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Monday 19 February 2018 - 11:27

Trump mocks Oprah, taunts her for 2020 White House bid

Story Code : 706074
Oprah Winfrey (L) and Donald Trump
Oprah Winfrey (L) and Donald Trump
Shortly after Oprah’s appearance on the popular CBS News show “60 Minutes" on Sunday night, Trump took to his twitter account to bash the “insecure” celebrity.
 
The Republican president accused Winfrey of posing "biased and slanted" questions to a panel on the program and said he hoped she would run against him in 2020 so that “she can be exposed.”
 
Winfrey, best known for hosting her own talk show, debuted on the program in September last year as a correspondent with a story about the political divide plaguing the American society.
 
Last month, Oprah received the Golden Globes' Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement and gave an acceptance speech that touched upon a wide range of issues including race, gender and the Trump administration’s “siege” on the media.
 
The speech stirred speculation that the renowned TV host was mulling a presidential bid, although Winfrey has so far denied any such plans.
 
Days after the speech, a new poll from conservative-leaning pollster Rasmussen showed that Winfrey would beat Trump by 10 points in a hypothetical 2020 match-up, 48 percent to 38 percent.
 
Undeterred by the possibility, however, Trump said he was looking forward to the challenge because he knew he would beat Winfrey.
 
“Yeah, I'll beat Oprah. Oprah will be lots of fun,” he told reporters during a meeting with lawmakers. “I don’t think she’s going to run.”
 
Winfrey, an African-American woman who survived rape and grew up in poverty, is a self-made billionaire capable of emotionally connecting with ordinary Americans through the media.
 
She threw her weight behind Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential battle, supporting the former secretary of state against Trump.
 
Before Oprah’s rise to the spotlight, Senator Bernie Sanders was deemed as the most serious Democratic nominee that Trump was going to face in 2020.
 
US media reports suggest that Trump was certain that he would beat Sanders but the prospect of a possible Oprah candidacy has raised concerns among his aides.
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