Oprah Breaks Her Silence on Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz Embracing Trump

Oprah Winfrey is finally addressing the uncomfortable political turn taken by two of the biggest stars she helped create.

Dr. Phil McGraw and Dr. Mehmet Oz both became household names after receiving enormous exposure on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Decades later, however, the two television personalities have become closely associated with President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement — putting them on a very different political path from the woman who helped launch their careers.

Now Winfrey, 72, says their choices are no longer her responsibility.

“People criticize me for Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz, because of their politics or their views,” Winfrey told Emmy Magazine while reflecting on the media empire she built.

“Everybody has their own path in life, and it has not one thing to do with me, and I don’t have one thing to do with them,” she said.

Winfrey added that when she originally put the men on television, politics had nothing to do with it.

“At 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.”

It was Winfrey’s massively influential daytime show that first gave both men access to millions of viewers.

McGraw, who holds a doctorate in clinical psychology but is not a medical doctor and is no longer a licensed therapist, became a recurring relationship expert on Winfrey’s program before launching Dr. Phil in 2002.

Oz, a physician and surgeon, first appeared on Winfrey’s show in 2004. The Dr. Oz Show followed in 2009 with Winfrey’s production company helping launch the program.

By the time The Oprah Winfrey Show ended its historic run in 2011, both men had become major celebrities in their own right.

Their careers have since moved dramatically into conservative politics.

McGraw, now 75, has increasingly embraced Trump and conservative causes. In June 2025, he accompanied federal immigration agents during an enforcement operation in Chicago, with his MeritTV network saying he wanted a “first-hand look” at the operation.

Trump also appointed McGraw to his Religious Liberty Commission in May 2025.

Oz, 66, has gone even further into government.

Trump selected him to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in 2025, placing the former television doctor in charge of an agency with enormous influence over American healthcare.

Oz has also appeared alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose record of vaccine skepticism and controversial health claims has drawn fierce criticism from medical experts and Democrats.

Winfrey, meanwhile, has moved in the opposite political direction.

Although she had a friendly relationship with Trump before he entered politics, she became one of the Democratic Party’s most famous celebrity supporters.

During the 2024 presidential election, Winfrey publicly endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris and delivered a high-profile speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Despite those stark political differences, Winfrey said she does not regret giving either man his original platform.

She recalled meeting McGraw during her legal battle with Texas cattlemen in the late 1990s after she was sued over comments about the beef industry.

“He was so practical, so down to earth, so real,” Winfrey said.

She believed his straightforward style could connect with her audience and began featuring him on the show.

Oz came into Winfrey’s orbit through her longtime best friend Gayle King.

“He explained practical things like colon cancer and bowel movements,” Winfrey said. “I thought he had the language for explaining medical things in a way that was helpful to me.”

She added, “I thought it would be helpful to many other people. And that is how they ended up on the show.”

But the careers Winfrey helped ignite eventually became magnets for controversy.

Oz developed a reputation for promoting questionable or insufficiently proven health products and treatments during his television career.

His political evolution has also been dramatic.

In 2009, Oz argued that healthcare coverage should effectively be guaranteed to Americans who could not afford it.

“If you can’t afford it, we have to give it to you,” he said at the time.

Years later, his rhetoric became considerably more conservative.

In 2025, Oz drew attention after suggesting that some able-bodied Medicaid recipients were spending excessive amounts of time watching television rather than working.

“If you sit at home as an able-bodied person on Medicaid — and on average you will watch 6.1 hours of television or leisure time at home — you actually don’t want that,” Oz said.

He argued that people instead wanted opportunities to work and participate in society.

Oz has also shifted sharply on transgender issues.

After presenting transgender youth sympathetically on his television program in 2010, he said during his 2022 Senate campaign that aspects of the transgender youth movement were based on “false science.”

His ties to Trump go back years.

Trump appeared on The Dr. Oz Show during the 2016 presidential campaign, including an episode focused heavily on Trump’s health.

After Trump won the White House for the first time, Oz was appointed to the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition in 2018.

McGraw has faced his own long list of controversies.

In 2008, he visited Britney Spears after the pop star was hospitalized during her highly publicized mental health crisis.

McGraw later discussed the visit publicly, angering Spears’ family, who accused him of violating their trust. A planned Dr. Phil episode centered on Spears was ultimately canceled.

He also came under intense criticism during the COVID-19 pandemic after appearing on Fox News and questioning widespread shutdowns and social-distancing measures.

McGraw compared COVID deaths with fatalities from cars, cigarettes and swimming pools while warning that shutdowns were destroying people’s lives.

His hugely successful television program also faced lawsuits and damaging allegations.

In one case, a woman alleged she was sexually assaulted at a Utah treatment facility after McGraw recommended she be sent there. She later sued McGraw and ViacomCBS for negligence.

Another former guest, Shirley Rae Dieu, claimed she was held against her will during the production of an episode and forced into an uncomfortable encounter with a naked man.

McGraw’s attorneys denied the allegations, saying her claims were “without merit” and that producers arranged transportation home after she expressed discomfort.

Former Dr. Phil employees also told BuzzFeed in 2022 that they had experienced what they described as a toxic workplace culture.

Some claimed staff members were pushed to exaggerate racial stereotypes for television and alleged that at least one guest was not properly medicated before appearing on camera in order to make her seem more unstable.

McGraw’s attorney strongly rejected those accusations and dismissed the report as clickbait.

Despite all of the controversy surrounding her former protégés, Winfrey now appears determined to draw a firm line between the opportunities she gave them decades ago and the political figures they eventually became.

Her message is simple: She opened the door, but what Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz chose to do after walking through it was entirely up to them.