This morning former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson was on CNN talking about her effort on Capitol Hill yesterday to pass the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2017. The bill would prohibit employers from requiring arbitration. “Reforming arbitration laws is key to stopping sexual harassment,” Carlson said during the introduction of the bi-partisan bill.
At the end of the CNN interview anchors Poppy Harlow and John Berman asked Carlson whether she had higher office in mind.
“I have been asked to run for the senate. I have said that it’s not in my timing right now,” Carlson said. When Berman pressed her, as a someone who worked on the other side of the camera, that her answer came off as a non-denial denial, Carlson said, “No. Not yet.”
Later she added on Twitter, “I said I wouldn’t rule out politics in general in my life. I’m not running for Senate in CT.” Carlson and her family live in Connecticut. But she was born and raised in Minnesota and represented that state–and won–the 1989 Miss America pageant.
With Minnesota Sen. Al Franken‘s seat soon to be vacant, there will be a special election in 2018 to fill out the remaining two years of his term. Carlson could conceivably return to her home state and run there.
“My life has worked in mysterious ways,” Carlson said on CNN. “I started as a classical violinist and was going to be a lawyer and ended up in TV and never expected to be the face of sexual harassment. So my answer to that question is ‘who knows?'”