CBS This Morning led off the interview portion of Monday’s show by letting co-host Gayle King interview her good friend Sen. Cory Booker – without disclosing their friendship. King did highlight Booker’s friendship with fellow Senator Kamala Harris, to set up Booker to blast Trump as a bigot....and then he ended the interview talking about "healing" and "civic grace."
GAYLE KING: Let's talk about Senator Harris for just a second. We all know that you're good friends. You called it an epic - epic pick, rather. The president called her a mean -- a mean, mad, nasty woman. So, two different points of view there. What does she bring to this party?
CORY BOOKER: Well, I don't think bigotry's a point of view. I think it's vile, and the way that Donald Trump talks about women and women of color, we've seen this consistently now through his four years, and it's a shame. It's a shame. I think that what Kamala is, and as somebody who's worked with her, first and foremost, the combination of Kamala and Joe are going to bring decency and kindness and honor back to the highest office in the land.
So you can’t criticize Kamala Harris as “nasty” or “mean,” because that can be dismissed as bigotry. King's question didn't mention Trump was talking about Harris showing "hatred" for Brett Kavanaugh at his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, and her radical-left stands on the issues.
After a smear like that, King ended the interview by letting Booker talk about how we need “civic grace” and healing and an end to divisiveness!
KING: Senator Booker, I know that you're speaking on Thursday night, big night Thursday night. Have you started working on the speech? I'm curious about what your message is going to be.
BOOKER [laughs]: You know, Gayle, I just -- I'm excited about this opportunity. I'm just a real believer that you can't lead the people if you don't love the people. And this is a time in America where we really need a revival of civic grace. So I hope I can communicate a lot of that spirit and really that I hope that this is a time of healing in America. There's just too much division, too many wounds. We need to come together as a nation. And I hope we can end this era of meanness in our politics, the divisiveness, degrading kind of speech coming from high offices. I hope this is the time that we can come together and rise together as a nation.
KING: Here's to that phrase civic grace on both sides. Thank you very much, Senator Cory Booker, always good to see you.
King also tossed these softballs, starting with: "You just heard Ed [O'Keefe] talk about the lack of enthusiasm some people feel for the Democratic Party. You're known as an enthusiastic fellow. You concerned about that?"
And: "Nancy Pelosi said come back from vacation, we need to address this postal service issue. Should the same thing happen to the senate? Should Mitch Mcconnell call you senators back? Seems there's a lot of work to do on this."
Last year, David Rutz at the Washington Free Beacon reported on a 2012 chat on CBS:
Booker called King "one of the seminal forces in my life of friendship" and said that the night before she began her tenure on CBS This Morning, they were up until midnight hanging out.
Rose, who would later be fired over multiple allegations of sexual harassment, interrupted and said, "What does that mean, hanging out?"
Booker laughed, and King said, "It's not hooking up, Charlie. No boinking has occurred."
Charlie Rose asked in the middle of an interview in 2012 about what Gayle King and Cory Booker "hanging out" until midnight one night meant, King laughed and said "no boinking has occurred." pic.twitter.com/ObnmLRurkH
— David Rutz (@DavidRutz) February 4, 2019
