July 30, 2025 • 19 mins
Oprah Winfrey has been the target of some pretty vile stuff online today, after word spread that she refused to let residents use her private road in Maui. What's the big deal about that? The people were seeking higher ground during a tsunami warning!!! But Oprah AND police say folks got the story all wrong.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, there are folks. It's July thirtieth, and people are
pissed at Oprah Winfrey for something she and police say
she didn't do. With that, welcome to this episode of
Amy and TJ. I threw police in there. I should
make sure I make clear she's not being accused of crime.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
No, no crime, but maybe a crime against humanity.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Yes, this has gotten out of control. Robes and some
people listening to us might be already aware. But before
we even tell you what they're what they're accusing her
of doing, can you give an example of the kinds
of things being said right now about Oprah Winfrey.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Oprah is a greedy and heartless human. Oprah is this
is terrible. I don't even want to say this. Oprah
the fat Satan is bitch.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
It's funny.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I didn't want to say fat, but I felt worse
about saying bitch.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
But how about this.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Don't think for one second that Oprah is a good human.
Oprah Winfrey is a vile, disgusting excuse of a human being.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Good Lord, have mercy. What did Oprah do? I actually
saw a lot of the comments before I had a
good understanding of what the story was, and then I
was blown away to understand what was happening.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Oprah was the trending topic? Correct? Was it just her name?
Oprah was trending?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
That was it? And so that's, you know, curious, what
could Oprah have done? What could people be saying about Oprah?
And to think that it's all connected to the biggest
one of yes, the biggest earthquakes ever recorded in the
history of planet Earth.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
That is such a good way to put it. An
earthquake off the coast of Russia got us to everybody
hating known Oprah today.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
How is that actually possible?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Will you please connected?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
That's okay.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
So she is being accused of keeping a road, a
private road that she owned. She has thousands of acres
in Maui. She is being accused of keeping her private
road closed and it is a access point to get
folks who might need to evacuate from coastal areas to
higher ground. And so somehow someway someone said that Oprah
(02:20):
shut down her road and wasn't letting people get on
it to get quickly to higher ground.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
And of course folks were trying to get to higher ground.
It was a big story overnight, big earthquake off the
coast of Russia, triggers tsunami alerts from Japan to the
west coast of the US and of course in Hawaii,
and yes, they had traffic out there, folks were all
the long lines of video we saw, but they were
trying to get to higher ground. Thankfully, there were no
(02:48):
waves of consequence, as they put it, but still waves
from that earthquake, and that tsunami did show up.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I believe one of the largest recorded.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
They actually called them a tsunami wave because they were
wavescreen by a tsunami from an earthquake. I think we're
six feet tall. A lot of them are four.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
And a half feet.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I don't have a gauge of how significant that is.
But there was no damage and there were no injuries.
But obviously people remember, yes, the disaster in Puquet in Thailand,
where no one knew what was happening, and all of
a sudden an earthquake triggers as tsunami and the devastation
we all know was just horrific and beyond imagination. So
you have to say that could happen. We don't know
(03:29):
what is going to happen. It's impossible to predict exactly
how big tsunami waves are going to be so yes,
people were panicked and scrambling, scrambling and trying to get
out as quickly as possible to get away from the coast.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
So that's the backdrop of the story. This was a
legit emergency. So in the midst of this emergency in Maui,
you can get away from the coastal area. It would
take you longer to go one route, or you could
cut through, essentially, and that cut through is a private
road that is on private property owned by me. It's
Oprah Winfrey. So somehow, some way robes it got going
(04:05):
on social media. I think there was a video out
there that seemed like the gate was closed and then
it was opened, and it was closed again, and some
were let through and some weren't, and then others just
showed video of the of it being closed, closed gate
and cars being around, and it took off on social media,
and so many folks came after her with stuff that
(04:27):
sounds like it was built up for years. They've been
waiting to say.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
You know, it really is remarkable that it feels like
so many people don't wait for clarification, they don't seek
another source, They don't wait to hear if maybe they
have the full story or don't have the full story.
As soon as they hear something that could possibly say
something negative about someone, people pounce. And they don't just
(04:53):
pounce and say how could you?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
How dare you? They pounce with evil rhetoric.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I mean, it really is disgusting and dispa and obviously
someone of Oprah's stature is used to this, but I
still think it stings. I mean, I can only speak
from personal experience. No matter how many times people can
say the same thing over and over again in different,
mean horrible ways, especially when they're saying it with misinformation,
and you and I both know what that feels like.
