WATCH: What ‘Standards’? CBS Execs Rebuked Anchor’s Tough Questions on Israel But Let Gayle King’s Softballs Slide

‘Everybody knows you’re extremely qualified,’ King told Georgia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams

CBS News executives are under fire for accusing anchor Tony Dokoupil of violating the network’s “editorial standards” by asking tough questions of anti-Israel author and left-wing darling Ta-Nehisi Coates. 

But network brass has expressed no such consternation over star anchor Gayle King’s expression, on the air, of her own left-wing views. 

King, who reportedly earns upwards of $10 million a year, is known for frolicking on yachts with Barack Obama and praising the Democrat on CBS’s airwaves as a scandal-free and “extraordinary” president. She’s also best friends with Kamala Harris campaign surrogate Oprah Winfrey, who spoke at the Democratic National Convention as King covered the event for CBS and lauded Harris’s “unique” qualifications. She spoke in similarly glowing terms with Georgia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, telling her, “Everybody knows you’re extremely qualified.”

King has deployed different tactics when interviewing less friendly subjects. In a 2018 interview with then-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), she panned a photo of the GOP’s congressional leaders, saying, “You know, when I look at that picture, Mr. Speaker, I have to say, I don’t see anybody that looks like me in terms of color or gender.”

Last November, meanwhile, King pushed back on the Jewish father of an 8-year-old girl held hostage by Hamas, accusing him of playing politics.

“But now, this seems to be all about politics. What do you say about that?” King asked. “You know, you have innocent children—Palestinians who are dying, innocent Israeli children who are dying, and no one seems to be able to say enough, stop that.”

King also played nice with Coates ahead of the author’s interview last week. Though she did not end up asking him a question on the air, Coates said King approached him ahead of the interview to flag her questions ahead of time. 

“Gayle King is a great journalist and a great interviewer,” Coates said during a podcast appearance. “And Gayle came behind the stage before she went [on] and she had gone through the book, and I’m not saying she agreed with the book. She was like, I’m gonna ask you about this, I’m gonna ask you about that.”