The Walt Disney Company’s leftward drift can be traced back to then-chairman Bob Iger’s reaction to the riot on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021, according to a newly released video.
Conservative activist Christopher Rufo posted a video to X on Tuesday, footage he described as depicting the “exact moment the company decided to become political — days after January 6, 2021.”
EXCLUSIVE: In January 2021, then-Disney chairman Bob Iger told employees he was committing the company to "taking a stand" on politics because of January 6, then praised himself for making Black Panther, which he said was an example of "diversity and inclusion." pic.twitter.com/Rb41540cGW
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) February 13, 2024
“In January 2021, then-Disney chairman Bob Iger told employees he was committing the company to ‘taking a stand’ on politics because of January 6, then praised himself for making Black Panther, which he said was an example of ‘diversity and inclusion,’” Rufo wrote alongside the video.
Iger returned to his role as CEO of The Walt Disney Company in November 2022, after his successor, Bob Chapek, was fired.
In January 2021, when the Capitol riot occurred in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, Iger was no longer CEO of Disney but was acting as chairman of the board of directors. During what appeared to be a video meeting of some kind, Iger said the events of Jan. 6, 2021, provoked a desire in him to see Disney step more vigorously into the political realm.
“We’ve kind of shied away from politics, and in doing so, I think we’ve shied away from talking about issues that aren’t political at all,” he said in the roughly two-minute clip Rufo posted.
He continued, “Because we believe in doing so, maybe it looks like we were taking a stand but, in that reality, we should be taking a stand. By the way, I take responsibility for this. I was CEO for 15 years. And so I managed the company’s public-facing processes and how we were portraying ourselves.”
Using Jan. 6 as a launching point, Iger said Disney should be “less cautious” about taking strong political stances on culturally significant issues.
“That’s not political on our part at all,” he said, referring to speaking out against the Capitol riot. “We know that what we saw was fundamentally wrong and it was rooted in hatred, disrespect, and contempt and intolerance.”
As CBN News has reported over the last few years, Disney has fully embraced political leftism.
The Burbank-based company’s deep dive into progressivism has come at quite the cost. According to a report from the summer of last year, the House of Mouse has hemorrhaged some $900 million in continual box-office failures — much of it seemingly tied to the progressive storylines and tropes woven into many of its recent films.
Additionally, as CBN News covered extensively, Chapek oversaw the brand’s costly attack against a parental rights law in Florida, where the company’s Walt Disney World Resort is based. The law — inaccurately nicknamed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by members of the media — bars public school educators from teaching students in pre-K through third-grade classrooms about gender identity and sexual orientation.
The dispute between Disney and the Florida state government ended with the Walt Disney World Resort, a sprawling four-park complex in Lake Buena Vista, losing its special tax status as well as its self-governed Reedy Creek Improvement District.
