Involved that the Democratic area wasn’t as much as the duty of stopping President Donald J. Trump in 2020, Oprah Winfrey pitched Mitt Romney on the concept of working for president as an unbiased, along with her as his working mate, based on a forthcoming biography of the Republican senator from Utah.
Ms. Winfrey floated the bizarre joint ticket in a cellphone name she positioned to Mr. Romney’s spouse, Ann Romney, in November 2019, based on an excerpt from the e-book, “Romney: A Reckoning,” that was shared with The New York Occasions.
Mr. Romney a minimum of listened to the concept. (It was Oprah calling, in spite of everything.) He “heard the pitch, and informed her he was flattered, however that he’d should go,” the writer, McKay Coppins of The Atlantic, writes.
The e-book was primarily based on hours of interviews with Mr. Romney, in addition to emails, texts and journals that the senator had been saving to probably write a memoir. Realizing he couldn’t be goal about himself, Mr. Romney has stated he selected to have a journalist write about him as an alternative.
Ms. Winfrey’s curiosity in forming an unbiased ticket with Mr. Romney, which was reported on Monday by Axios, is amongst a number of dishy gadgets from the e-book, which is to be launched on Oct. 24.
She has identified the Romneys since 2012, when she interviewed them at their lakeside dwelling in New Hampshire as Mr. Romney was working for president. Ms. Winfrey had additionally seen Ms. Romney at varied social occasions, and was “particularly fond” of her, based on the e-book.
On the cellphone with Ms. Romney, Ms. Winfrey defined that Michael Bloomberg, the previous New York Metropolis mayor, was making ready to enter the race and had approached her about becoming a member of his ticket. Earlier than she determined, she wished to gauge Mr. Romney’s curiosity.
She doubted that Joseph R. Biden Jr. or Pete Buttigieg might beat Mr. Trump and was “sure” that Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts couldn’t, based on the e-book.
Ms. Romney responded that her husband wouldn’t run for president in 2020, both as a Republican or as an unbiased, Mr. Coppins writes. Mr. Romney additionally politely batted down the concept, based on the e-book.
Liz Johnson, an aide to Mr. Romney, declined to touch upon Monday. An aide to Mr. Bloomberg additionally declined to remark.
Emails to OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Community, weren’t instantly returned. Axios reported that “a supply accustomed to Ms. Winfrey’s pondering stated she was by no means severe about working — though some near her thought she ought to.”
Ms. Winfrey has at occasions been talked about as a possible presidential candidate herself. In 2018, after she delivered a rousing speech on the Golden Globes, some have been clamoring for her to run. However she informed “60 Minutes Overtime” that she wouldn’t turn out to be a candidate in 2020 regardless that “I had quite a lot of rich males calling, telling me that they’d run my marketing campaign and lift $1 billion for me.”
“I’m really humbled by the truth that folks assume that I might be a frontrunner of the free world, but it surely’s simply not in my spirit,” she stated. “It’s not in my DNA.”
Mr. Romney, 76, not too long ago introduced that he wouldn’t search re-election in 2024, saying he wished to make means for a “new era of leaders.” He strongly recommended that Mr. Trump and President Biden must also bow out, arguing that neither was successfully main his occasion to confront the “important challenges” the nation faces.
