In an upcoming interview, Oprah Winfrey is expected to drive home the point that she has no intention of running for president in 2020, despite her well-received speech at the 2018 Golden Globes fueling speculation that she might.
The billionaire media mogul sat down with CBS's "60 Minutes Overtime" to make it clear she will not be running for president in 2020, but she emphasized that she would definitely not be sitting on the sideline, CBS reported.
"I am actually humbled by the fact that people think that I could be a leader of the free world, but it's just not in my spirit," she told correspondent Ann Silvio in the interview airing Sunday. "It's not in my DNA."
Winfrey became the first black woman to receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement last month at the Golden Globes. During her acceptance speech, Winfrey delivered a powerful condemnation of sexual harassment and praised the #MeToo movement. The speech prompted the crowd to give her three ovations and drove many on the left to call for her to run in 2020.
CNN's "Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter was so ecstatic about the prospect of Oprah Winfrey presidential run that he was on the phone with her friends and confidants "the minute she finished that speech." Stelter would go on in the week following to frequently speculate on social media and on-air if Winfrey would run for office.
Later in the interview, she said she never intended to create buzz with her speech and she was "stunned" by everyone calling on her to run for president.
"I was just trying to give a good speech," she said. "I was looking for a way to express what was going on in this moment in terms of gender and class and race. I cared about landing that speech in the room."
Winfrey also said she received several calls from political financiers saying they could help her raise $1 billion.
"I had a lot of wealthy men calling, telling me that they would run my campaign and raise $1 billion for me," Winfrey says. "I think that when you have that many people whose opinions you value coming at you, it's worthy of thinking about."
The CBS interview comes on the heels of the media mogul saying during a conversation in Harlem, N.Y. last week that she was not running for public office, according to a Daily Beast report.
Winfrey would have joined a potentially crowded Democratic field if she decided to run for president. A couple dozen names have been floated as potential Democratic candidates, including Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Cory Booker (N.J.), Kamala Harris (Calif.), and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), as well as former Vice President Joe Biden.