The US news network’s silver-haired chief national correspondent on growing up as an Irish-American in blue-collar Boston, covering the scandal-filled years of the Clintons, his daily challenges living with MS – and what he really thinks of the US President
John King gives a nod to his Galway roots as he relaxes in his office in CNN in Washington. Photo: Benjamin Lowy
“Multiple sclerosis sucks,” says John King, CNN’s white-haired, Irish-American oracle on politics for the last 25 years. “The heat is the worst for me. We have had a very hot summer in Washington, and even when I travelled it has been very hot. So, I can’t go outside as much as I would like, because I would lose my ability to walk or to function in other ways in the heat.”
Diagnosed in 2008, he publicly revealed he had the disease on his show, Inside Politics, in 2021. “MS is a very cruel disease to many people who get it,” King says now. “They go from walking to wheelchairs in a matter of months. They lose the ability to do things, whether they are craftsmen or dancers, that they love. That challenges me every day. I still get to do the things that I love.