HARRISBURG (TNS) — Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman’s decision to skip a proposed debate next week has unleashed a flurry of increasingly harsh statements from Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz’s campaign.
The critical onslaught from Oz, a retired cardiothoracic surgeon, led Fetterman’s campaign Wednesday morning to release a video of the lieutenant governor, who suffered a stroke on May 13, speaking to supporters in Mercer County over the weekend and lamenting Oz “mocking” Fetterman’s health.
Oz’s attacks began Tuesday evening shortly before Fetterman confirmed that he would not be participating in a debate proposed by KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh for Sept. 6, which is the first of five debates that Oz has committed to and Fetterman has not.
Fetterman also declined a debate proposed for Sept. 9 in northeast Pennsylvania sponsored by WFMZ-TV and the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce.
ON Tuesday, the Oz campaign released a list of tongue-in-cheek “concessions” it would give Fetterman to entice him to attend the KDKA debate, which included Oz promising “not to intentionally hurt John’s feelings,” allowing Fetterman to wear an earpiece “so he can have the answers given to him by his staff,” and paying “for any additional medical personnel he might need to have on standby.”
About 90 minutes later came the confirmation that Fetterman would not attend the debate and Brittany Yanick, Oz’s communications director, issued a statement calling Fetterman “a liar, a liberal and a coward.”
Later Tuesday night, Fetterman put out a statement in which he said he was proud of his record as mayor of Braddock near Pittsburgh and as lieutenant governor.
“As I recover from this stroke and improve my auditory processing and speech, I look forward to continuing to meet with the people of Pennsylvania,” Fetterman said.
“Today’s statement from Dr. Oz’s team made it abundantly clear that they think it is funny to mock a stroke survivor. I chose not to participate in this farce. Any sense that these ‘challenges’ were done in good faith is damaged,” said Fetterman. “My recovery may be a joke to Dr. Oz and his team, but it’s real for me.”
Fetterman also said he wants to have a “productive discussion about how we can move forward and have a real conversation on this once Dr. Oz and his team are ready to take this seriously.”
That, though, only prompted a scathing response from the Oz campaign calling Fetterman’s statement “long and rambling,” and questioning when Fetterman would agree to a debate.
“He won’t ever say, not even in his latest whiny statement. John Fetterman’s campaign is insulting the intelligence of Pennsylvania voters,” Yanick, Oz’s spokesperson, said.
The bickering continued into Wednesday morning, with Oz releasing a sarcastic Top 10 list of reasons why Fetterman declined the KDKA debate, including:
That was swiftly followed by the video from Fetterman’s campaign showing him meeting with Mercer County voters.
{p class=”krtText”}“How many of you, maybe yourself, have had a big health challenge in your own life?” Fetterman asks the audience. “Can you even imagine if you had a doctor that was mocking your illness, or ridiculing that? Well, here we are right now. I’d like to think that Dr. Oz may have really lost his way if you’re going to make fun of somebody who had a stroke, but I don’t think he really had his way, since this is a guy who made a career selling ‘miracle diet pills.’”
{p class=”krtText”}Fetterman held a 13 percentage point lead over Oz in the latest Franklin & Marshall College poll, while some Republican-leaning pollsters have showed Fetterman with single-digit leads.
{p class=”krtText”}©2022 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit pennlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
{p class=”krtShirttail”}
