 2016, but that Bay told him then, “You can run for anything you want, but not with this wife.”

When he floated the idea four years later, with the prospect of a second Trump term still a reality, Bay’s opposition had apparently softened. “At that point, she said that she married me for better or for worse, and if it’s something I wanted to do, she would stand by me, but she was against it.” He shelved it when their two young adult sons chimed in and were ardent in their opposition.

Master Dealmaker

That was then and this is now. Part of Iger’s success in business is that he’s been expert at playing the long game. Deft at interpersonal relations, he’s brokered deals with Steve Jobs to bring Pixar into the Magic Kingdom and with George Lucas to acquire the “Star Wars” franchise, as well as snatching up Marvel Studios from its then notoriously reclusive and wary boss Ike Perlmutter. In his 2019 memoir, The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, Iger recounts how he made dozens of trips to Shanghai over an 18-year period before he put a deal in place to open a Disneyland more than 10 times the size of the iconic Anaheim original. Then there was his 2019 capstone $71.3-billion acquisition of Rupert Murdoch’s 20th Century Studio, including its FX cable network and some of the most iconic films and TV series ever made.

A Dogged Climb to the Top

In a 2019 interview with Maureen Dowd in The New York Times, when his memoir was published, Iger acknowledged his fear that if he did run for president, many Democrats would brand him “as just another rich guy who’s out of touch with America…who doesn’t have any sense for what’s good for the plight of the people.” But his autobiography suggests otherwise. The Ride of a Lifetime makes much of his humble beginnings, growing up with a “manic depressive” father in a modest home that was anything but serene. In high school he worked as a stock boy in a hardware store and as a janitor in his school district. In college, spending money came from a gig at Pizza Hut.

When he started in a lowly position at ABC, before it became part of the Disney empire, he didn’t make much more than minimum wage. His dogged climb to the top of the media-entertainment industrial complex has made him a big believer in the technicolor American dream. “[W]here else does a lower-middle-class kid with a modest education and not superhuman skills grow up to be me?” he mused in the interview with Dowd.

And what could be a more Hollywood ending than for Mr. Iger’s wild ride to lead straight from the Magic Kingdom throne to the one in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk?

J. Max Robins (@jmaxrobins) is  executive director of the Center for Communication. The former editor-in-chief of Broadcasting & Cable, he has contributed to publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Columbia Journalism Review and Forbes. Read more from J. Max Robins at his website.

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