In a rousing speech in Chicago, where she spent decades hosting her TV show, Oprah Winfrey rallied Democrats behind Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, telling a packed convention hall that “this election isn’t about us and them. It’s about you and me and what we want our futures to look like.”
Her speech heaped praise on Harris and Walz, saying, “Common sense tells you that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz can give us decency and respect.”
But Winfrey also threw in a few digs at former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, with a reference to Vance’s 2021 remark about “childless cat ladies” running the Democratic Party.
“Despite what some would have you think, we are not so different from our neighbors. When a house is on fire, we don’t ask about the homeowner’s race or religion. We don’t wonder who their partner is or how they voted. No, we just try to do the best we can to save them,” she said, adding, “And if the place happens to belong to a childless cat lady, well, we try to get that cat out, too.”
She went on to reflect on Harris’ life and her path to the Democratic nomination, telling a fired-up crowd, “At school and at home, somebody did a beautiful job showing this young girl how to challenge the people at the top and empower the people at the bottom.”
“Soon, and very soon,” Winfrey continued, “we’re going to be teaching our daughters and sons about how this child of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father … about how this child grew up to become the 47th president of the United States.”
Winfrey has been involved in Democratic politics for years, most recently backing Joe Biden and Harris in 2020 and endorsing Democrats like Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania in key Senate races in 2022.
In her address Wednesday, she also paid homage to leading Black women who came before her and Harris, telling the story of Tessie Prevost Williams, who died last month, and the rest of the “New Orleans Four” — children who integrated the New Orleans school system in 1960.
“Tessie passed away six weeks ago, and I tell the story to honor her tonight,” Winfrey said, before she linked Prevost Williams to Harris’ experience going to school in California.
“[The New Orleans Four] broke barriers, and they paid dearly for it,” she said. “But it was the grace and guts and courage of women like Tessie Prevost Williams that paved the way for another young girl who, nine years later, became part of the second class to integrate the public schools in Berkeley, California.”
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