CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King is steeped in the Democratic Party. She donates to Democrats. She vacationed with Democrats and has lobbied her Democratic-leaning friend Oprah Winfrey to run for president.
All of that would be fine except for the fact that King is allowed to operate as though she was a real, objective journalist. She has even moderated a 2020 Democratic primary debate. But King isn't a fair and balanced journalist.
Gayle King has given exclusively to Democrats. According to Open Secrets, she donated over $33,000 to the DNC, $7300 to Barack Obama, $1000 to Democrat Harold Ford Jr. Open Secrets reports that the donations stopped in 2011 as she began at CBS. But the fact that she hasn’t given anything to Republicans shows that she’s a partisan leftist.
If donating only to Democrats wasn’t enough, in 2017, King has vacationed with them as well. The CBS co-host enjoyed a trip on a yacht with the Obamas, angering actual journalists within CBS. According to the New York Post’s Page Six, it didn’t go over well at the network. The paper cited a network source:
“The ‘Capital J’ journalists are pissed and raving mad that she was on a yacht with the Obamas over the weekend. The old-school people were talking about it. She shouldn’t be doing that. She’s an anchor of a news program that covers the White House.”
King ridiculously tried to defend the trip, spinning, “My vacations are not political and so I went on vacation with a great group of people and, to me, that's not a political statement.” Last we checked, she hasn’t gone on yacht vacations with members of the Trump family.
King is good friends with former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker. As The Washington Free Beacon reported in 2019, sometimes the host disclosed this fact, but sometimes she didn’t. In May and February of 2019, she did. The Beacon’s David Rutz noted:
However, Booker was a guest on CBS This Morning on Jan. 17, 2018, and Jan. 26, 2018, with King being one of the CBS interviewers asking him questions both times, and the show did not disclose their relationship either time.
In 2012, King felt compelled to deny to then-co-host Charlie Rose a romantic relationship with Booker: “It's not hooking up, Charlie. No boinking has occurred. We're really good friends.”
King is best friends with talk show star Winfrey and has a tangled web of conflicting interests. She openly lobbied her liberal friend to run against Republican Donald Trump. Asked about it on the February 15, 2018 CBS This Morning, the host showed no conflict about her role as a journalist vs. her friendship: Discussing whether she was lobbying Winfrey, King responded, “Yes, I have. My name is Gayle, G-A-Y-L-E. Yes, I have.”
On October 31, 2018, King told the New York Times she had a “fantasy of covering” Winfrey's presidential bid against Trump. On March 8, 2018, King absurdly said she could be “impartial” on a Winfrey 2020 bid. On the same program, however, the CBS host pleaded for her friend to run: “But I also think you have a unique ability in terms of healing and connecting all people.”
Gayle King has given money to Democrats and vacationed with Democrats. She has failed to disclose close friendships with one Democrat who was considering a presidential bid and lobbied another Democratic-leaning friend to run against a Republican. King is a partisan who deserves no consideration when it comes to debate moderators or any serious role in vetting 2020 candidates.
If CBS was serious about objectivity, the network would save the political interviews for journalists who care about fairness.
For more information journalists don’t want you to know, check out our series: Facts Feared by Leftist Media.