(05:18):
It hurts and it affects people. And I mean, she
may be able to laugh us off, but it's so
unfair and unwarranted because the real story is very different
than this rumor that took off like wildfire on the internet.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
It took off, and I'm still seeing her name and
still reading posts that are still they're still current, they're
still popping up. People are still spreading this thing about her,
and it's just horrific.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
It's as if they want to believe that she closed
the road. It's like they want to have an enemy.
They want to band together and feel like they belong
as a part of this collective that is going up
and fighting for the little guy.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
And if you've got.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Someone who's rich and someone who's powerful, or someone maybe
you just don't like for whatever reason, it's as if
they don't deserve to be treated like human beings, or
at least deserve enough of a pause where you say, wait,
let me see what the real story is before I
decide to lend my voice and put something out there
in the world that's filled with hate.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, this isn't in defensible prah Winfrey. They have statements
that defend her. This is, I guess, just in defense
of I guess taking a beat in defense of I mean,
why can we not? Is this people though robes projecting
(06:47):
because of something else. Yes, the rich or a target,
the famous or a target, and the super rich certainly
have been a target here lately. But is this Does
this really have nothing to do with a road? Does
this really just we got now found an easy target.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yes, and for people who already didn't like her, perhaps
because for politics she endorsed Kamala Harris, so you can
get into the politics of things seriously. So it does
seem like that could be part of it as well.
When you have someone whose ideology is different than yours,
when you think they might have slipped up or done
something wrong, you can't wait. You can't wait to point
(07:24):
the finger at them and say, see look what they did.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
They're actually horrible.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
That's on me. That didn't even politics didn't cross my
mind and all this. But that was an easy, easy
target here. So again not in defense of Oprah Winfrey.
We don't have to because the Maui Police defended Oprah Winfrey.
Maui Police, yes, put out a statement and they said
very early on Oprah's road is open to get to
(07:51):
upcountry is how they put it.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
And from what I understand, they put out that alert
when the tsunami warning came in immediately, almost like they said, yes,
there is a tsunami warning. This is around eleven pm
last night, correct, So this was hours ago. This was
ages ago in terms of communication. And yet still despite
(08:14):
that official statement from the Maui Police that Oprah's Road
is open to get to upcountry, hours later, because the
gates were closing and opening, people jumped to the conclusion
that Oprah had closed her road and nobody could get out,
and she was going to let people potentially be swallowed
(08:36):
up by a tsunami wave rather than let people down
her road.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And you just mentioned another I think another video that
got around was I guess when the gate actually closed.
It looked like literally they were shutting people out in
real time, and somebody got video of it. But they
came out and they explained later it was the police
who were letting only a certain through and get through
(09:01):
the property at a time. So the police were the
ones opening and closing the gate to the road.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
They had a very strict amount of cars, just traffic control,
and you know people in these moments, and I can
only imagine when you think you are fleeing a giant
title wave, you want to get out as quickly as possible.
So to keep order, police set a limit of fifty
cars at a time, so fifty cars would go through,
they would shut the gate, let them get through, and
(09:28):
then reopen the gate. But just by a video, people
jumped to the conclusion or chose to believe something and
then went with it and ran with it.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Chose to it didn't take long to figure out.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
You know what, even if you want to believe that
she kept it closed, even if you went and read
and saw that, Okay, the police are saying something else.
But I choose to believe otherwise you would still temper
your statements a little bit because you knew there was
other information out there. Some folks are just what Oprah
didn't open her road and these people are fleeing for
(10:05):
their lives. Let me jump on here and say something,
and that was it.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
But they're not just saying something. They're saying cruel, vile,
horrific things. And I think, what's scary to me? Look,
we are.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
I don't want to say that.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
These past two weeks have been any more significant than
any other, but there have been just these horrific shootings
that have gone on here in midtown Manhattan. We had
it in Reno. It's just folks who are so angry
taking out their rage on innocent folks. And I just,
you know, you want to think that these are outliers,
(10:40):
and they're few and far between, and they're singular, and
there are people who have mental health issues. But when
you start to read some of these comments, the anger,
the vitriol is so intense. It actually is frightening to
me that there's that much anger in so many people
that they would choose to send out that much hate
(11:02):
about a story that probably doesn't affect them in any way.
