New York Times reporter Amy Chozick writes in a new profile of CBS anchor Gayle King that she fantasizes about covering a presidential campaign by billionaire Oprah Winfrey, albeit in a nonpartisan way.
Chozick profiled King, the co-anchor of "CBS This Morning" and Winfrey's closest friend, where she revealed King continues to encourage Winfrey to make a presidential run.
"I confessed to Ms. King that I have a (nonpartisan) fantasy of covering Ms. Winfrey’s presidential campaign. We would, of course, grill her on policy and ask all of our usual probing questions. But after a grueling day on the campaign trail, the traveling press corps would get O as our in-flight magazine and Weight Watchers-approved diets. We’d have a book club, obviously, and practice some self-help," Chozick wrote.
King told Chozick "it's a bit of a fantasy for me, too."
King stoked rumors of Winfrey mulling a run in the aftermath of the media mogul's well-received speech at the Golden Globes by saying her friend was "intrigued" by the idea, although she later clarified she was not actively considering a run. The day Chozick spoke to Winfrey over the phone, the media mogul revealed King had continued to urge her to run that day.
"It’s actually really surprised me," Winfrey said. "She is still talking about ‘the perfect ticket,’ and I said, ‘I don’t get it. I don’t get why you keep doing this? You of all people are supposed to care about my life,’ and she said, ‘The country is bigger than your life.’"
Winfrey endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. King donated to the Obama Victory Fund and Democratic National Committee in 2011, and she has vacationed with the Obamas.
Chozick wrote a bestselling book Chasing Hillary about covering Clinton's unsuccessful 2008 and 2016 presidential campaigns. Conservative magazine National Review roasted Chozick as a "Hillary fangirl" by quoting directly from the book, which reveals a less-than-neutral stance toward the candidate:
When Chozick meets some blonde college girls in Iowa who tell her they support Trump, her internal monologue goes as follows: "‘Seriously?’ I thought for sure these girls were [f***ing] with me or [f***ing] with the democratic process or both." So the democratic process itself is imperiled if Clinton doesn’t win. This is the considered opinion of the Times’ embed. And keep in mind that all of the above is just what Chozick is choosing to share with us while trying to preserve her credibility as a nonpartisan reporter. Chasing Hillary might as well be called Worshipping Hillary.
Chozick says that perhaps 18 out of 20 reporters on the Hillary beat on a typical day were women, and she makes it clear that this wasn’t an accident: The crew were excited about the prospect of what they dubbed the "FWP," for First Woman President. When awaiting an offer from the campaign to take a group photo with their idol, Chozick relates that the reporters excitedly chattered amongst themselves about the prospect in text messages. It doesn’t make the women look great. Nor does Chozick do the sisterhood a favor when she describes what happened when the campaign sent a Clinton-backing actor, Tony Goldwyn of TV’s Scandal, to talk to them and his "feral grey eyes" caused the women "to abandon whatever story we were working on to flip our hair and ask useless questions like, ‘What did you think of Iowa?’" After Clinton’s defeat, these "Girls on the Bus" were "in some stage of a breakdown . . . we comforted each other with pats on the shoulder" because "hugs would have been too conspicuous." Lisa Lerer of the AP angrily said, at Clinton’s concession speech the morning after the election, "It was the all-female press corps. The country couldn’t take it."
Chozick, who also wrote she cried after writing her wrap-up story about Clinton losing the election to Donald Trump, objected to the idea that she was a Clinton fan, though, during a discussion of the book at the Politics and Prose Bookstore on May 3.
"I've been getting ever since the book came out, like Fox News and the Free Beacon saying I'm obviously in love with Hillary," she said. "It's one of those things with Hillary, some people say you're too hard on her and you hate her, and then the same exact quote can be used as 'You're in the tank and you love Hillary.' It's complicated."