Oprah denies asking to join Mitt Romney's 2020 presidential campaign

Media mogul Oprah Winfrey denied that she asked former presidential candidate Senator Mitt Romney to run with her under a unity ticket, The Wrap reported.

In the upcoming book, Romney: A Reckoning, author McKay Coppins said that Romney told her Winfrey had asked in 2019 to run together under a unity ticket the following year. This is one of the details Coppins wrote about in her new book.

Oprah NOT for President

Oprah Winfrey, ESSENCE Festival

However, Winfrey refuted this claim, saying that she only reached out to the senator to ask him to run as independent in 2020. In a statement to the media outlet, Winfrey's representatives repeated, “In November 2019, Ms. Winfrey called Senator Romney to encourage him to run on an Independent ticket.” They added, “She was not calling to be part of the ticket and was never considering running herself.”

Romney spoke out against Donald Trump in 2016. However, he still accepted his endorsement during his senate run in Utah in 2018. Romney lost the 2012 election against Barack Obama by over 5 million votes.

The Utah senator also took part in the racist “birther” conspiracy against former President Obama. They claimed that Obama faked his birth certificate, wasn't born in Hawaii and there ineligible to be elected president. Trump, in particular, was famous for spreading that claim.

According to the book, Romney told the author that Winfrey, a vocal Obama supporter, raised the issue “to save the country” from a Trump presidency.

Maui debacle

Oprah Winfrey was most recently in the headlines for the backlash-laden Maui fund relief. She and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson had asked the public to contribute to the fund. While on CBS Morning, she addressed the criticisms by saying that the “great idea” to kickstart the fund with $5 million each from her and Johnson was from the locals on the ground.

Negative criticisms notwithstanding, Winfrey said that they have identified more than 2,000 people who will directly receive financial assistance. She owns “Promised Land,” which is about 1,000 acres of land in Maui.

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