Trump claims one-time friend Oprah Winfrey used to frequent Mar-a-Lago a lot and loved him until he decided to run for office
President Donald Trump reminisced about his apparent past friendship with Oprah Winfrey at a campaign rally in Louisiana on October 11. The president told supporters that the legendary television personality and philanthropist used to be a frequent guest at his Florida golf course before their falling out, according to a report by the New York Post.
“She used to go to Mar-a-Lago,” Trump said at the rally. “She loved me until I decided to run for office."
“She loved the key lime pie,” he added.
Trump and Winfrey were reportedly friends in the past despite being on opposite sides politically and Trump had appeared on Winfrey's show alongside his family in 2011. They reportedly had a falling out in 2008 after Winfrey backed Barack Obama for president.
The president also pointed out that Winfrey and the Obamas had backed Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams in the race for the post of Georgia governor in 2018. Abrams ultimately lost to Brian Kemp, the candidate Trump had supported, a fact that the president highlighted in his speech at the Louisiana rally.
In 1999, Trump had declared that if he ever ran for president, Winfrey would be his first choice as his running mate. Talking to CNN's Larry King, Trump had described Winfrey as a "terrific woman" and a person whom he considered to be "very special".
“I love Oprah,” Trump said during that 1999 interview. “Oprah would always be my first choice. … I’ll tell ya, she’s really a great woman, though. She is a terrific woman. She’s somebody that’s very special.”
Winfrey is yet to comment on Trump's remarks about their apparent past friendship. The media mogul did, however, offer some advice to Democratic party candidates running in the 2020 election while making an appearance on 'CBS This Morning' in September.
"I think a lot of the candidates make the biggest mistake, and certainly this happened in the previous election," Winfrey said. "There's a law, natural law, that says, what you give your attention to, expands. So, you should not talk about the other guy, because you only empower your opponents when you talk about them. You should talk about what you are going to do and, as little as possible, not discuss what the other guy's doing."