In a wide-ranging interview on “Piers Morgan Tonight” on CNN Thursday, network founder Ted Turner gave presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney high marks without “endorsing” him outright.
“When I started CNN, I made the decision to stay out of endorsing candidates, and let the doers make up their own minds about politics, that it wasn’t going to come from me,” Turner said. “The other networks were all telling everybody what to do. But I wanted to be different and let people make up their own minds.”
“So I didn’t — I would talk about candidates. And I can say about Mitt Romney, I think he’s a real gentleman. I think he’s been very successful. I think he’s really smart. And I don’t agree with everything that he believes, but I agree with a lot of it. And I think that he’d probably make a good president.”
Turner did say, however, that he was leaning more Democratic than Republican because of environmental issues.
“I’d like to say that right now, in the last few years, the Democrats have been closer — have been more pro-environment,” Turner said. “The coal industry is pretty well entrenched in the Republican Party and that’s one of the things that we need to phase out.”