They probably are thousands of miles away from Hawaii and
they don't know or care to know the whole story.
They prefer to jump to conclusions and just say horrible things.
That's scary to me that there are that many people
out there like that.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
And when you say scary things, folks, we shared a
little off the top, but you won't believe the things
that people are saying. All right, folks, we continue now
(11:43):
with this story that's kind of run amook, would you say, robes.
People are attacking and viciously attacking Oprah Winpley online because
a rumor got around that she wouldn't open her private
road to people trying to reach higher ground in Hawaii
during this tsunami warnings. And it has just gone all
kinds of sideways to the point that Oprah and a
(12:05):
spokesperson did officially put out a statement.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yes, and that statement read, as soon as we heard
the tsunami warnings, we contacted local law enforcement and FEMA
to ensure the road was opened. Any reports otherwise are false.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
So we're just going to say she's there lying. Is
that what we're doing? Because okay, why we're just going
to say, We're never going to take anybody at their word. Again,
everybody online that's spitting this bitrial at Oprah. Is that
a good enough answer to make you stop?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Well, if that's not good enough, what about the police
statement that verifies and acknowledges that they absolutely opened Oprah's road.
In fact, their statement specifically says this, local law enforcement
are currently on site helping residents through fifty cars at
a time to ensure everyone's safe road, meaning Oprah's road
(13:01):
will remain open as long as necessary. How are those
two statements not enough to stop people from saying and
writing and putting out in the world what they have
and you in real time and this is now, I mean,
we're about twelve hours since Oprah opened her road and
said she was going to open a road and police
(13:22):
said the road was open, and in real time, people
are still saying horrific things about Oprah to the point
where she is like trending worldwide.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I'm still in the past few seconds. These things are
still coming in and folks are still saying the same thing.
I mean, the client that Roe isn't it And it's
the same thing as if you haven't had time to
just google anything. They're choosing to not believe. So where
(13:52):
are we in the society if the police tell you
and she has come out herself and told you what happened,
and you're still just saying, nope, you close the road.
Now people are starting to say, I'm noticing also robes well,
she was pressured to open it later. It's the saying
it's open now, but you know that thing I said
about earlier. She only opened it after we pushed her
(14:13):
and she got backlash. Is now the new theme? What
do you believe? Who do you believe? It's not politics
all the time, I mean, do we really think she's evil?
Speaker 2 (14:24):
There is a massive distrust for anyone who has money.
There is a massive distrust for anyone in the police force,
or perhaps even in the government. I think there are
so many people who just don't believe people who live
or are existing in certain circles.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
That's fair, But when do we ever give anybody the
benefit of the doubt, When do we ever consider the
person across the table from you, across the street from you,
the next city from you, across the tracks from you.
When do you ever consider that person a decent person?
If we can't just start with that baseline, I'm going
(15:02):
to give you the benefit of the doubt that you're
decent despite what you look like, who you voted for,
what uniform you wear. Let me start there. We're not
starting there anymore.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
I'm already going to dislike you, distrust you because of
where you're from and what you're wearing and how much
money you make. Where do we start with just decent?
I don't know what are we supposed to.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
We assume the worst. I think that is where we
are in society. We assume the worst, and you have
to prove to me that you're not an asshole. I
think that's where we start now, and I think that
is where we are as a country. And certainly this
story is a massive highlighter of that very problem. I mean,
it's just a sad commentary on where we are as
a society and a community.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I loathe her. Someone wrote we should truly eat the rich.
Another wrote, Oprah is a selfish and evil woman. Open
the road, bitch.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Seems like the only thing the tsunami has destroyed is
the last of Oprah's reputation. Woof, in a crisis, blocking
an escape route is inhumane? Humanitarian? Nah, just another greedy
landlord with a TV smile. And then how about this one?
(16:21):
Oprah is a miserable human being. You look up elitist
and there is a picture of Oprah there. She would
not open her private road to help people to higher
ground with the tsunami coming.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Only after she was pressured by police did she do so.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Okay, I will let the little people through while sitting
on her throne eating fried chicken. So a little racist
element to what to add to the spice of all
the hate.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Okay, And I guess we're supposed to say, you have
to can't be these folks aren't representative of This is
just a small extreme outlier who would go on and
say these types of things. Maybe I just this was one.
