Dr. Oz Slams Fetterman For ‘Trying To Run The Clock Out’ By Avoiding Debates And Campaign Trail

Listen To The Full Interview Below:

Dr. Mehmet Oz, GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania joined the Guy Benson Show to discuss the state of his race and slam his opponent’s reluctance to agree to more than one debate before election day.

Oz slammed Fetterman saying,

“We know he’ll go out once a week and do a public statement, but he won’t take questions. He has not yet answered questions from voters on the campaign trail. He’s not answering questions from press on the campaign trail. Hasn’t agreed to debate with me until the very end of this month when the absentee ballots are already out in Pennsylvania. And so he’s actually hiding and trying to run the clock out.”

Oz also added,

“We’re going to win this race. The numbers are actually quite close and for a bunch of reasons, I’m confident that we will prevail.”

FULL TRANSCRIPT:
GUY BENSON, FOX RADIO HOST: Joining us now is Dr. Mehmet Oz, U.S. Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, very big race in the Keystone State. He was also the host for years of the Emmy Award winning “The Dr. Oz Show” and an attending physician at New York-Presbyterian Columbia Medical Center. He graduated from Harvard University and obtained a joint MD-MBA from the University of Pennsylvania, their School of Medicine, and Wharton School of Business. He’s performed thousands of surgeries throughout his career. He lives with his wife Lisa. They’ve been together four decades. They have four children together, now some grandkids as well. Dr. Oz, welcome to “The Guy Benson Show.”

DR. MEHMET OZ (R), PENNSYLVANIA SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: It’s a great honor. And I should point out, the smartest thing I ever did was to marry Lisa 37 years ago, so —

BENSON: Thirty-seven.

OZ: Besides (ph) living with her, I love her.

(CROSSTALK)

BENSON: That’s awesome. Well, congratulations on 37, and hopefully many more to come as well. Let’s start with this, just the overall picture of your race absolutely has shifted dramatically over the last month. Polling showed that you were down double-digits, people were talking about a Fetterman victory like it was inevitable. Your opponent, the lieutenant governor, the Democrat. And over these weeks you have just been clawing back. Some of your attacks on Fetterman have really started to resonate and land. He has struggled to respond. And now, as of this week, the Cook Political Report has shifted this race back into a pure tossup category. What is happening on the ground in Pennsylvania that you’re seeing?

OZ: There’s a lot of suffering in Pennsylvania over lawlessness. Now, let me unwrap that a little bit. There is, without question, an increase of violent crime across the commonwealth. In some places like Philadelphia, we have more murders than ever before in our history. The highest per capita murder rate of any large American city. We had our 1,000 carjacking this weekend. You don’t — can’t see people walking in the street anymore. Parents won’t let their kids leave home. And this, not surprisingly, is raising a lot of anger amongst people. I was at a prayer vigil on Sunday night, visiting with (ph) some of these folks talking about the fact they just can’t keep up. And the violence creates long-term post-traumatic stress disorder, and the population doesn’t just get better. So the question is, why do we have it? Well, part of it’s because we have far-left liberal politicians, like my opponent, John Fetterman, who had advocated for releasing one-third of all prisoners in the state, wants to eliminate life sentences for murderers. He seems to care more about the murderers, actually, than the innocent there (ph) on the parole board, which he sits. And he meticulously attends all those meetings, but he doesn’t go to his other meetings. He’s always pushing to get folks, who’ve done heinous crimes, off. Even when the victims’ families don’t want it to happen. And this behavior has, with a lot of voters, chilled them on whether he’s doing the right thing. Does he have the rights insights? Does he reflect the values of the commonwealth? At the same time, not just here but across the country, we’re having a fentanyl death increase that is shocking. And it’s caused because we have an open border, so fentanyl pours across. Not only is there a problem because they can come across, but the cartels are making so much money with human trafficking that they can easily invest in narcotics like fentanyl and pump them into the United States. But in addition, my opponent Fetterman — in addition to wanting open borders, wants to decriminalize all drugs and wants heroin injections sites. Now, I went down Kensington, which is where Rocky used to go — you know, that’s where they filmed the movie, where he’d go boxing in the streets.

