Oprah: 'I Was Paid Nothing, Ever' by Harris Campaign… So What Was That Million Dollars?

Well, this is awkward.

After Federal Election Commission filings showed that the Harris-Walz campaign paid a cool million to Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions company for the town hall where Oprah endorsed Harris, Oprah denied it.

Caught on a backstreet by one of those TMZ video crews and asked if it was true that "they paid you a million dollars for the endorsement for Kamala," Oprah replied, "Not true. I was paid nothing, ever."

“The campaign paid for the production costs of ‘Unite for America,’ a live-streaming event that took place Sept. 19 outside Detroit, Mich.,” a spokesperson for Harpo said, trying to clear things up. “Oprah Winfrey was at no point during the campaign paid a personal fee, nor did she receive a fee from Harpo.”

Technically, that's the truth. But only technically.

It was Winfrey's production company that received the seven-figure check. But Harpo is owned by Winfrey. For all intents and purposes, Harpo IS Oprah.

The FEC paperwork shows that Harpo was paid for "EVENT PRODUCTION," not for Winfrey's endorsement. But does 94 minutes of unscripted, live television, produced on a small set, really cost a million dollars to produce? Or was Oprah's "personal fee" just part of the overhead?

"As a legal matter," the Federalist's Sean Davis asked on Monday, "how are secret bought-and-paid-for endorsements even legal? If you can’t run a paid ad without a clear disclosure, how on earth can you run a paid endorsement without disclosure?"

Maybe that's something the Trump DOJ should look into. But right here, right now, we can look into where the money went.

Github user Gaiaus uploaded the Harris campaign's official FEC spending filing last week for all to see, and it showed a last-minute, pop-up campaign that very quickly ramped up into a spending behemoth. After spending all of $2,000 in the first half of the year, Harris-Walz spent just shy of $6 million in August (when she was anointed as the nominee), to nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in September alone.

On Friday, PJ Media's own Robert Spencer answered the question "Where did Kamala's billion dollars go?" and the answer was about what you'd expect: she blew it on ineffective advertisements and social media outreach. The rest she just wasted:

Harris also spent over $15 million to hire the parade of icky celebrities she trotted out to boost attendance at her rallies, and sent a cool million to Oprah Winfrey for hosting a town hall with her and appearing at her final rally. Oh, you thought Oprah was appearing out of conviction, love for our country, and thoughtful support for the candidate she thought would best lead us through the perilous coming four years? Come on, man!

Harris somehow managed to outspend Donald Trump's campaign by six-to-one on staffer salaries. What the hell were all those people doing?

I'm reminded a bit of Hillary Clinton's failed 2016 campaign. Clinton outspent Trump by nearly two-to-one ($1.2 billion to $646 million) but the only time she displayed any frugality was when she canceled her victory fireworks show just a couple of days before the election. I guess she finally took notice of Wisconsin and put a stop on that check real fast.

Curiously, Harris-Walz spent a little more than half as much in October as they did in September. Does something about that look wrong to you, too? With most of the money being spent on ads, I would think that October would see the biggest buys, not September. Am I missing something? I don't think so, because even though the Trump campaign raised far less money, Trump-Vance spent $88 million in October compared to just $78 million in September.

Whatever the case, it's clear Trump got much more value for his campaign dollar than Harris did.