I actually I feel a little down about it. When
I first I said, come, let's hop on and explain
what's going on. I thought this would be more upbeaten fun,
(17:12):
but I found myself being a little more down and
actually turned off and depressed and discoursed.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I know you actually said, wow, this is trending, this
is a crazy story. We should talk about it, and
you know, we can, you know, have some fun with
and then you're like, no, this isn't fun, this isn't funny.
This is a sad commentary about our society. And we
have pleaded, pleaded, pleaded, And I know everyone who's listening
here gets it, but just for one second, I know
it feels probably impossible to turn the table to Can
(17:39):
you imagine? Can you imagine when someone is spreading a
complete lie about you, a complete misrepresented non fact about you,
and then that lie and that misrepresentation balloons to the
point where you have thousands of people just saying the
most horrible things you can ever imagine someone saying about you,
(18:02):
and it's now for everyone to read and for everyone's entertainment,
it's a trending topic and everyone's eating popcorn, enjoying the show.
People say things like here for the comments, ha ha ha.
Those comments have an impact, they do, but what they
say about the person who wrote them is so much
(18:23):
more than the person they're saying it about. And I
just want everyone to think about that when you write
something you're saying so much more about who you are
versus who you're saying something about so.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
And if anything, ever, mind you hear folks, don't believe
everything you read, and even if you do read it
and do believe it, it's okay to quickly verify it
before you hop on and jump on board a bandwagon
like this. Don't know Oprah at all at all. You
(18:55):
don't have to be a fan of hers. You don't
have to like anything she's done on TV, never bought
a single product, you can hate the way she dresses,
all kinds of things, but whatever does it still have
to get to this level?
Speaker 2 (19:10):
The answer is no, and maybe we can do better, all.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Right, folks, Well man dah, I'm sorry, all right, right right, Well,
well you know how about this, Yes, we know no
one who's listening to this podcast right now was a
part of any of this, And so we all can
just not that we need to learn this lesson, but
just to take it in and recognize how we can
(19:33):
choose to be kind and if.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
We have nothing nice to say, we can say nothing
at all. And that's perhaps just a win for this Wednesday.
So we want to thank you all for listening to
us do our little rant, but we do hope you're
having a wonderful day to day.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
I may Bee robot alongside TJ Holmes.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Thanks for listening, everybody,
Hey, there are folks. It's July thirtieth, and people are
pissed at Oprah Winfrey for something she and police say
she didn't do. With that, welcome to this episode of
Amy and TJ. I threw police in there. I should
make sure I make clear she's not being accused of crime.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
No, no crime, but maybe a crime against humanity.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Yes, this has gotten out of control. Robes and some
people listening to us might be already aware. But before
we even tell you what they're what they're accusing her
of doing, can you give an example of the kinds
of things being said right now about Oprah Winfrey.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Oprah is a greedy and heartless human. Oprah is this
is terrible. I don't even want to say this. Oprah
the fat Satan is bitch.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
It's funny.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I didn't want to say fat, but I felt worse
about saying bitch.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
But how about this.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Don't think for one second that Oprah is a good human.
Oprah Winfrey is a vile, disgusting excuse of a human being.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Good Lord, have mercy. What did Oprah do? I actually
saw a lot of the comments before I had a
good understanding of what the story was, and then I
was blown away to understand what was happening.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Oprah was the trending topic? Correct? Was it just her name?
Oprah was trending?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
That was it? And so that's, you know, curious, what
could Oprah have done? What could people be saying about Oprah?
And to think that it's all connected to the biggest
one of yes, the biggest earthquakes ever recorded in the
history of planet Earth.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
That is such a good way to put it. An
earthquake off the coast of Russia got us to everybody
hating known Oprah today.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
How is that actually possible?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Will you please connected?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
That's okay.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
So she is being accused of keeping a road, a
private road that she owned. She has thousands of acres
in Maui. She is being accused of keeping her private
road closed and it is a access point to get
folks who might need to evacuate from coastal areas to
higher ground. And so somehow someway someone said that Oprah
(02:20):
shut down her road and wasn't letting people get on
it to get quickly to higher ground.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
And of course folks were trying to get to higher ground.
