Legendary talk show host and entrepreneur Oprah Winfrey made a surprise speech Wednesday on behalf of Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, to the delight of the crowd at the party’s convention.
In a purple Harris-style suit, Winfrey came out on stage at the Democratic National Convention to Jon Batiste’s “Freedom” and delivered a soaring speech building on themes of personal freedom, which resounded throughout the evening.
Without mentioning the name of Harris’ Republican opponent, former President Trump, Winfrey went through a by now familiar litany of the rights the Democrats are willing to defend against attacks.
“There are people who want you to see the country as us against them,” she said. “People who want to scare you, who want to rule you. People who have you believe that books are dangerous and assault rifles are safe. That there’s a right way to worship and a wrong way to love.”
Often addressing undecideds and independents, Winfrey laid out the choice between Harris and Trump as one of “loyalty to the Constitution over loyalty to any individual.”
“Let us choose common sense over nonsense, because that’s the best of America,” she said. “Let us choose the sweet promise of tomorrow over the bitter return to yesterday. … We’re not going back.”
Winfrey also came to defense of those criticized by Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.
“When a house is on fire we don’t ask about their race or religion, we don’t wonder who their partner is or how they voted,” Winfrey said. “We just do the best way to save them. And if the place happens to belong to a childless cat lady, well we try to get that cat out too.”
Winfrey said if women cannot have control over their bodies and how they can “bring children into this world and how they are raised and supported, there is no American dream.”
She described the opposition as “wanting to go back to a time of desperation and shame and stone-cold fear.”
Winfrey targeted statements Trump has made throughout the campaign, such as his remark suggesting that voters won’t have to vote in another election four years from now if he wins.
“A certain candidate says we just have to go to the polls just one time, that we’ll never have to do it again,” she said. “Well, you know what? You’re looking at a registered independent who’s proud to vote again and again and again because I’m an American and that’s what Americans do.”
Using her trademark talk-show cadences, she finished by saying, “Let us choose Kamala Harris,” elongating the last candidate’s last name.
The speech was a homecoming for Winfrey, who launched her successful talk show on a local TV station in Chicago in 1983. It went national three years later and ran for 25 years and became the basis of a media empire.
“Who says you can’t go home again?” Winfrey said to a roaring crowd.
Winfrey famously made backed 2008 nominee Barack Obama, the first such political endorsement for one of the most beloved figures in media. She also publicly supported 2016 nominee Hilary Clinton but did not make any speeches or appearances on her behalf, which led the losing candidate’s campaign to wonder what might have been.
With Harris now atop Democratic ticket as the first Black woman to be a major party nominee, Winfrey is stepping up again.
Winfrey had been suggested as a possible presidential candidate herself for the 2020 race — chatter that got so loud her friend “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King had to publicly shut it down.