Oprah Winfrey, queen of everything, doesn’t have time for President Donald Trump’s negativity, and she isn’t afraid to talk about it.
On Sunday night, President Trump tweeted his opinion of Oprah’s panel on 60 Minutes, criticizing her interviewing abilities as well as the rumors that she will run for office in 2020. He alleged that the questions she asked a group of diverse voters were “biased and slanted,” and that she appeared “very insensure.”
Just watched a very insecure Oprah Winfrey, who at one point I knew very well, interview a panel of people on 60 Minutes. The questions were biased and slanted, the facts incorrect. Hope Oprah runs so she can be exposed and defeated just like all of the others!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 19, 2018
Oprah did not respond to Trump’s tweet via Twitter, but she did when asked about it on The Ellen Degeneres Show on Thursday. “I woke up and I just thought…” Oprah said, shrugging. “And I don’t like giving negativity power, so I just thought, ‘What?’ What I actually really did was I went back and looked at the tape to see if there was any place that that could be true. Did I feel like it was slanted or biased? I went back and looked at every tape; I called the producers.”
She then went on to explain the process and planning behind the 60 Minutes segment. “You sit in a room with at least seven other people who critique the piece before you air it—before you do the introduction to it—and then they give you the critique. They critique every word. ‘Is this fair?’ You have this whole panel of people looking at whether it was fair. And actually, the first time I saw it, I said, ‘There’s something missing here from the conversation.'”
Oprah took the time to make sure that both sides of the discussion were being represented. At one point, she even urged producers to include answers from both a Republican and Democrat to one question where they had previously only included the answers of a Democrat.
“So, I was working very hard to do the opposite of what I was hate-tweeted about, it’s OK,” Oprah said.
Ellen DeGeneres made sure to defend Oprah against Trump’s tweet. “Oprah is my friend, and when you mess with Oprah, you mess with me,” she said. “President Trump, it’s time for an ‘aha moment.’ You’re not just some guy on Twitter anymore. You’re the President for all of us. It is your job to unite people, and you don’t do it by attacking people, especially Oprah.” Preach.
And although President Winfrey has a nice ring to it, Oprah isn’t interesting in going for the job that Trump challenged her to. “I’ve always felt secure and confident with myself in knowing what I could do and what I could not,” she previously told InStyle. “And it’s not something that interests me.”