It was a big story overnight, big earthquake off the
coast of Russia, triggers tsunami alerts from Japan to the
west coast of the US and of course in Hawaii,
and yes, they had traffic out there, folks were all
the long lines of video we saw, but they were
trying to get to higher ground. Thankfully, there were no
(02:48):
waves of consequence, as they put it, but still waves
from that earthquake, and that tsunami did show up.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I believe one of the largest recorded.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
They actually called them a tsunami wave because they were
wavescreen by a tsunami from an earthquake. I think we're
six feet tall. A lot of them are four.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
And a half feet.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I don't have a gauge of how significant that is.
But there was no damage and there were no injuries.
But obviously people remember, yes, the disaster in Puquet in Thailand,
where no one knew what was happening, and all of
a sudden an earthquake triggers as tsunami and the devastation
we all know was just horrific and beyond imagination. So
you have to say that could happen. We don't know
(03:29):
what is going to happen. It's impossible to predict exactly
how big tsunami waves are going to be so yes,
people were panicked and scrambling, scrambling and trying to get
out as quickly as possible to get away from the coast.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
So that's the backdrop of the story. This was a
legit emergency. So in the midst of this emergency in Maui,
you can get away from the coastal area. It would
take you longer to go one route, or you could
cut through, essentially, and that cut through is a private
road that is on private property owned by me. It's
Oprah Winfrey. So somehow, some way robes it got going
(04:05):
on social media. I think there was a video out
there that seemed like the gate was closed and then
it was opened, and it was closed again, and some
were let through and some weren't, and then others just
showed video of the of it being closed, closed gate
and cars being around, and it took off on social media,
and so many folks came after her with stuff that
(04:27):
sounds like it was built up for years. They've been
waiting to say.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
You know, it really is remarkable that it feels like
so many people don't wait for clarification, they don't seek
another source, They don't wait to hear if maybe they
have the full story or don't have the full story.
As soon as they hear something that could possibly say
something negative about someone, people pounce. And they don't just
(04:53):
pounce and say how could you?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
How dare you? They pounce with evil rhetoric.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I mean, it really is disgusting and dispa and obviously
someone of Oprah's stature is used to this, but I
still think it stings. I mean, I can only speak
from personal experience. No matter how many times people can
say the same thing over and over again in different,
mean horrible ways, especially when they're saying it with misinformation,
and you and I both know what that feels like.
(05:18):
It hurts and it affects people. And I mean, she
may be able to laugh us off, but it's so
unfair and unwarranted because the real story is very different
than this rumor that took off like wildfire on the internet.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
It took off, and I'm still seeing her name and
still reading posts that are still they're still current, they're
still popping up. People are still spreading this thing about her,
and it's just horrific.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
It's as if they want to believe that she closed
the road. It's like they want to have an enemy.
They want to band together and feel like they belong
as a part of this collective that is going up
and fighting for the little guy.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
And if you've got.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Someone who's rich and someone who's powerful, or someone maybe
you just don't like for whatever reason, it's as if
they don't deserve to be treated like human beings, or
at least deserve enough of a pause where you say, wait,
let me see what the real story is before I
decide to lend my voice and put something out there
in the world that's filled with hate.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, this isn't in defensible prah Winfrey. They have statements
that defend her. This is, I guess, just in defense
of I guess taking a beat in defense of I mean,
why can we not? Is this people though robes projecting
(06:47):
because of something else. Yes, the rich or a target,
the famous or a target, and the super rich certainly
have been a target here lately. But is this Does
this really have nothing to do with a road? Does
this really just we got now found an easy target.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yes, and for people who already didn't like her, perhaps
because for politics she endorsed Kamala Harris, so you can
get into the politics of things seriously. So it does
seem like that could be part of it as well.
When you have someone whose ideology is different than yours,
when you think they might have slipped up or done
something wrong, you can't wait. You can't wait to point
(07:24):
the finger at them and say, see look what they did.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
They're actually horrible.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
That's on me. That didn't even politics didn't cross my
mind and all this. But that was an easy, easy
target here. So again not in defense of Oprah Winfrey.
We don't have to because the Maui Police defended Oprah Winfrey.
Maui Police, yes, put out a statement and they said
very early on Oprah's road is open to get to
(07:51):
upcountry is how they put it.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
And from what I understand, they put out that alert
when the tsunami warning came in immediately, almost like they said, yes,
there is a tsunami warning. This is around eleven pm
last night, correct, So this was hours ago. This was
ages ago in terms of communication. And yet still despite
(08:14):
that official statement from the Maui Police that Oprah's Road
is open to get to upcountry, hours later, because the
gates were closing and opening, people jumped to the conclusion
that Oprah had closed her road and nobody could get out,
and she was going to let people potentially be swallowed
(08:36):
up by a tsunami wave rather than let people down
her road.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And you just mentioned another I think another video that
got around was I guess when the gate actually closed.
