Oprah Winfrey’s hometown newspaper criticized her for allegedly taking a large sum of money from the Harris campaign to endorse the failed Democratic presidential candidate.
The Chicago Tribune criticized Oprah for reportedly accepting a $1 million “fee” from Vice President Kamala Harris’ now-failed campaign. The fee had been given to the talk-show host to appear on the campaign trail with Harris.
“Having someone with a large following simply stand next to a candidate at a podium and say a few words, solo, is one thing; doing a whole live-streamed event with, say, Oprah Winfrey, is another," the newspaper wrote.
Since then, Oprah has denied personally accepting the funds. However, she admitted that her company, Harpo Productions, used the money to stage the Hollywood-studded town hall event for Harris.
“My time and energy was my way of supporting the campaign. For the live-streaming event in September, my production company, Harpo, was asked to bring in set design, lights, cameras, microphones, crew, producers, and every other item necessary (including the benches and chairs we sat on) to put on a live production. I did not take any personal fee,” Oprah said, defending the controversy. “However, the people who worked on that production needed to be paid. And were. End of story.”
Still, The Chicago Tribune said that if Oprah was truly “all-in” for Harris, her company should have waived its fees.
“It’s true that production workers need to be paid, and that’s fair enough; they’re not donors. Frankly, $1 million is not all that much to Winfrey, and so we very much doubt that she was seeking any kind of personal payday from her chosen candidate,” the paper wrote. “But she does own Harpo and serves as its chairwoman and CEO. The production fees should have been a campaign donation.”
Oprah is worth at least $3 billion, so $1 million would indeed have been nothing for the talk-show host to dish out and pay to her staffers.
FEC filings show that the Harris campaign paid Oprah’s production company two $500,000—one for her appearance with the vice president at a town hall event and one for her appearance on stage with Harris at a Philadelphia rally.
The newspaper blamed Harris’ loss on the campaign’s use of its “starry infomercial,” which promoted the Democratic candidate using elite and out-of-touch celebrities. The paper said the vice president should have answered questions that actually mattered to voters.
“Better yet, rather than do such events, the Harris campaign would have been better advised to let its candidate answer questions from independent journalists and give her more of a chance to explain herself and lay out her plans for America’s future," the paper wrote. ”Celebrity osmosis did not work; voters wanted to hear more about what Harris would do for them."
Conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly accused Oprah of “doing a little two-step here, and she finally had to admit it.”
The Harris campaign spent $1 billion to lose the election. Since then, Harris staffers have blamed each other, among other things other than the vice president, for her loss.
“How did you spend $1 billion and not win? What the f***?' a former Biden staffer questioned.