Oprah Tells Morning Joe to Lay Off Obama

Don't you get to talking about her president.

By Jorge Rivas Feb 15, 2011

There was one thing Oprah Winfrey didn’t mention in her last annual show on her favorite things: apparently she loves MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

Morning Joe is a week day morning talk show on MSNBC, hosted by former Republican Florida Rep. Joe Scarborough to discuss current events with co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist.

"The reason why I’m here is because I met one of your producers at some event, and I was telling him how much I love the show," Oprah told the hosts of Morning Joe during their Chicago visit last Friday. "I think you all do this better than anybody in television. You do this morning thing so well."

It didn’t take Scarborough too long to bring up politics. After exactly 90 seconds of Chicago small talk, he asked Oprah "who would have believed that a guy that you knew when he was in the state senate would so quickly rise up to become the President of the United States?" And before he was done asking his rhetorical question, Oprah had already raised her hand answering "I believed it! I believed it!"

Scarborough followed up with his own sort of colorblind aha! moment. Speaking about one of Oprah’s first campaign appearances in December 2007, he explained his first reaction to seeing a picture of the talk show host in South Carolina with Barack and Michelle Obama. He felt as though he was watching "just three leaders" instead of three African American leaders.

Scarborough asked Oprah how she is feeling about Obama. "I’m feeling great about Obama’s leadership," she said. "I have no issues with the Obama administration."

"Everybody complaining ought to try it for a week." There "needs to be a certain level of respect" for the presidency, she told Scarborough, who’s been critical of the president.