It looked like literally they were shutting people out in
real time, and somebody got video of it. But they
came out and they explained later it was the police
who were letting only a certain through and get through
(09:01):
the property at a time. So the police were the
ones opening and closing the gate to the road.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
They had a very strict amount of cars, just traffic control,
and you know people in these moments, and I can
only imagine when you think you are fleeing a giant
title wave, you want to get out as quickly as possible.
So to keep order, police set a limit of fifty
cars at a time, so fifty cars would go through,
they would shut the gate, let them get through, and
(09:28):
then reopen the gate. But just by a video, people
jumped to the conclusion or chose to believe something and
then went with it and ran with it.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Chose to it didn't take long to figure out.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
You know what, even if you want to believe that
she kept it closed, even if you went and read
and saw that, Okay, the police are saying something else.
But I choose to believe otherwise you would still temper
your statements a little bit because you knew there was
other information out there. Some folks are just what Oprah
didn't open her road and these people are fleeing for
(10:05):
their lives. Let me jump on here and say something,
and that was it.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
But they're not just saying something. They're saying cruel, vile,
horrific things. And I think, what's scary to me? Look,
we are.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
I don't want to say that.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
These past two weeks have been any more significant than
any other, but there have been just these horrific shootings
that have gone on here in midtown Manhattan. We had
it in Reno. It's just folks who are so angry
taking out their rage on innocent folks. And I just,
you know, you want to think that these are outliers,
(10:40):
and they're few and far between, and they're singular, and
there are people who have mental health issues. But when
you start to read some of these comments, the anger,
the vitriol is so intense. It actually is frightening to
me that there's that much anger in so many people
that they would choose to send out that much hate
(11:02):
about a story that probably doesn't affect them in any way.
They probably are thousands of miles away from Hawaii and
they don't know or care to know the whole story.
They prefer to jump to conclusions and just say horrible things.
That's scary to me that there are that many people
out there like that.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
And when you say scary things, folks, we shared a
little off the top, but you won't believe the things
that people are saying. All right, folks, we continue now
(11:43):
with this story that's kind of run amook, would you say, robes.
People are attacking and viciously attacking Oprah Winpley online because
a rumor got around that she wouldn't open her private
road to people trying to reach higher ground in Hawaii
during this tsunami warnings. And it has just gone all
kinds of sideways to the point that Oprah and a
(12:05):
spokesperson did officially put out a statement.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yes, and that statement read, as soon as we heard
the tsunami warnings, we contacted local law enforcement and FEMA
to ensure the road was opened. Any reports otherwise are false.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
So we're just going to say she's there lying. Is
that what we're doing? Because okay, why we're just going
to say, We're never going to take anybody at their word. Again,
everybody online that's spitting this bitrial at Oprah. Is that
a good enough answer to make you stop?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Well, if that's not good enough, what about the police
statement that verifies and acknowledges that they absolutely opened Oprah's road.
In fact, their statement specifically says this, local law enforcement
are currently on site helping residents through fifty cars at
a time to ensure everyone's safe road, meaning Oprah's road
(13:01):
will remain open as long as necessary. How are those
two statements not enough to stop people from saying and
writing and putting out in the world what they have
and you in real time and this is now, I mean,
we're about twelve hours since Oprah opened her road and
said she was going to open a road and police
(13:22):
said the road was open, and in real time, people
are still saying horrific things about Oprah to the point
where she is like trending worldwide.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I'm still in the past few seconds. These things are
still coming in and folks are still saying the same thing.
I mean, the client that Roe isn't it And it's
the same thing as if you haven't had time to
just google anything. They're choosing to not believe. So where
(13:52):
are we in the society if the police tell you
and she has come out herself and told you what happened,
and you're still just saying, nope, you close the road.
Now people are starting to say, I'm noticing also robes well,
she was pressured to open it later. It's the saying
it's open now, but you know that thing I said
about earlier. She only opened it after we pushed her
(14:13):
and she got backlash. Is now the new theme? What
do you believe? Who do you believe? It's not politics
all the time, I mean, do we really think she's evil?
