Oprah's partisan focus group gets friendly
They still either love him or hate him, but 14 strangers split in half over the president have become friends in the six months since Oprah Winfrey first brought them together for a 60 Minutes segment. Winfrey gathers the group from Grand Rapids, MI, once more for a spirited discussion about the first year of Donald Trump's presidency on the next edition of 60 Minutes, Sunday, Feb. 18 at 7:00 p.m. ET/PT.
Seven of the people voted for Trump, seven did not. But they've been getting together and keeping in touch on social media.
A gun-rights advocate in the group took some members shooting. Another hosted them at a hockey game played by the college club team he coaches. Almost all of them attended a team workout session organized by Jennifer Allard.
Allard says spending the time together made the group members more than political opponents on opposite sides. "Now I'm looking at them as people, not as 'you're Trump, or not Trump.' This has been an incredible experience," she tells Winfrey.
Nobody expected the group to become friends after expressing their opposing political beliefs so passionately -- especially not Frank Luntz, the conservative pollster who brought the group together initially. "This never happens!" Luntz said. "They came to respect each other, appreciate each other and live each other's lives to some degree, so that they could empathize. That was a laboratory."