ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — US President Donald J. Trump would gladly face Oprah Winfrey as an opponent in the 2020 presidential race, a White House spokesman said on Monday after social media buzz from her speech at an awards show thrust her name into the political arena.

“We welcome the challenge, whether it be Oprah Winfrey or anybody else,” Hogan Gidley told reporters on Air Force One during a flight to Nashville on Monday. “We welcome all comers.”

Ms. Winfrey, 63, stole the show at the Golden Globe awards on Sunday night with her speech upon receiving the Cecil B. DeMille award for achievement and lit up Twitter with a surge of tweets carrying “#Oprahforpresident” and “#Oprah2020.”

She is actively thinking about a run, CNN reported on Monday, citing two of her close friends. CNN did not name the friends, who it said had spoken on condition of anonymity. At least one emphasized that Ms. Winfrey had made no firm decision.

Ms. Winfrey has said in the past she is not interested in running for president, but the Los Angeles Times quoted Stedman Graham, Ms. Winfrey’s longtime partner in business and life, as saying on Sunday that, “It’s up to the people … She would absolutely do it.”

Wearing a black gown to show support for victims, she used her platform to promote the “Time’s Up” movement against sexual harassment and assault, throwing her support behind others who have exposed sexual misconduct in Hollywood and elsewhere in politics and the media.

“She had that room in her hands. It was like a campaign rally,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior fellow at the University of Southern California’s Price School of Public Policy.

The nine-minute speech generated two standing ovations from the Hollywood glitterati and prompted 220,000 posts on social media mentioning the words “Oprah” and “president” in just 24 hours, said Todd Grossman of social media analytics company Talkwalker.

After Mr. Trump won the White House in 2016 with help from his fame as a reality TV star, it no longer seems far-fetched to consider a similar campaign by Ms. Winfrey, an actress, movie and television producer, and chief executive of her OWN cable channel, political analysts said.

Ms. Winfrey, long associated with Democratic politics and fundraising, would likely face a crowded field in the Democratic primaries in the 2020 race.

But given her connections, Ms. Winfrey might have a fund-raising advantage over her rivals in liberal Hollywood, which is often called an automatic teller machine for Democratic candidates.

“She’s certainly a bigger celebrity than Trump ever was, especially in terms of connecting with her audience. Obviously this has given her an opportunity. What does she do next with it?” said Alan Schroeder, a journalism professor at Northeastern University in Boston who has written on the intersection of show business and politics.

Mr. Trump benefited from his star power to win more free media exposure than his rivals in the Republican primary and was able to run a relatively inexpensive campaign.

His committee spent $343 million in the primary and general election campaigns with the help of $47.5 million of the real estate developer’s own money, which he lent to the campaign and later forgave.

Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent, spent $585 million including $1.5 million of her own money.

Ms. Winfrey could supplement any campaign with her own wealth. Forbes estimates she is worth $3.0 billion compared to $3.5 billion for Mr. Trump. She was raised in poverty by a single mother and went on to host the top-rated talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show for 25 years before ending it in 2011.

Ms. Jeffe, the USC professor, cautioned against thinking of Hollywood as a monolith of liberal Democrats. Besides the liberal creative talent, Hollywood money also comes from the more conservative, unionized trade and craft work force as well as from the business interests.

“She has credibility with all of them,” Ms. Jeffe said. — Reuters

WASHINGTON — Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey’s impassioned Golden Globes speech triggered speculation about her political future.

A 2020 presidential race between Oprah and Donald J. Trump, himself a TV titan, would be the celebrity-political battle of the millennium, made for — and by — television.

But they are by no means the first American screen stars to throw their hats in the political ring. Here are some notable standouts.

THE GREAT COMMUNICATOR
Prior to Trump, there was Ronald Reagan, the celebrity who achieved the greatest success in politics. Mr. Reagan earned notoriety as an actor in films like Knute Rockne, All American, in which he starred as football player George “The Gipper” Gipp.

He identified first as a Democrat but switched parties in the 1950s.

Elected twice as president of the Screen Actors Guild, the charismatic Mr. Reagan became California’s Republican governor in 1967, and won a landslide presidential victory in 1980 against Jimmy Carter.

OTHER HOLLYWOOD STARS
Mr. Reagan paved the way for several other silver-screened politicians, most notably Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The former Mr. Universe bodybuilder and star of the Terminator movies followed Mr. Reagan’s path to political stardom by becoming governor of California in 2003. But Mr. Schwarzenegger was born in Austria, meaning he could never serve as president.

Fred Thompson, who had roles in Die Hard 2 and The Hunt for Red October, parlayed his celebrity into a political career, serving as a Republican in the US Senate from 1994 to 2003. He ran unsuccessfully for president in 2008, and returned to acting.

Actor-filmmaker Clint Eastwood, star of Hang ‘Em High and director of Million Dollar Baby, has been involved in political issues for decades. From 1986 to 1988, he served as mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

THE WRESTLER
Perhaps the most colorful television personality to enter US politics is Jesse “The Body” Ventura, a former Navy SEAL who became a popular bad-boy wrestler in the World Wrestling Federation, watched by millions in the 1970s and 80s.

His joke candidacy for governor of Minnesota in 1998 gained traction as he pushed a populist platform.

