PITTSBURGH (TNS) — KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh wants to hold the first televised debate in the race for one of the country’s most important U.S. Senate seats, but to this point, only Republican nominee Mehmet Oz has agreed to participate.

As the calendar nears the end of August, Oz, the cardiothoracic surgeon and longtime TV celebrity, is using the KDKA debate to more forcefully call into question the health status and transparency of his opponent, Democrat John Fetterman, who’s continuing to recover from a stroke he suffered in May.

Oz has taken to Fox News to accuse Fetterman of dodging debates — KDKA’s included — and members of his campaign told the Post-Gazette that they want answers from their opponent, or else they’ll continue to argue that he’s hiding.

Oz has agreed to five debates, moderated by professional journalism outlets, his campaign says. Fetterman hasn’t agreed to any of the debates, but his campaign says he’s willing to debate — just not on his opponent’s terms.

The first test of these statements will be Sept. 6, the proposed date of KDKA’s televised debate.

Shawn Hoder, vice president and news director for CBS Television Pittsburgh, said the station reached out to both campaigns in an effort to hold a cross-state debate — partnered with CBS Philadelphia — that would be televised in both areas. Oz has accepted the invite, Hoder said.

”We do not have an answer from the Fetterman camp yet,” Hoder said in an email.

Asked about the debate invitation, the Fetterman campaign reiterated a statement from a senior adviser that deemed Oz’s demands to debate a desperate stunt — and an attempt to change the subject in an otherwise bad stretch for his campaign.

”Still, John is up for debating Oz — we’re not going to do this on Oz’s terms. A millionaire celebrity like Dr. Oz is probably used to pushing people around and getting his own way, but he’s not going to be able to bully John Fetterman,” the statement from senior adviser Rebecca Katz read.

Fetterman returned to the campaign trail a week and a half ago in Erie, and he was scheduled to appear at a United Steelworkers election kickoff event Tuesday.

Oz campaign spokesman Barney Keller said that it’s fair to question if Fetterman is “too sick to debate.” He said if that’s true, the campaign needs to come clean.

”We just assume that John Fetterman is not able to debate — which, again, we completely understand,” Keller said. “He suffered a major stroke, and it’s clear that it’s affected him physically. We would get it, and I think Pennsylvania voters will get it.”

But Fetterman told the Post-Gazette last month, in his first media interview since suffering the stroke, that he’s “feeling really good,” said he has “nothing to hide” on the status of his health, and described the lingering effects of his stroke as minor and infrequent.

The 52-year-old Democrat said he has “no physical limits,” walks 4 to 5 miles every day in 90-degree heat, understands words properly and hasn’t lost any of his memory. He admitted that he struggles with his hearing sometimes, he said, and may “miss a word” or “slur two together,” but he said it doesn’t happen often and that he’s working with a speech therapist.

After the stroke, doctors attached a pacemaker with a defibrillator to Fetterman’s heart, intended to treat his cardiomyopathy, a diagnosis he received after his stroke.

”Three months ago, I may not have made it,” Fetterman said at his return-to-the-trail rally, “but now, I’m standing right here in Erie. You are going to deliver for us in November — and that will deliver Pennsylvania for us — and I will deliver the 51st vote in the Senate.”

Oz said he’s agreed to five debates in the lead-up to the November election. If the Fetterman camp wants to propose other debates, “we’ll happily listen to them,” Keller said Monday. They would also agree to modifications if Fetterman wanted, say, more commercial breaks, he added.

Katz said it’s “no surprise [Oz is] eager for as many debates a possible.”

”If it were up to Oz, this entire campaign would take place in a TV studio where he can comfortably lie; he’s certainly not winning Pennsylvanians over in person,” Katz said.

In the race for Pennsylvania governor, the two sides haven’t settled on any debates yet, either.

Republican Doug Mastriano said he will only debate Democrat Josh Shapiro “if it’s a fair fight” and proposed a series of two 90-minute debates in October, organized collaboratively by both campaigns.

Mastriano pitched the idea of having each campaign pick a location for the individual debates and giving both campaigns the opportunity to pick moderators, one each for both events.

A Shapiro campaign spokesman called Mastriano’s offer an “unserious” proposal — an “obvious stunt to avoid any real questions about his extreme agenda and record of conduct by dictating his own rules for debates.”