Speaker 2 (14:24):
There is a massive distrust for anyone who has money.
There is a massive distrust for anyone in the police force,
or perhaps even in the government. I think there are
so many people who just don't believe people who live
or are existing in certain circles.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
That's fair, But when do we ever give anybody the
benefit of the doubt, When do we ever consider the
person across the table from you, across the street from you,
the next city from you, across the tracks from you.
When do you ever consider that person a decent person?
If we can't just start with that baseline, I'm going
(15:02):
to give you the benefit of the doubt that you're
decent despite what you look like, who you voted for,
what uniform you wear. Let me start there. We're not
starting there anymore.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
I'm already going to dislike you, distrust you because of
where you're from and what you're wearing and how much
money you make. Where do we start with just decent?
I don't know what are we supposed to.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
We assume the worst. I think that is where we
are in society. We assume the worst, and you have
to prove to me that you're not an asshole. I
think that's where we start now, and I think that
is where we are as a country. And certainly this
story is a massive highlighter of that very problem. I mean,
it's just a sad commentary on where we are as
a society and a community.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I loathe her. Someone wrote we should truly eat the rich.
Another wrote, Oprah is a selfish and evil woman. Open
the road, bitch.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Seems like the only thing the tsunami has destroyed is
the last of Oprah's reputation. Woof, in a crisis, blocking
an escape route is inhumane? Humanitarian? Nah, just another greedy
landlord with a TV smile. And then how about this one?
(16:21):
Oprah is a miserable human being. You look up elitist
and there is a picture of Oprah there. She would
not open her private road to help people to higher
ground with the tsunami coming.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Only after she was pressured by police did she do so.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Okay, I will let the little people through while sitting
on her throne eating fried chicken. So a little racist
element to what to add to the spice of all
the hate.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Okay, And I guess we're supposed to say, you have
to can't be these folks aren't representative of This is
just a small extreme outlier who would go on and
say these types of things. Maybe I just this was one.
I actually I feel a little down about it. When
I first I said, come, let's hop on and explain
what's going on. I thought this would be more upbeaten fun,
(17:12):
but I found myself being a little more down and
actually turned off and depressed and discoursed.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I know you actually said, wow, this is trending, this
is a crazy story. We should talk about it, and
you know, we can, you know, have some fun with
and then you're like, no, this isn't fun, this isn't funny.
This is a sad commentary about our society. And we
have pleaded, pleaded, pleaded, And I know everyone who's listening
here gets it, but just for one second, I know
it feels probably impossible to turn the table to Can
(17:39):
you imagine? Can you imagine when someone is spreading a
complete lie about you, a complete misrepresented non fact about you,
and then that lie and that misrepresentation balloons to the
point where you have thousands of people just saying the
most horrible things you can ever imagine someone saying about you,
(18:02):
and it's now for everyone to read and for everyone's entertainment,
it's a trending topic and everyone's eating popcorn, enjoying the show.
People say things like here for the comments, ha ha ha.
Those comments have an impact, they do, but what they
say about the person who wrote them is so much
(18:23):
more than the person they're saying it about. And I
just want everyone to think about that when you write
something you're saying so much more about who you are
versus who you're saying something about so.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
And if anything, ever, mind you hear folks, don't believe
everything you read, and even if you do read it
and do believe it, it's okay to quickly verify it
before you hop on and jump on board a bandwagon
like this. Don't know Oprah at all at all. You
(18:55):
don't have to be a fan of hers. You don't
have to like anything she's done on TV, never bought
a single product, you can hate the way she dresses,
all kinds of things, but whatever does it still have
to get to this level?
Speaker 2 (19:10):
The answer is no, and maybe we can do better, all.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Right, folks, Well man dah, I'm sorry, all right, right right, Well,
well you know how about this, Yes, we know no
one who's listening to this podcast right now was a
part of any of this, And so we all can
just not that we need to learn this lesson, but
just to take it in and recognize how we can
(19:33):
choose to be kind and if.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
We have nothing nice to say, we can say nothing
at all. And that's perhaps just a win for this Wednesday.
So we want to thank you all for listening to
us do our little rant, but we do hope you're
having a wonderful day to day.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
I may Bee robot alongside TJ Holmes.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Thanks for listening, everybody,
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Zima
Chris Harrison
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