() – Former President Donald Trump told two fictional stories about Oprah Winfrey on Saturday — one of them new, one he’s been telling for at least 11 years.
Trump’s claims about Winfrey are trivial. But they are the latest in a long line of examples of the Republican presidential candidate offering credible but imaginary stories as he once again seeks the highest office in the land.
Winfrey endorsed Trump’s presidential opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, at the Democratic National Convention in August. Winfrey also hosted a live-streamed virtual campaign rally for Harris in Michigan on Thursday.
In a social media post late Saturday night, Trump wrote: “Oprah Winfrey asked me a long time ago to do her last network television show. The last week of her show was a big deal and it was an honor for me, with my family, to do it.” He went on to criticize Harris, saying that when he watched Winfrey’s event with her, “I couldn’t help but think that this is not the real Oprah.”
verifies: Trump’s claim is false. He did not appear on the final episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2011, not even in the show’s star-studded final week. Rather, Trump appeared on the show about three and a half months before it ended.
The Winfrey Show concluded on May 25, 2011Trump and his family appeared in the episode that issued on February 7, 2011.
Seeking to exaggerate his past importance to Winfrey, who has supported Trump’s Democratic opponents in each of the past three presidential elections, Trump falsely boasted at least four times during his presidency that he was on her popular show in its final week. verified the claim in October 2020 and noted that Trump had been doing so since at least 2013.
The final week of the show featured a tribute to Winfrey at a stadium star-studded (including Michael Jordan, Will Smith, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks and Beyoncé, but not Trump) and memorable non-showbiz guest appearances from previous episodes. The final episode starred Only for Winfrey.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that Harris is lying about ever having worked at McDonald’s. (Harris’s campaign says she worked at a restaurant in California (during a summer when I was in college in the 1980s).
At a campaign rally in North Carolina on Saturday morning, Trump said: “And Oprah didn’t ask her about her time at McDonald’s? She just didn’t want to answer that question. “I don’t want to talk about it,” Oprah said, “you work at McDonald’s, that’s great.” You know, Oprah didn’t hear the bottom line; she never worked there. So Kamala just hid under the desk, along with all the other answers she gave.”
verifies: Trump’s claim that Harris dodged a question from Winfrey about working at McDonald’s is false. In fact, Winfrey never asked Harris about working at McDonald’s. Rather, Winfrey mentioned working at McDonald’s in passing during her introduction of Harris, before the vice president took the stage for their conversation.
This was the Winfrey’s only mention of McDonald’s at the event: “In no other country on this Earth could your story unfold the way it has. From daughter of immigrants to big sister to McDonald’s worker, there is hope for all of you: district attorney, wife and ‘Momala’ to senator to vice president. Please welcome Kamala Harris.”
Harris walked out to applause, hugged Winfrey and began their conversation on topics unrelated to McDonald’s.
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