Dr. Mehmet Oz, Pennsylvania’s Republican nominee for U.S. Senator, appeared on Sirius XM’s Breitbart News Saturday and blasted his Democrat opponent John Fetterman’s radical record and positions on crime and law and order.
As Pennsylvania’s sitting lieutenant governor, Fetterman chairs the state’s Board of Pardons which abruptly radicalized under his leadership. Since assuming office in 2019, the five-person Fetterman-led board has recommended at least 46 commutations to Gov. Tom Wolfe (D). During Wolfe’s first term as governor, before Fetterman was elected to the lieutenant governorship, the board only made six recommendations, as the Philadelphia Inquirer noted. Moreover, Fetterman previously stated that law-abiding Pennsylvanians would be no less safe if the state emptied its prison systems by a third.
“He seems to value the positions of the criminals above the innocent, which again far-left radicals tend to do, but this goes beyond that,” Oz told Breitbart News Saturday host Matthew Boyle.
“Not only does he want to release one-third of all prisoners, saying it wouldn’t make a difference, but he wants to legalize all drugs, wants to have heroin injection sites,” and “he wants an open border,” said Oz referencing Fetterman’s call for safe injection sites in Philadelphia in 2018.
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The celebrity doctor went on to highlight Philadelphia’s high murder and overdose rates, dubbing the Kensington neighborhood an “open-air drug market.”
“Homicide rates in Philadelphia — highest they’ve ever been,” said Oz. “Fentanyl overdose rates — Philadelphia’s the epicenter for the country right now — we’re number three in the country in Pennsylvania. And we have open-air drug markets larger than anywhere else, like in Kensington, which is part of Philadelphia, where you can’t walk for blocks after blocks. There’s zombies with needles sticking out of their bodies, and law enforcement’s been told to get out of the way.”
“In fact, that’s sort of been the message overall from John Fetterman,” Oz continued. “He’s disdainful of law enforcement for the challenges of them doing their jobs. When I got the endorsement of the fraternal order of police, it was unanimous. You know how hard that is? Everybody voted for me because John Fetterman has gone against them so many times and hurt them so badly, and no one’s going into the force now. So you have lawlessness across many parts of Pennsylvania, and we don’t want that kind of approach in Washington. It will make it worse for the entire country.”
During the interview, Oz pointed out that while Fetterman has finally said he would debate after feverishly ducking, the Democrat has not come forward with a formal offer, as Breitbart News’s Hannah Bleau noted in detail. Fetterman stated he would take the stage “sometime in the middle to end of October,” but early voting would be well underway by then. On Friday, Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen called on Fetterman to debate Oz before mail-in voting begins on September 19.