Talk show icon Oprah Winfrey distances herself from Dr. Oz's Republican Senate bid

Talk show titan Oprah Winfrey finally offered her thoughts on former protégé Dr. Mehmet Oz’s recently announced GOP Senate bid in Pennsylvania, deliberately distancing herself from the conservative cardiac surgeon’s campaign.

‘One of the great things about our democracy is that every citizen can decide to run for public office,’ Winfrey, 67, told New York magazine Tuesday in a brief but calculated statement from her spokesperson, Nicole Nichols. 

‘Mehmet Oz has made that decision. And now it’s up to the residents of Pennsylvania to decide who will represent them,’ the iconic host of The Oprah Winfrey Show asserted, offering no words of endorsement for her old pal who rocketed to fame as a regular guest on her program in the 2000s before landing his own show in 2009.

At the time, Winfrey affectionately dubbed the surgeon who appeared on regularly on the show to offer health and wellness advice as ‘America’s Doctor.’  

Winfrey, a known Democrat who previously endorsed former President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in their White House bids, did not offer additional comments on Oz’s campaign. 

Oz, who announced that he would be running to succeed retiring Republican Pat Toomey last month, has since decided to nix his popular show after 13 seasons in order to fully pursue his political career.

The aspiring politico, who was born to Turkish immigrants in Cleveland, Ohio, said at the time that he was throwing his hat in the ring because of other politicians’ mishandling of the pandemic.

‘We have not managed our crises as effectively as past generations,’ Oz said last month upon announcing his candidacy for the Pennsylvania Senate.

‘During the pandemic,’ he went on, ‘I learned that when you mix politics and medicine, you get politics instead of solutions. That’s why I am running for the U.S. Senate: to help fix the problems and to help us heal.’

In an op-ed for the Washington Examiner announcing his candidacy in November, the pro-Trump Republican honed in further on the federal government’s mismanagement of the pandemic.  

‘We are angry at our government and at each other,’ the surgeon said. 

‘Over 750,000 in the United States have died from the virus, a devastating toll for families and communities. Many of those deaths were preventable. COVID-19 became an excuse for the government and elite thinkers who controlled the means of communication to suspend debate. Dissenting opinions from leading scholars were ridiculed and canceled so their ideas could not be disseminated,’ Oz wrote. 

Oz paid tribute to ‘moments of brilliance,’ including ‘mRNA vaccines made possible by President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed.’ 

‘We must confront those who want to change the very soul of America and reimagine it with their toxic ideology,’ Oz concluded.

Shortly after Oz released his first campaign video on Twitter. 

‘Covid has shown us our system is broken. We lost too many lives, too many jobs, too many opportunities because Washington got it wrong. They took away our freedoms without making us safer. They took away our spirit, our dignity. Pennsylvania needs a conservative who will put America first.’

With his comments, the heart surgeon turned celebrity doctor, who has touted everything from fat-melting pills to a malaria drug endorsed by former President Trump as a COVID-19 miracle cure on his popular, eponymously named program, seems to be looking to capitalize on his medical knowledge for his campaign, as the Delta and Omicron variants continue to spread rampantly across the US.

Meanwhile, Oz – a longtime New Jersey resident – has come under fire for not holding residency in the very place he aims to represent, with many suggesting the the TV doc is looking to parlay his political success into a political career by callously capitalizing on the opportunity presented by Toomey’s retiring.

However, the cardiac surgeon’s campaign team recently combated these claims, telling local news outlet 6 ABC that Oz has been renting a property in the state’s Bryn Athyn, Montgomery County, for the past year, and has voted there as well.

Oz also went to medical school and business school in the Keystone State, at the University of Pennsylvania.  

Despite this, though, experts posit that the surgeon-turned-statesman – who used his time on the air waves on his and Winfrey’s program to promote practices and provide tips concerning health and wellness – may have his work cut out from him when convincing voters of his what he asserts are dutiful intentions.

‘You could meet the legal standard fairly easily by renting a residence and establishing you’re getting mail there and registering to vote,’ political science professor Chris Borick, also the director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, told the Pennsylvania outlet earlier this month. 

‘Convincing the public that you are truly a resident of the state and care about the state and are vested in the state,’ he added, ‘is a different thing.’ 

Democrat New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell, meanwhile, made a tongue-in-cheek remark on Oz’s candidacy for the position outside the jurisdictions of the pair’s home state.

‘I want to congratulate my North Jersey constituent Dr. Oz on his run for US Senate in Pennsylvania’, he said. ‘I’m sure this fully genuine candidacy will capture the hearts of Pennsylvanians.’  

Oz looks to bring his name recognition and wealth to a wide-open race that is expected to among the nation’s most competitive and could determine control of the Senate in next year’s election.

Oz would enter a Republican field that is resetting with an influx of candidates and a new opportunity to appeal to voters loyal to former President Donald Trump, after Trump-endorsed candidate Sean Parnell withdrew from the race last month amid allegations from his estranged wife that he was abusive towards her and their three children. 

Now, Oz’s competition consists of Montgomery County developer Jeff Bartos, former Ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands, and conservative commentator Kathy Barnette, ahead of the 2022 Republican Primary.

The TV surgeon made headlines earlier this week after he and his wife, Lisa, 58, were allegedly overheard engaging in a curse-laden rant criticizing a New York journalist.

Olivia Nuzzi, a correspondent for New York magazine, reportedly contacted Oz earlier in the week for an over-the-phone interview as part of a profile the publication was preparing on the TV doc.

According to Nuzzi, Oz’s wife was the one to answer the phone, and had a brief interaction with Nuzzi, 28, before attempting – unsuccessfully – to hang up.  

Nuzzi proceeded to listen in as the couple called her a ‘liar’ and a ‘f***king girl reporter,’ while bringing up a conversation Nuzzi had had with the couple’s friend Michelle Bouchard.

‘I think the old guard of the Republican Party was just that, the old guard. I think the new Republican Party is emerging, and the new Republican Party is going to be great,’ Bouchard had told Nuzzi for New York magazine’s piece, published Tuesday.

The GOP ‘should be very grateful that someone that intelligent and that objective, someone of his caliber who is able to reach across aisles, is actually running. He’s the greatest healer I’ve ever known,’ Bouchard added.

Speaking about the longtime friend of the couple who had been interviewed by Nuzzi for the profile just days before, Oz reportedly asserted to his wife that ‘Michelle said stuff she shouldn’t have said’ concerning his Senate run and potential political career. 

‘She said s**t she shouldn’t have said! That I was going to be the next leader of the Republican Party.’

Not knowing Nuzzi was listening in, Oz’s alleged remarks seem to suggest that the aspiring politician, despite his high-profile Senate bid, does not want to be seen as the next leader of the Republican Party. 

The comment also coincide with statements made during several of Oz’s recent media appearances, in which the doctor chose not to align himself with hardcore conservative views concerning abortion. 

Nuzzi said that she also tried to interview Winfrey for the tell-all piece, to no avail. 

Oz’s show had been on air for more than a decade, and he currently earns a $20 million salary and has an estimated net worth of around $100 million. 

The show will be replaced by a spinoff titled The Good Dish, hosted by the doctor’s own daughter Daphne Oz. 

The new cooking and health show will also be hosted by Top Chef judge Gail Simmons and chef Jamika Pessoa.

The Good Dish will premiere in 90% of markets three days after the Dr. Oz Show airs its final episode.