Her next big gig? Oprah Winfrey seemed to contemplate the “possibility” of running for president during a recent interview with Bloomberg Media after the show host, David Rubenstein, pointed out that her popularity could win her a majority of the nation’s votes. Listen to her suspenseful response in the clip above!
“Have you ever thought that — given the popularity that you have — we haven’t broken the glass ceiling yet for women, [but] that you could actually run for president and be elected?” Rubenstein asked Winfrey, 63, as part of his interview for The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations. Winfrey looked surprised at the question as the audience cheered and applauded his suggestion.
“I actually never considered the question, even the possibility,” the veteran talk show host and media mogul admitted after taking a few moments to collect herself. “I just thought, ‘Oh. Oh!’”
Rubenstein pressed further for a confirmation, hinting at the fact that current president Donald Trump is the first U.S. president to serve without any government or military experience — though he didn’t refer to the real estate mogul by name.
“It’s clear you don’t need government experience to be elected president,” the renowned financier and philanthropist said.
“That’s what I thought!” Winfrey exclaimed. “I thought, ‘Oh, gee, I don’t have the experience, I don’t know enough.’ And now I’m thinking, ‘Oh.’” Though it is unclear how serious Winfrey was being in her response, the beloved television personality’s word has held a lot of influence in the political realm in the past.
In late October, Winfrey, who largely stayed quiet during the election season, gave her endorsement to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, telling journalist T.D. Jakes during an interview that “there really is no choice, people.”
“All the people sitting around talking about they can’t decide … this is what I really want to say,” she said at the time. “I hear this all the time, you get in conversations … where people say, ‘I just don’t know if I like her.’ She’s not coming over to your house. You don’t have to like her. You don’t have to like her. Do you like this country? You better get out there and vote. Do you like the country? Do you like freedom and liberty? Do you like democracy? Or do you want a demagogue?”
In the days following Trump’s surprise victory on November 8, Winfrey tried to take on a reassuring tone in an interview with The Associated Press, addressing video of President Obama and Trump meeting for the first time. “I could sense — maybe I’m wrong — but I could sense from Donald Trump’s body language even when he came out for the acceptance speech, that brotha has been humbled by this whole thing,” she told the AP at the time. “I think it’s a humbling process that now you literally have the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
