Once a candidate, always a candidate.
Comedian Roseanne Barr told reporters Monday that she’d make a better president than Oprah Winfrey.
Initially asked by reporters at a press conference for her new “Roseanne” series whether she’d support Winfrey as a candidate for president, Barr reportedly hesitated.
Winfrey’s powerful speech at the Golden Globes on Sunday has ignited a call from some quarters for the media icon to run for president in 2020.
“I do love Oprah. Of course, I love Oprah like everybody else. But you know what? I think it was time for us as a country to shake things up and, you know, try something different,” she said, apparently in reference to her support of President Donald Trump.
When a reporter asked whether Barr would vote for actress Susan Sarandon — who has been publicly critical of Hillary Clinton — for president, Barr answered, “Actually, I think I’d be a better president than Oprah and Susan Sarandon, probably even President Trump. And I did run in 2012.” (Sarandon has not indicated that she has any plans to run.)
During the panel, Barr also defended the decision to make her fictional alter ego a Trump supporter for the “Roseanne” revival.
“I’ve always attempted to portray a realistic portrait of the American people and working-class people,” she said. “And in fact, it was working-class people who elected Trump, so I felt that yeah, that was very real, and something that needed to be discussed, and especially about polarization in the family and people actually hating other people for the way they voted, which I feel is not American.”
Sara Gilbert, who plays Roseanne’s daughter Darlene and is an executive producer on the new series, echoed her support for the character choices. Gilbert said it was important to portray a family that could still function despite having different political beliefs.
“It was a great opportunity to have a family divided by politics but still full of a lot of love,” she said. “The working class has been underrepresented in politics and on television, and this just felt like a wonderful time and opportunity to give a voice to some people in this country.”