Oprah Winfrey: ‘I worry about where we are as a country’
LOS ANGELES - Oprah Winfrey said she’s worried about the United States.
Speaking in an upcoming podcast, "Mind Body Zone: Living Outside the Box," hosted by self help guru, Deepak Chopra, Winfrey shared concerns that the country is headed in the wrong direction.
When asked by Chopra if she’s "afraid of anything," Winfrey responds "I worry about the country. I worry about where we are as a country."
"And the word isn't even worry. I see the distance and the inability of various sides and factions to hear each other. I can see this kind of spiraling into the lack of truth on the part of a lot of individuals and you and I both know that can lead ultimately to no good," Winfrey adds.
Winfrey went on to explain that while the state of the nation takes up much space in her mind, she isn’t afraid.
"I think about those things, but I don't fear those things," Winfrey said.
So what helps her sleep at night? The "totality of her life" she says.
"The favor and the hand of something, the energetic force field of something other than my own mind and personality are at work here," Winfrey said.
Between the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the existential threat of climate change, Winfrey’s concerns may not be entirely unwarranted or isolated.
An intelligence forecast from the National Intelligence Council published in April paints a grim picture of a world fragmented by the lasting impacts of the these threats to humanity.
The report — published every four years — is titled "Global Trends," and was released on Thursday by the National Intelligence Council. It is intended to help policymakers and citizens anticipate the economic, environmental, technological and demographic forces likely to shape the world through the next 20 years.
During the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has reminded the world of its fragility and demonstrated the inherent risks of high levels of interdependence. In coming years and decades, the world will face more intense and cascading global challenges ranging from disease to climate change to the disruptions from new technologies and financial crises," the report read.
RELATED: US intelligence report paints a grim picture of a post-COVID-19 world
Winfrey’s anxiety of the current trajectory of the U.S. and the National Intelligence Council’s dark forecast are among many warnings from the intelligence community and scientists are urging the U.S. and other countries to address a variety of issues before it’s too late.
In January, the Doomsday Clock was set to 100 seconds to midnight, the closest symbolic point to humanity’s destruction since the Cold War when the U.S. and Soviet Union tested their first thermonuclear weapons.
The decision to move the hands of the clock is made by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board in correspondence with the Bulletin’s board of sponsors, which consist of 13 Nobel Laureates.
The time is unchanged from 2020, when the hands move the closest to midnight in the clock’s history.
On Jan. 23, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced the decision, saying the mishandling of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic is a "wake-up call" that "governments, institutions, and a misled public remain unprepared to handle the even greater threats posed by nuclear war and climate change."