‘How is That Possible?!’ CBS’ Gayle King Gobsmacked After Colleague Says Trump’s ‘Character and Conduct’ Didn’t Turn Off Voters

Longtime journalist Gayle King was shocked to learn that Donald Trump’s past behavior didn’t turn away a more significant portion of voters.

Trump was declared the winner over Vice President Kamala Harris early Wednesday morning. As it became clear that the former president would likely be returning to the White House in January 2025, the CBS election panel discussed how Trump was able to pull off what has been recognized as one of the most unlikely comebacks in the history of American politics.

CBS’s Robert Costa said he overestimated the impact of Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

“I’ll show some self awareness here,” Costa said. “I spent a year of my life digging into January 6th. I believe, based on my reporting, it was a very serious moment in American history. You had a President of the United States work to pressure his party and his vice president to overturn the election. Working with Bob Woodward, we reported that the chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff believed President Trump was in serious mental decline. It was in threat of misusing the military in the final days in a way that was somewhat comparable to Nixon and concerns in August ’74, but far worse in the eyes of a million others.

“January 6th — for Congresswoman Cheney, for others who have studied January 6th committee — was this explosion in American democracy; but as a reporter, I must also acknowledge even if I found this to be serious based on my reporting, when I was on the campaign trail in 2024 and in 2022, when I was talking to Republican voters centrist voters, democratic voters — even though Democrats took a bit of a different view — many voters did not process January 6th, 2021, as a grave moment in American democracy. And because of that, a lot of Republican voters are not turning on the character and conduct question.”

King wondered how that could even be possible.

“How is that possible though, Bob, when you look at those pictures?” she asked Costa. “I think that’s what many people are grappling with. You look at January 6th — he characterized it as a protest of love, he characterized it as patriots — yet you’re right when you say that is not how people saw that. How is that possible?”

Watch above via CBS News