"Everybody Knew" – Bob Iger's Desire of Becoming The President of US

Patrick Bet-David (0:00)

Have you ever read the book Ride of a Lifetime?

Bob Chapek (0:01)

Yeah, of course.

Patrick Bet-David (0:02)

Okay, do you remember in Ride of a Lifetime when he says, he's sitting with Rupert Murdoch while they're doing the Fox deal, I think it was Rupert or Ailes, I think it's Rupert Murdoch, he's sitting there.

And then questions are being asked about what he's gonna be doing. Hey, you know, Bob, have you ever thought about running for president? Oh no, I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life. Did you ever think maybe at that time he was like thinking about running for office and then he's like, no, I'm just gonna go back to Disney? Because he's got the personality to be able to run for president. And he had aspirations at one point.

Bob Chapek (0:31)

I think if he had any reason to believe he could be president, I'd still have that job.

Remember, he wanted to bring an NFL team to Los Angeles, that didn't work out. He clearly had aspirations to be president. For whatever reason, that didn't work out. And, you know, oh, I think I want that Disney job.

Patrick Bet-David (1:01)

Got it.

Bob Chapek (1:01)

That's my hypothesis.

Patrick Bet-David (1:02)

So it's a possibility that the moment he may be realized that president job may not be a job for him at that time, let me go back and get my Disney job back. Possibility.

Bob Chapek (1:15)

Certainly looks like a possibility, doesn't it?

Patrick Bet-David (1:18)

And did people at Disney know that he had aspirations of being president? Was that a known thing or no?

Bob Chapek (1:23)

Everybody knew.

Patrick Bet-David (1:23)

Everybody knew. Yeah, everybody knew. Since now, like 20 years, 15 years, 10 years?

Bob Chapek (1:29)

10 years, 15

Patrick Bet-David (1:30)

Meaning like, did they know in 2010?

Bob Chapek (1:32)

No, no, no, no, no. This was sort of a later revelation.

Patrick Bet-David (1:37)

And it was kind of like, Bob's going to make a run at it.

Bob Chapek (1:40)

Well, not that he's going to, but he had interest in it.

Patrick Bet-David (1:43)

Of being it. By the way, he would have been happy. I would have loved to have seen him how he would have campaigned for it because it would have been interesting. Do you have any idea on why he didn't, why he didn't pursue it?

Bob Chapek (1:54)

There are hypotheses out there. You know, you have to have support of the party, I guess is one assumption.

Patrick Bet-David (2:06)

Well, he had relationships with Emmanuel and not Ari, the other one.

Bob Chapek (2:12)

Ram.

Patrick Bet-David (2:13)

From Ram, yeah, from Illinois, right? Because he was a player with, what do you call it, with Obama, and Bob was a pretty connected guy to a lot of the guys.

Bob Chapek (2:24)

Oh, yeah, very connected.

Patrick Bet-David (2:26)

I'm surprised you're saying he may have not had the support from the party.

Bob Chapek (2:29)

Well, I'm saying that is one reason why maybe he never chose to go forward.

Patrick Bet-David (2:39)

Hmm, man.

Was he a perfectionist? Is he a guy that's a perfectionist? Like he won't take risks that the odds are not fully in his favor? He will take the risks?

Bob Chapek (2:49)

Yeah, he'll take the risks. He did Pixar.

Patrick Bet-David (2:51)

I'm so curious.

Bob Chapek (2:51)

He did Marvel. He did Lucas. Those could have gone belly up.

Patrick Bet-David (2:55)

Who in the history of this business has done more deals than him? The size of the deals?

Bob Chapek (2:59)

Nobody.

Patrick Bet-David (2:59)

He's the goat of the deal making in the media space. I don't know if anybody's done these deals.

You know, some of the things every time you would look at him, there's no way he can close this deal, and he would keep closing and closing and closing. So if the political thing would have gone a little bit more, Bob Chapek is still the CEO of Disney today.

Bob Chapek (3:23)

I think part of the dynamic was that some of the things he thought he would do after retirement never came to fruition.

Patrick Bet-David (3:31)

It's a football thing.

Bring the team. Got it.

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