Seen as a precursor to Mr. Trump’s wild win in 2016, Minnesota voters sent a message to business-as-usual politicians, narrowly electing the bombastic wrestler.

Today, professional wrestling has made it to the White House. Linda McMahon, the ex-chief executive of WWE and a former Senate candidate herself, now heads the Small Business Administration under Mr. Trump.

TALK AND REALITY SHOW STARS
Jerry Springer became host of a tabloid-themed talk show in the 1990s, after serving as mayor of Cincinnati for a year from 1977. Mr. Springer also mulled runs for US Senate in 2000 and 2004, but did not formally enter the race.

Reality TV star Sean Duffy, a cast-member on MTV’s The Real World: Boston, is currently a Republican congressman from Wisconsin.

Sonny Bono and his pop-star wife Cher scored a huge television hit with 1970s variety program The Sonny & Cher Show. Mr. Bono served three years in the House of Representatives in the 1990s.

TV COMEDIANS
Late-night comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live has skewered American politics for decades, but it also produced a political star. Comedy actor Al Franken narrowly won a US Senate seat in 2008, only to resign last week following multiple accusations of sexual misconduct.

Two other television comedies produced members of Congress: Ben Jones, who played Cooter in good ol’ boy 1980s show The Dukes of Hazzard, and Fred Grandy of The Love Boat fame. — AFP

SEOUL — North Korea said during rare talks with the South on Tuesday it would send a delegation to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea next month and Seoul said it was prepared to lift some sanctions temporarily so the visit could take place.

At the first formal talks with South Korea in more than two years, North Korean officials said their delegation to the Games would consist of athletes, high-ranking officials and a cheering squad.

The talks are being closely watched by world leaders eager for any sign of a reduction in tension on the Korean peninsula, amid rising fears over North Korea’s missile launches and development of nuclear weapons in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

South Korea has unilaterally banned several North Korean officials from entry in response to Pyongyang’s ramped-up missile and nuclear tests, held despite international pressure.

However, some South Korean officials have said they see the Olympics as a possible opportunity for easing tension.

Foreign ministry spokesman Roh Kyu-deok said Seoul would consider whether it needed to take “prior steps,” together with the UN Security Council and other relevant countries, to help the North Koreans visit for the Olympics.

At Tuesday’s talks, the first since December 2015, Seoul proposed inter-Korean military discussions to reduce tension on the peninsula and a reunion of family members in time for February’s Lunar New Year holiday, South Korea’s vice unification minister Chun Hae-sung said.

The North has finished technical work to restore a military hot line with South Korea, he added, with normal communications set to resume on Wednesday. But Mr. Chun did not immediately say what information would be transferred along the hot line.

The North severed communications in February 2016, following the South’s decision to shut down a jointly run industrial park in the North.

South Korea also proposed that athletes from both sides march together at the Games’ opening ceremony and other joint activities during the Winter Olympics, Mr. Chun told reporters outside the talks.

Athletes from the two Koreas have paraded together at the opening and closing ceremonies of major international games before, although this has not been seen since the 2007 Asian Winter Games in China, after relations chilled under nearly a decade of conservative rule in the South.

It would also be the first time since 2005 that the North will send its female cheerleaders, dubbed the “cheering squad of beauty” by the South Korean media.

‘PEACE HOUSE’
The meetings continued on Tuesday afternoon after the two sides broke up for separate lunches. Officials began speaking at 10 a.m. (0100 GMT) in the three-storey Peace House just across the demilitarized zone on the South Korean side of Panmunjom truce village.

“North Korea said that they are determined to make today’s talks fruitful, and make it a groundbreaking opportunity,” South Korea’s Mr. Chun said.

Mr. Chun also said the South Koreans proposed resuming negotiations over the North’s nuclear program, but there was no specific response from the North.

However, North Korean officials said during the meeting they were open to promoting reconciliation through dialogue and negotiation, according to Mr. Chun.

The head of the North Korean delegation, Ri Son Gwon, said, “We came to this meeting today with the thought of giving our brethren, who have high hopes for this dialogue, invaluable results as the first present of the year…”

North Korea entered the talks with a “serious and sincere stance,” said Mr. Ri, chairman of the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.

South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon expressed optimism as the meeting began.

“Our talks began after North and South Korea were severed for a long time, but I believe the first step is half the trip,” said Mr. Cho. “It would be good for us to make that ‘good present’ you mentioned earlier.”

“Everything feels slightly new as we have not had talks in a while,” he said.

Just before the delegation drove into the demilitarized zone, about 20 South Koreans were seen waving a banner that read: “We wish the success of the high-ranking inter-Korean talks.”

One man was spotted waving a flag with a unified Korean peninsula.

Each side’s delegation consisted of five senior officials.

The North Korean delegation walked over the border inside the joint security area to the Peace House around 0030 GMT, an official from the South’s Unification Ministry told reporters.

The United States, which has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea as a legacy of the 1950-1953 Korean War, initially responded coolly to the idea of inter-Korean meetings, but US President Donald J. Trump later called them “a good thing.”

Mr. Trump has said he would like to see talks go beyond the Olympics. “At the appropriate time, we’ll get involved,” he said. — Reuters