‘Oprah Just Came Out With Her Christmas Wish List – Oz Ain’t On It’: MSNBC’s Ruhle Reacts to Oprah Endorsing Fetterman

 

Stephanie Ruhle informed viewers of Thursday’s The 11th Hour that Oprah Winfrey endorsed Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman for U.S. Senate over Mehmet Oz, whose television career she was instrumental in launching.

Winfrey hosted Oz dozens of times on her long-running daytime talk show, which Oz parlayed into a show of his own that ran from 2009 until 2022.

“If I lived in Pennsylvania, I would’ve already cast my vote for John Fetterman for many reasons,” Winfrey said during an event she hosted titled “A Virtual Voting Conversation.”

“Oprah Winfrey, tonight, who brought Dr. Oz to America has now come out and endorsed his opponent, John Fetterman,” Ruhle said. “Huge headline, but does it move votes in Pennsylvania?”

Former Republican strategist Matthew Dowd replied in the affirmative.

“I’m not one big on endorsements in the final minutes having some grand effect on a race,” he said. “This one, I think, is different, because most people are aware that Oprah sort of invented Dr. Oz and has been very quiet in the course of this until today. And this is a race, in my view, that’s going to be decided by a few thousand votes in Pennsylvania, which could decide the U.S. Senate races and who holds the Senate.”

Dowd seemed struck by the fact Winfrey made an endorsement of any kind in the race.

“In this case, I think Oprah coming for Fetterman, one, gives him a boost in the final 48 hours that he otherwise wouldn’t have had. And two, it is really a slam on Dr. Oz that she would do this in such a way. She could’ve easily stayed quiet. She didn’t.”

“Oprah just came out with her Christmas wish list,” Ruhle said. “Oz ain’t on it.”

Before she endorsed Fetterman in the “Virtual Voting Conversation,” Winfrey laid out some of her concerns about the issues.

“If we do not show up to vote, if we do not get fired up in this moment, the people who will be in power will begin making decisions for us,” she said. “Decisions about how we care for our bodies, how we care for our kids, what books your children can read, who gets protected by the police and who gets targeted.”

Watch above via MSNBC.

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Mike is a Mediaite senior editor who covers the news in primetime. Follow him on Bluesky.