Bob Iger is more than just Disney’s CEO; he’s also a progressive and a shadow member of Sleepy Joe Biden’s Cabinet, which is why he’s trying to stick the knife into Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his looming run to be the GOP nominee in 2024.
Like everyone else on Team Biden, Iger knows that the brain-addled president’s best chance to win re-election isn’t against the successful two-term governor who turned a purple state staunchly red.
It’s against one man and one man only — the volatile, conspiracy-mongering, baggage-carrying former president, Donald Trump.
That’s why Iger is trying to spin what everyone on Wall Street and inside Disney knows is a simple cost-cutting move into some noble act of defiance and throw shade on Joe Biden’s worst nightmare in 2024.
Background: Iger left Disney as CEO in 2020 and was considered among the best C-suite execs in the business.
Disney was on the cutting edge of programming and forays into streaming, and its stock price soared.
His handpicked successor was Bob Chapek, and the House of Mouse soon faltered.
Shares cratered (with an assist from theme park COVID closures).
Programming, which was moving left anyway, went off the deep end with a same-sex-kissing scene in the “kid-friendly” Lightyear animated movie.
Box office flops followed; revenues faltered.
Amid all this Chapek thought it was a good idea to get into a pissing match with DeSantis, an increasingly popular and conservative governor with national ambitions.
Disney’s headquarters is in Burbank, but Orlando, Fla., is the site of its iconic Disney World.
Disney has such a presence in the state’s economy that it was granted a perk of operating its own special taxing district.
When DeSantis sponsored a bill that prohibited the teaching of sex-ed to toddlers, Chapek, in keeping with Disney’s move to the left, decided to oppose it.
The law passed anyway, and a triumphant DeSantis then sought to chip away at Disney’s self-governance.
He was re-elected governor in 2022 by nearly 20 points last November based on the state’s booming economy and his response to COVID.
His Disney-bashing didn’t hurt.
Chapek, meanwhile, was out of a job, replaced by the returning Iger, who in semi-retirement had been a perennial candidate for a top Biden administration post, including ambassador to China.
Iger certainly had a lot on his plate.
He needed better programming and to cut costs.
The long-planned construction of a $1 billion office complex in Florida that would include thousands of new jobs needed to be scuttled to appease Wall Street.
Disney’s stock price remains well off its highs even after Wall Street cheered Iger’s return last November.
But the 2024 presidential race is approaching, and now Iger is telling Wall Street that it’s DeSantis’ attacks on the company — not Disney’s business being in the dumps — that’s forcing him to re-think his presence in the state.
That is, the nixing of that $1 billion project has DeSantis to blame.
The progressive media is eating it up, of course.
So is Trump.
But don’t believe it, because numbers and logic don’t lie.
Even if Disney wasn’t in trouble, is Iger really going to move lots of jobs to California and subject people to all those taxes and, say . . . slave reparations?
Not a chance.
He’d be following Chapek out the door.
And here’s the logic: DeSantis runs maybe the most prosperous state in the nation; people are flocking there from everywhere to enjoy the warm weather, low taxes and jobs — many more than the 2,000 or so Disney is cutting.
Polls show DeSantis one-on-one beats Sleepy Joe easily.
Iger and the Dems fully understand what they’re up against if DeSantis is the GOP nominee.
They know he doesn’t have Jan. 6 looming over his campaign; he won’t be tweeting about his petty feuds and election-conspiracy theories.
DeSantis will allow Biden enough room to stumble over his lousy record, a souring economy, his botched Afghanistan withdrawal, the mess at the border and more.
Trump will try to steal the oxygen out of the room with his trademark slapstick as he did in 2020.
And lose.
Trump has been taking Disney’s side in the DeSantis battle because he wants to run against Biden and avenge his 2020 defeat, I get that.
Iger is picking a fight with DeSantis because he and his fellow Dems want the same thing.
You can’t argue with cold numbers — and obvious logic.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
