In a tight race to represent Pennsylvania in the Senate, Dr. Mehmet Oz slammed Democrat opponent, state Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, as the "most pro-murderer candidate in America right now."
"It's stunning when you hear the specific cases, times when he has lobbied to release first-degree murderers," Oz told Wednesday's "Wake Up America" on Newsmax.
Oz added, when people hear about Fetterman's record as head of the state's Board of Pardons, "'they can't possibly vote for [him]. That's one of the reasons that the polls have closed so dramatically."
Oz and Fetterman are within points of each other in the polls. A survey released Friday by the Trafalgar Group put Fetterman slightly ahead by 47.7% to 45.9%.
There is a lot of talk about the economy, Oz added, but in Philadelphia, which will make up almost half the state's votes, "murder is a major problem because it's higher than it has ever been before."
"When you've got that kind of a crisis happening right in your backyard, people are focused on it."
Oz further spoke out about the drug abuse epidemic and how it's hitting his state hard.
"I was in Philadelphia on Monday, touring around an area called Kensington," Oz said. "That's where Rocky was running in the streets, and it was not a bad area. I went to graduate school, and I lived in West Philly, so you could go down to Kensington."
But now, the section is the "largest open-air drug market in the country," said Oz. "Much of that, again, is because you have open borders, which Fetterman wants. Fentanyl is pouring across."
Further, the police are "not allowed to do their jobs," said Oz, and there are "swaths of the city now covered with people with needles hanging out of their bodies."
As a result, businesses are closing and working people are leaving, so "there's no tax revenue, and it hurts the city," and that is a "reflection of the weak policies of Democrat leaders in the city, and John Fetterman has been all in on these ideas. They do not work."
Oz said as a doctor, he's been working around the issues of addiction for years, "and people don't appreciate that there are over 20 million Americans who have recovered from addiction, so it's real."
And, he said that "we need to get those folks talking because when you understand their opportunities out there, no matter how dark the world seems, you start to rethink whether you want to be on drugs or not."
Oz on Wednesday also discussed the ongoing disagreements he's been having with Fetterman over their debate on Oct. 25.
"He wants to dodge debates, but it's not just the questions for me that he's avoiding," said Oz. "He's not answering questions from the press. He's not taking voter questions. This is a real threat to democracy, because if you don't hold your candidates accountable, you don't push them to answer basic questions about their policies."
Oz added that he had to "squeeze" Fetterman to debate, and it is "insulting to the voters that he would have delayed this debate so late."
Oz has pushed for as many as seven debates and has raised questions about Fetterman's health amid the Democrat contender's lingering effects from a stroke suffered in May.
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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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