Bob Iger, In CNN+ Interview With Chris Wallace, Makes The Case For Why CEOs Should Weigh In On ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill And Other Issues: “It’s About Right And Wrong”

One of Chris Wallace’s first guests on his new CNN+ series is former Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger, who makes the case for why corporate leaders should wade into major issues like climate change, immigration and, most recently, Florida’s so-called ‘don’t say gay’ bill.

“A lot of these issues are not necessarily political,” Iger said in the interview, which will stream this week. “It’s about right and wrong. So I happened to feel, and I tweeted an opinion about the ‘don’t say gay’ bill in Florida. To me, it wasn’t about politics. It is about what is right and what is wrong, and that just seemed wrong. It seemed potentially harmful to kids.”

Disney, now led by Iger’s successor Bob Chapek, this week issued a statement condemning the Florida legislation, which was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis. But Chapek was initially reluctant to take a public side on the legislation, saying that corporate statements often are “weaponized by one side or the other to further divide and inflame.” But the company’s public silence triggered a backlash, Chapek went public with the company’s opposition and acknowledged that  “our original approach, no matter how well intentioned, didn’t quite get the job done.”

In the interview with Wallace, Iger talked of going public on issues like climate change and immigration. “I had to contend with this a lot, and the filter that I used to determine whether we should or should not weigh in considered a few factors. What would its impact have on our employees, on our shareholders and our customers? And if any one of those three constituencies had a deep interest in or would be affected by whatever was the matter at hand, then it was something I thought we should consider weighing in on.”

Wallace asked Iger whether there was consideration given to the fact that “whether it’s right or wrong,” he was “going to tick off people, whether it is on climate change or immigration or gender identity. There are going to be people who aren’t going to like what [you] are saying and maybe that means fewer people will come to the theme park.”

“We never really saw much evidence of that, even though there were threats about boycotts on certain things,” Iger replied. “Again, when you are dealing with right and wrong, and when you are dealing with something that does have a profound impact on your business, I just think you have to do what is right and not worry about the potential backlash to it.”

In another part of the interview, Wallace played a clip from the documentary The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales, co-directed by Abigail Disney, which takes The Walt Disney Co. to task for the wide disparity in pay between hourly theme park workers and Iger’s CEO compensation. The movie argues that a significant number of Disneyland employees are on food stamps or even homeless.

Wallace asked, “You were making that year 1,000 times what the average Disney employee was making. Do you have any misgivings about that?”

Iger responded, “I’ve never been defensive about what I made. I was paid at a level that was commensurate with what most heads of large media companies were paid throughout my tenure and often less than, interestingly enough, and Disney was among the most complex and the largest and the most successful of them all.”

He said that “we created many more jobs, particularly in the United States, during my tenure. And we gave people many more opportunities over that period of time.” He also said that many of those who received minimum wage “earned overtime, got good benefits and were promoted over time as well.” He noted that they started a program to pick up the cost of workers’ education.

“If I have regrets, it would be one, and that is that, we were one of the first companies, by the way, to go to $10 an hour as the starting wage,” Iger said. “We were being pushed to go to 15. There was some hesitation in that regard because of the cost associated with it. We should have done that right away. My opinion.”

The CNN+ series Who’s Talking To Chris Wallace? is first shown at 6 PM ET then available on demand.