BENSON: Yes.

OZ: Well that area wasn’t a bad area in, you know, years past. I went to graduate school in Philadelphia. I lived down here. But you can’t walk in the street there now. You’ve got people with needles sticking out of their bodies just, you know, leaving — I mean, hundreds of people living on the street corners making it impossible for shop owners and their customers to enter stores. People can’t go to their homes anymore. And again, this is an example of far-left liberal policies gone wrong. And I’ve been going down there for years to help. But I want to make sure everyone realizes, when you have bad policies from far-left political leaders, like John Fetterman, who are not willing to look at the results of what they’re doing, then you’ve got people who you should not put in the U.S. Senate.

BENSON: Yes, let’s talk about what Fetterman’s saying. His campaign is trying to say, oh, these are distortions, these are lies from the Republicans. It’s not true. I don’t believe these things. The problem is — at least from my perspective, maybe I’m wrong about this, maybe I’m a novice here. But it seems to me that when you have said all of these things on tape, it is sort of hard to walk away from them. And now he’s trying to run away from them, but the record is what it is. His public policies are what they are. And his past statements aren’t invented by you, they are simply highlighted by you. I’m not really sure how they get around that.

OZ: Well, the ads have been pretty straight forward. It’s just him talking on camera about things that he’s done and wants to do more of. And they have directly led to the crises that we’re facing. I haven’t even gotten to the economic issues where he criticized Joe Biden for not spending enough money. He strongly supported tax increases as lieutenant governor and as he wanted (ph) the state (ph) Biden tax increase to go through. He hasn’t paid his own, 67 times.

(CROSSTALK)

BENSON: Yes.

OZ: And on camera says that was just a — you know, it just slipped through the cracks. So he can’t avoid this reality. But there’s a separate part of their campaign that he, unfortunately, had a stroke before the primary. They didn’t tell people about it in a timely fashion, which is a separate issue. But he’s managed to just keep quiet the whole time. He doesn’t really campaign much. You know, he’ll go out once a week and do a public statement, but he won’t take questions. He has not yet answered questions from voters on the campaign trail. Has not answered questions from press on the campaign trail. Hasn’t agreed to a debate with me until the very end of this month when absentee ballots are already out in Pennsylvania. And so, he’s actually hiding and trying to run the clock out. And although he sort of addresses these criticisms, up until recently he’s just been hoping that, you know, people wouldn’t get it. But Pennsylvanians are smart, they’re getting it. And as they understand the real threat that he offers, they start to get upset about it and start to shift their votes in my direction. But for everyone who doesn’t live in Pennsylvania, this is why this race matters to you. Not only is it control of the Senate for the Republicans but more importantly, if he were to go to Washington, the first thing he wants to do is to blow up the filibuster. This is the kind of person he is. He’s really radical about these ideas. So without a filibuster, you lose the last real calming element of U.S. government. You leave (ph) — you’re getting whipsawed (ph) back right to left with a — whiplashed as the government shifts left, then back right, then back left again. We don’t want that for America. And we don’t want to put someone in the Senate who’s going to be a destabilizing force as he has been here in Pennsylvania during his years as lieutenant governor.

BENSON: It seems like the crux of his campaign is to say the word abortion as often as possible; to say that you’re not from the state, that you’re from New Jersey; to call you an elitist; and I think the new thing that I saw is that you like killed puppies or something like that. I mean, some of this does have an air of desperation about it. When you see those attacks — oh, you know, he’s from New Jersey, he’s an elitist — what is your response to Fetterman, where (ph) a lot of these attacks seem to be personal and cultural about you, not so much about his record or the issues?

