Oprah: I'm definitely not running for president

Oprah Winfrey was taping a podcast at the Apollo Theater in Harlem today with Hamilton creator Lin Manuel Miranda. During the conversation, she ruled out a run for the White House. From People:

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During a special live-taping of her podcast SuperSoul Sunday, Winfrey was chatting with Lin-Manuel Miranda when she confirmed for the first time that she has no plans of running for office.

After Miranda stated that he is not going into politics, Winfrey replied: “I’m not either.”

Both Winfrey and Miranda have long been favored by fans to launch a White House bid…

“I’ve always felt very secure and confident with myself in knowing what I could do and what I could not. And so it’s not something that interests me,” the 63-year-old former talk show host told InStyle Editor-in-Chief Laura Brown in the cover story for their March Fashion Issue. “I don’t have the DNA for it.”

The InStyle magazine interview actually took place before the Golden Globes speech that kicked off a lot of the Winfrey 2020 speculation, so this is the first time since that all began that she has shot it down. The possibility she might run was stoked last month when CNN reported that two people close to her claimed she was “actively thinking” about the possibility:

Oprah Winfrey is “actively thinking” about running for president, two of her close friends told CNN Monday.

The two friends, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely, talked in the wake of Winfrey’s extraordinary speech at the Golden Globes Sunday night, which spurred chatter about a 2020 run.

Some of Winfrey’s confidants have been privately urging her to run, the sources said.

One of the sources said these conversations date back several months. The person emphasized that Winfrey has not made up her mind about running.

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Winfrey has also picked up a lot of early endorsements in the few weeks these rumors were flying, including Steven Spielberg who told the Guardian last month, “I think Oprah Winfrey would make an absolutely brilliant president.” He added, “If she declares, I will back her.” One person who did not think Oprah would run was President Trump, though he also expressed fondness for her.

There are still plenty of other famous, Democratic billionaires who could challenge Trump in 2020, but it looks like Oprah is ruling it out. That’s probably good news for the GOP because Oprah may be the one candidate who could generate even more free media during a campaign that Trump did in 2016. Just a hint of speculation that she might be thinking about it 1,000 days before the next election produced a host of segments like this one:

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Beege Welborn 8:00 PM | December 02, 2024
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