Oprah Winfrey Introduces Wes Moore As He’s Inaugurated As Maryland’s New Governor: ‘A Man I Truly Respect And I Man I So Trust’

19.01.2023 - 01:07 / deadline.com

Maryland’s new governor Wes Moore invited a special guest to introduce him at his inauguration on Wednesday: Oprah Winfrey.

Moore, 44, the state’s first Black governor, hosted a show for the Oprah Winfrey Network, and Winfrey campaigned for him in last year’s midterms.

“Wes Moore has been a public servant his entire adult life,” Winfrey noted in her remarks. “He’s just getting started.”

Calling Moore “a man I truly respect and a man I so trust,” Winfrey recalled meeting him in 2010, when she interviewed him about one of his best selling books.

“He was wise beyond his years,” Winfrey said.

She also recalled her own time living in the state. She moved to Columbia, MD, to work at WJZ-TV, where she first was co-anchor of the evening news. In her remarks, she recalled that she was featured on billboards with the question, “What is an Oprah?”

“Honestly, I didn’t really know the answer to that myself,” she said.

But her tenure as co-anchor was short, and she was later enlisted to co-host a daily talk show on the station, People Are Talking, which she said “sparked” her desire to pursue a slightly different career path.

She also recalled a conversation she had with Moore on Jan. 6, 2021. It was then that he told her that he planned to run for governor.

“I said, ‘You want to run for governor in this political environment where everything is so polarized,” she said. CNN was playing on the TV, she said, and soon came the images of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Moore, though, was adamant about his plans, she Winfrey said she told him, “Go for it.”

Moore served in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve, and was CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation. In his speech, Moore said, “The challenges we will face will require all of us to answer