Pennsylvania senatorial candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz, who will participate in Friday night's rally with former President Donald Trump, told Newsmax that he fought back against tough attacks in this week's debate by staying on his message, comparing it to being "like surgery."
"You know, it doesn't always work perfectly," Oz said Friday on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "Sometimes things happen that you don't want to have to experience, but your focus is on your patient during heart surgery. I'm pretty good at following the beating heart. So I did the same thing during the debate."
Oz, who has been endorsed by Trump, said that endorsement "does make you the front-runner," so other candidates would "appropriately come after you. I don't take it personally."
"My main goal was to emphasize who I am," Oz said. "[Trump] said in his announcement that he wrote himself that I'm smart, tough, and will never let you down. Those phrases are important because I can figure out what's going on whether it's energy policy, what we got wrong with COVID, or what they're trying to do to our kids in our schools."
With 20 electoral votes, Pennsylvania is important politically, particularly in presidential races. Trump won the state in 2016 but lost it in 2020.
Oz said Trump understands the state's importance, because "if you have a strategy game plan that works in Pennsylvania, then you have a game plan that will work nationwide ... there are more Democrats than Republicans, but they're conservative Democrats. They will vote Republican if we show them a little love, which is what my campaign will do in the general election."
Friday's rally is in Greensburg, located near blue-city Pittsburgh, but Oz said the city is in Westmoreland County, a "classic Republican" location."
"We're speaking to a large number of people," he said. "We have over 10,000 people who want to come already. There's so much excitement in the region because the president's coming. It's vitally important for many reasons. He's going to endorse me loudly and vocally in Pennsylvania."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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