Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is seeking to represent the state of Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate, is challenging Dr. Anthony Fauci to a debate and has called Fauci a “petty tyrant” and “the J. Edgar Hoover of public health.”
Oz released a campaign video in which he challenges Fauci to a debate.
“You got COVID wrong,” Oz says in the video. “Let’s have a debate, doctor to doctor and give the American people the truth about COVID-19. I’m game, anytime, anywhere. Dr. Fauci, are you in?”
Fauci, who has been a prominent and controversial figure during the COVID-19 pandemic, has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for more than three decades and is also the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden.
“I think Dr. Fauci is basically the J. Edgar Hoover of public health. He’s a petty tyrant. He got COVID wrong. He continues to get it wrong. I keep hearing from from people inside the public health space, and outside, regular doctors like me, that he’s not managing this correctly,” Oz said during an interview on Newsmax.
Oz noted that he has been vaccinated but said, “If you’re older in America, you’re vulnerable, you should get vaccinated. But that’s my advice to you. Your local doctor should reenforce it. But it’s your choice, it’s your body.”