Oprah’s idea to defeat Trump in 2020? A Romney-Winfrey ticket

Talk show host Oprah Winfrey told Sen. Mitt Romney they should run on a unity ticket in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election.

This tidbit made its way into the Utah senator’s biography, “Romney: A Reckoning,” written by McKay Coppins, a writer for The Atlantic, and was first reported by Axios.

The book, set to release next week, is based on interviews with Romney, his family and inner circle as well as personal journals and private emails.

In the manuscript, Romney, a Republican, told Coppins that Winfrey made the pitch “to save the country” and keep President Donald Trump from getting reelected, according to Axios.

Romney dismissed the idea because he said he thought it would only help Trump. The senator is one of the few Republicans in Congress who openly criticizes Trump and was the only one who voted to impeach the former president twice.

A source told Axios that Winfrey, a billionaire Democrat, was not serious about running, although many close to her encouraged her to campaign.

Back in 2018, the media mogul said that she would not run for president because it’s not in her DNA.

“I had a lot of wealthy men calling, telling me that they would run my campaign and raise $1 billion for me,” she told “60 Minutes Overtime.”

“I am actually humbled by the fact that people think that I could be a leader of the free world, but it’s just not in my spirit. ... It’s not in my DNA.”

Meanwhile, Romney has unsuccessfully run for the White House twice. Once in 2008, when he lost the Republican nomination to the late Sen. John McCain, and again in 2012, when he won the GOP nomination and ran alongside Paul Ryan, who later became the speaker of the House of Representatives.

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Winfrey interviewed Romney and his wife, Ann Romney, in New Hampshire during his 2012 run for president, where Romney talked about his family, politics and being raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

On growing up as a Latter-day Saint, he said: “It taught me a deep and abiding love of God and his son Jesus Christ, and I did my best to be a better person in part because of my faith. My faith teaches me to serve, to give of myself to others.”

Romney has served in the Senate since 2018 and recently announced that he will not seek reelection, saying that it’s time for a new generation to “step up.”

For the 2024 presidential election, Romney has advised Republican candidates to withdraw if “their paths to the nomination are effectively closed,” and coalesce around one candidate against Trump, who is leading in Republican primary polls.

At the same time, he has encouraged several Democratic senators to run against President Joe Biden.

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