{"id":999014,"date":"2026-08-13T22:32:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T22:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/999014\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T22:32:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T22:32:19","slug":"oprah-talks-about-maga-men-she-unleashed-on-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/999014\/","title":{"rendered":"Oprah Talks About MAGA Men She Unleashed On The World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oprah Winfrey<\/a> doesn\u2019t want to catch two right-wingers\u2019 MAGA cooties \u2014 even if she\u2019s responsible for making them famous.<\/p>\n

The media mogul finally addressed unleashing Dr. Phil<\/a> McGraw and Dr. Mehmet Oz<\/a>, the current Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator, upon the world by inviting them on to her former, and extremely influential, talk show, \u201cThe Oprah Winfrey Show.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"OprahOprah Winfrey speaks during a Forbes event in June. <\/p>\n

Astrida Valigorsky via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople criticize me for Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz, because of their politics or their views,\u201d Winfrey told Emmy Magazine<\/a> in an interview published Tuesday.<\/p>\n

She later added: \u201cEverybody has their own path in life, and it has not one thing to do with me, and I don\u2019t have one thing to do with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Winfrey,Winfrey, right, campaigns with former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential race. <\/p>\n

SAUL LOEB via Getty Images<\/p>\n

But she sure as hell gave them a platform.<\/p>\n

McGraw (who is not a medical doctor) first appeared on \u201cThe Oprah Winfrey Show\u201d in 1998 after he helped her prepare for a libel trial in 1996<\/a> when the cattle industry came after her for claims she made about mad cow disease on her show. McGraw quickly resonated with Winfrey\u2019s audience and received a weekly slot as a self-help expert. He got his own show in 2002.<\/p>\n

\"WinfreyWinfrey grabs dinner with Phil McGraw at Spago restaurant Aug. 5, 2001, in Hollywood, California. <\/p>\n

Denny Keeler via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Phil, he was so practical, so down to earth, so real,\u201d Winfrey told Emmy Magazine. \u201cAnd he would ride in the car with me every morning on the way to trial, where I\u2019m literally sitting on trial for six weeks. I felt that he was so instrumental in helping me. I thought, \u2018Oh, you could help a lot of people. You should come on my show.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Winfrey met Oz, then a cardiothoracic surgeon at New York City\u2019s Columbia University, in 2003 after she appeared as a guest on a show he hosted<\/a> for the Discovery Health Channel. Much like McGraw, Oz also became a popular Winfrey guest and got his own show in 2009.<\/p>\n

Winfrey told Emmy Magazine her close friend Gayle King, a \u201cCBS Mornings\u201d co-host, introduced her to Oz.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe explained practical things like colon cancer and bowel movements,\u201d Winfrey told the outlet. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer editor-in-chief of O, The Oprah Magazine, Lucy Kaylin, from left, Mehmet Oz and Gayle King at an event in 2016.<\/p>\n

Brent N. Clarke via Getty Images<\/p>\n

She concluded, \u201cAt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many critics of the two men would argue they\u2019ve been anything but valuable or meaningful since.<\/p>\n

\"PresidentPresident Donald Trump speaks in 2025 alongside Phil McGraw during a National Day of Prayer event at the White House Rose Garden.<\/p>\n

Alex Wong via Getty Images<\/p>\n

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<\/a> and allegations<\/a> of abuse by former participants and families. He is accused of exploiting the late actor Shelley Duvall<\/a> on his show while she was having a mental health crisis, and later reportedly harassed her when he received blowback.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"TrumpTrump stands behind Oz at a campaign rally for his failed Senate run in 2022.<\/p>\n

ED JONES via Getty Images<\/p>\n

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 \u201cprove that you matter<\/a>\u201d to get Medicaid coverage, and has made the baseless claim<\/a> that Medicaid was going to lazy, able-bodied people who watched TV all day and just didn\u2019t want to work.<\/p>\n

Oz has also proven to be a Trump sycophant \u2014 admitting in 2025 that he works underneath a portrait of the president<\/a>, which is a replica of a piece from Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago resort.<\/p>\n

Oz is also known for spreading medical misinformation and selling weight-loss supplements with no scientific research supporting their efficacy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oprah Winfrey doesn\u2019t want to catch two right-wingers\u2019 MAGA cooties \u2014 even if she\u2019s responsible for making them…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":999015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[9],"tags":[69,171,29880,18327,27862,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-999014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-mehmet-oz","tag-oprah","tag-phil-mcgraw","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117090581033472025","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=999014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/999015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=999014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=999014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=999014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}