Oprah Winfrey has denied a claim in a new biography about Sen. Mitt Romney that she pitched the Utah Republican to run for president as an independent in 2020 with her as his running mate to oust Donald Trump from office. In a statement to The New York Times, a spokesperson for the talk show queen dismissed the detail in McKay Coppins’ upcoming book “Romney: A Reckoning.”
“In November 2019, Ms. Winfrey called Senator Romney to encourage him to run on an Independent ticket,” Winfrey’s representative said. “She was not calling to be part of the ticket and was never considering running herself.”
According to the now-disputed excerpt from Coppins’ book that was shared with the Times, Winfrey proposed a unity ticket to “save the country” because she doubted Democrats had a candidate who could defeat Trump. But Republican 2012 presidential nominee Romney thought it may help rather than harm the incumbent POTUS and told Winfrey “he’d have to pass,” Coppins wrote, per the Times.
Coppins and Romney have not commented on Winfrey’s denial of the claim. Romney last month announced he would not seek reelection in 2024, saying “it’s time for a new generation of leaders.”
