Oprah Finally Addresses The 2 MAGA Nightmare Men She Unleashed On The World
Oprah Finally Addresses The 2 MAGA Nightmare Men She Unleashed On The World
Elyse WanshelThu, August 13, 2026 at 8:59 PM UTC
0
Oprah Winfrey doesn’t want to catch two right-wingers’ MAGA cooties — even if she’s responsible for making them famous.
The media mogul finally addressed unleashing Dr. Phil McGraw and Dr. Mehmet Oz, the current Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator, upon the world by inviting them on to her former, and extremely influential, talk show, “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
Oprah Winfrey speaks during a Forbes event in June.Astrida Valigorsky via Getty Images
“People criticize me for Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz, because of their politics or their views,” Winfrey told Emmy Magazine in an interview published Tuesday.
She later added: “Everybody has their own path in life, and it has not one thing to do with me, and I don’t have one thing to do with them.”
Winfrey, right, campaigns with former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential race.SAUL LOEB via Getty Images
But she sure as hell gave them a platform.
McGraw (who is not a medical doctor) first appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 1998 after he helped her prepare for a libel trial in 1996 when the cattle industry came after her for claims she made about mad cow disease on her show. McGraw quickly resonated with Winfrey’s audience and received a weekly slot as a self-help expert. He got his own show in 2002.
Winfrey grabs dinner with Phil McGraw at Spago restaurant Aug. 5, 2001, in Hollywood, California.Denny Keeler via Getty Images
Like this article? Keep independent journalism alive. Support HuffPost.
“Dr. Phil, he was so practical, so down to earth, so real,” Winfrey told Emmy Magazine. “And he would ride in the car with me every morning on the way to trial, where I’m literally sitting on trial for six weeks. I felt that he was so instrumental in helping me. I thought, ‘Oh, you could help a lot of people. You should come on my show.’”
Winfrey met Oz, then a cardiothoracic surgeon at New York City’s Columbia University, in 2003 after she appeared as a guest on a show he hosted for the Discovery Health Channel. Much like McGraw, Oz also became a popular Winfrey guest and got his own show in 2009.
Politics: Ken Paxton Gets Knocked On His Butt By Blunt Question At Town Hall
Advertisement
Winfrey told Emmy Magazine her close friend Gayle King, a “CBS Mornings” co-host, introduced her to Oz.
“He explained practical things like colon cancer and bowel movements,” Winfrey told the outlet. “I thought he had the language for explaining medical things in a way that was helpful to me. I thought it would be helpful to many other people. And that is how they ended up on the show.”
Former editor-in-chief of O, The Oprah Magazine, Lucy Kaylin, from left, Mehmet Oz and Gayle King at an event in 2016.Brent N. Clarke via Getty Images
She concluded, “At the time, the reason and intention behind me giving them their breaks was I thought they had valuable information to share that had been meaningful to me.”
Many critics of the two men would argue they’ve been anything but valuable or meaningful since.
President Donald Trump speaks in 2025 alongside Phil McGraw during a National Day of Prayer event at the White House Rose Garden.Alex Wong via Getty Images
McGraw pressured the parents of troubled teens who appeared on his show to go to Turn-Around Ranch, a treatment facility in Escalante, Utah, that works with kids. The facility has since been plagued by lawsuits and allegations of abuse by former participants and families. He is accused of exploiting the late actor Shelley Duvall on his show while she was having a mental health crisis, and later reportedly harassed her when he received blowback.
He has appeared at rallies for Donald Trump and served as an interviewer for big names in the MAGA orbit, including border czar Tom Homan. McGraw has even tagged along on Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
Trump stands behind Oz at a campaign rally for his failed Senate run in 2022.ED JONES via Getty Images
Oz has a more official place in the Trump administration, serving as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. He has said people should have to “prove that you matter” to get Medicaid coverage, and has made the baseless claim that Medicaid was going to lazy, able-bodied people who watched TV all day and just didn’t want to work.
Oz has also proven to be a Trump sycophant — admitting in 2025 that he works underneath a portrait of the president, which is a replica of a piece from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Oz is also known for spreading medical misinformation and selling weight-loss supplements with no scientific research supporting their efficacy.
Read Next -
Mehmet Oz Offers Wildly Unconvincing Reason For Trump’s Medical Checkups
‘In The Dark Too Long’: Medical Expert Hits Trump With 7 Urgent Health Questions
Seth Meyers’ Clever Mehmet Oz Edit Delivers Brutal 5-Word Burn On Trump
Read the original on HuffPost
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