OZ: It’s a recipe for failure on his part. The voters in Pennsylvania are wise enough to make decisions based on how it affects their kitchen-table issues. Voters are going to decide based on who they think will manage the economy better, crime better, and the cartel-run drug trafficking issue better. That’s how they’re going to make their choices. And he can throw as many personal insults at me as he wants. But if I did well in life — and I have, and my father grew up on a dirt floor. I mean, we’re very proud in my family that, as my dad was an immigrant, we were able to live the American dream. America is a wonderful country. Abundantly full of opportunity, and you have to work to get it. And I want that to be true for everybody else. People are not going to vote against me because I was successful. In fact, I often argue that people don’t really care where you’re from. They care what you stand for. Do you have the values of Pennsylvanians? There’s a reason that the Fraternal Order of Police, both state-wide and locally in Philadelphia, and the patrolmen, they’re all endorsing me, not him because they know that he’s not supportive of their challenges, that I understand what it takes to run to an environment where it’s risky and protect both you and the person you’re trying to help and make sure that their culprit is apprehended. These are all important, to have law and order in the state so that people can feel safe going to work, you know, raising, their families, et cetera. Those are the Pennsylvania values that I stand for. John Fetterman has a far-left perspective on this. And the average voter, when they wake up to that, they don’t want him representing us.

BENSON: I do want to go off the beaten path a little bit and ask you about the issue of same-sex marriage, which has become broadly popular in the United States, although sort of a split among conservatives in the Republican Party. I’m in favor of same-sex marriage because I’m in one, so I’m definitely for that. I also understand some people disagree. We can have differences of opinion. Within the Republican Senate Conference, for example, there are people with both views on this overall question. Where do you come down on the issue of same-sex marriage? And I know that there’s a bill that might get voted on, perhaps, in the coming months — maybe in the lame duck session, maybe in the next Congress — that sort of codifies the institution of same-sex marriage with a vote in Congress, not just relying on the Obergefell decision from the Supreme Court that I personally believe is going nowhere. That being said, I’m just wondering where you come down on this, what your stance is on that overall issue.

OZ: Well, I mentioned at the outset the best thing I did in my life was to marry Lisa. Marriage is the one covenant we sign with society. You know, we don’t sign our birth certificate or our death certificate. Marriage is crucial. And I want everyone to be able to have access to marriage, including same-sex couples. So I’m supportive of the movement. I understand the concerns raised by some of my conservative colleagues. Much of it is around the concern around — of religious liberty. That —

BENSON: That’s right.

OZ: — if a — if a church wants to have a rule that’s specific to their doctrine, that they should be allowed to. And I think, and I know, that we could find language that would make a bill both protective of same-sex marriage and biracial marriage as well, but also protect churches and others who have different perspectives. And that is something that I think will be important for the Republican Party to get its head around. It’s something that many Americans believe its time has come. So let’s do it.

BENSON: Meanwhile, specific to your race, just some nuts-and-bolts stuff, I saw that you had a very big fundraising haul. I saw, what, $17.2 million coming into the coffers. You have been vastly outspent. The Democrats are pouring so much money into that race against you, and you’ve just been climbing and climbing and climbing. Talk about the resources, what you feel like you guys need to do, maybe not to match their money but at least to get your message out there. And then, I’m trying to sort of square the circle here on everyone — sort of, the smart set coming around to realizing, oh wait, this is a dogfight that could go either way. Even though the polling averages still showing you trailing by four or five, in some cases, six points, I’ve seen other ones much closer, two or three points. I know the trajectory is coming your way. It seems like the momentum certainly is, with you. Do you feel confident that you have the time and the resources to finish closing the gap and then pulling ahead when it really counts?

