Dr. Oz, Oprah, and the TV doctor's run for Senate

Dr. Mehmet Oz.
(Image credit: Brian Ach/Getty Images forL'Oréal Paris)

Your favorite TV doctor — Dr. Mehmet Oz — is officially running for Senate in Pennsylvania, but how might your favorite television personality — Oprah Winfrey, of course, on whose show Oz got his start — handle such a political move? Well, according to a new piece from New York's Olivia Nuzzi, that answer could depend on who, and perhaps when, you ask.

Per an account of a meeting with Republican activists and officials in Pittsburgh, one source reports Oz told the room "he believed he could count on Oprah to back him in the general election, when he would need to recalibrate his messaging for moderates after pitching himself to right-wing voters in the primary," writes Nuzzi. Oz reportedly went on to said he had spoken to Winfrey about his campaign and that "she's supportive," both given their friendship and the fact it would be of "strategic" benefit to her to endorse him.

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Brigid Kennedy

Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.