OZ: We’re going to win this race. The numbers are actually quite close. And for a bunch of reasons, I’m confident that we will prevail. But let me answer your question very directly. The Democrats are pouring a lot of money into the race. But the reality is that it takes a lot of money to sell something that you don’t have. They don’t have a good candidate. He’s not — he’s not out there hustling the way I am. I’m curious how he’s able to manage the debate in a few weeks. But for many reasons, I think the average voter of Pennsylvania is going to feel more and more comfortable with me as their candidate. And with the momentum that we have behind us, we’ll continue to surge. But you do mention an important point. I have to raise more money. Although I put quite a bit of my own money into this with my wife, and we’ve raised a lot of money, the ability to keep up to our voices heard is critical. So if listeners would consider going to doctoroz.com, make any contribution that you feel is worthy. All my information on what I stand for is also on that site, so you can check it out carefully. But I have to be able to raise money inside and outside of Pennsylvania to keep up with a tremendous amount of money pouring in to Fetterman — from mostly the coasts, and that’s because a lot of the coastal elite want to have a 51st Democratic senator so they’re funding it. They don’t know that much about him. If they did know more about him, they might not be so excited about financially supporting him. But we’re going to, either way, prevail. And our message is on target. We have a very good game plan as we head into the final weeks and I’m looking forward to closing it out.

BENSON: Final question here, and it refers to something that you’ve already mentioned. I find Fetterman’s record and ideas to be radical and dangerous for reasons that you’re really pounding in this campaign. He did have this medical incident, a stroke. It has debilitated him to a certain extent. He’s not been able to really go hard on the campaign trail. You’re definitely out working him. He’s partially still in convalescence here. You see video clips of him trying to answer questions and then sort of muddling his sentences. You know you’re a medical doctor, so in some ways this is, you know, right in your comfort zone of trying to balance being compassionate toward John Fetterman and his health challenge while also pointing out that, you know, perhaps he’s not up for the campaign on the job. How do you try to strike that balance in a way that’s appropriate, and fair, and not meanspirited but also highlights, I think, a completely legitimate issue?

OZ: I have a huge compassion for what he’s going through. I — it’s my specialty area. He has heart failure, by — according to what he’s — the little bit he’s shared, with irregular heartbeats, then had the stroke. So these are issues, I understand. And I know what he’s going through just having managed patients in that situation. That stated, as Pat Toomey, our current senator whose job we’re competing to take, has said over and over again, you have to be able to answer questions and do it on the fly with voters, the press and other senators in order to serve in the greatest deliberative body there is, which is the U.S. Senate. He’s not demonstrated that. He’s not released his medical records. Many papers have asked him to do just that, and he just ignores it completely. He needs to debate more than just once. And if he’s going to debate just once, it needs to be done earlier and it has to be longer than the sub-hour that he’s given use. He wants closed captioning and a bunch of other concessions. I’ll help him in any way. I’ve agreed to those. But let me ask you more than two questions in a debate. That’s not fair for the people of Pennsylvania to have to make a decision based on that trivial interaction. And this is a crisis for democracy. If we can allow someone to be elected today to the United States Senate who has never spontaneously answered questions in an open setting from anybody — the press, voters, me — well, then why would people ever leave their home? Just, you know, raise money. Run your campaign. Don’t take the risk of going out in the campaign trail, you might say something that’s wrong that ends up in a TV ad against you. And that would be a really unfortunate change for America. So, for everyone hearing the show right now, understand, this is a much bigger than just Pennsylvania. It’s much bigger than just this election.That’s why if you can go to doctoroz.com and you support me in some degree would be great, because we do not want to reinforce what’s going on in Pennsylvania by sending John Fetterman to the U.S. Senate.

BENSON: Dr. Mehmet Oz, Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, one of the top three most important races in the country this cycle, in my opinion. Dr. Oz, we’re so glad that you spent some time with us here today. Perhaps we’ll talk again before the election. Good luck in P.A. and we’ll be watching very closely.

OZ: God bless you. Look forward to being with again. Take care.

BENSON: That’s Dr. Oz on “The Guy Benson Show.” We’ll be right back.