Oz says he would have certified the 2020 election results for Biden
Trump-endorsed Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz said Tuesday he would have certified the 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden. The comments come just days after Oz appeared alongside former President Donald Trump at a rally in northeastern Pennsylvania where Trump continued to falsely claim the election was stolen and he was the real winner.
"I would not have objected to it," Oz told reporters Tuesday about the certification process. "By the time the delegates and those reports are sent to the U.S. Senate, our job was to approve it. That's what I would have done."
After Trump supporters descended on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the election certification was delayed several hours. When they returned to the floor, eight Republican senators still supported at least one objection to affirming either Pennsylvania or Arizona's election results. Both states were won by President Joe Biden.
Oz's remarks came in response to a question at a press conference in Philadelphia alongside retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, a moderate Republican who was one of seven GOP senators to vote to convict Trump of inciting the riot at his second impeachment trial. While Oz responded definitively on Tuesday that he would have voted to certify the last presidential election, he has previously cast doubts on the 2020 presidential election results.
At the Republican primary debate in April, Oz said he had discussed the election with Trump, and "we cannot move on." Oz sowed further doubt about the process and accused Democrats of changing voting laws and blocking reviews of those decisions.
In an interview before the Pennsylvania primary, Oz was further pressed by a conservative TV host on what he had meant when he said that "we cannot move on." Oz responded that the different ways cheating occurred had to be understood to ensure it never happened again. But he would not say if he thought the election had been rigged or stolen, which Trump frequently asserts. "I want to be careful," Oz said.
On Fox News Tuesday night, Oz was asked point blank in an interview if he believes the election was stolen. He continued to say there's a lot more information that has to be gathered to determine that.
While Oz received Trump's endorsement in the primary and was lavished with praise from the former president at his rally on Saturday, he is struggling to win over some of Trump's most fervent supporters.
When Trump invited Oz back to the stage Saturday night in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to say a few words during his nearly two hour speech, an attendee in the crowd could be heard shouting "he's a RINO" — an acronym for "Republican in name only."
Oz also did not elicit the same level of cheering from the crowds as right-wing Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who also was also at the rally, or Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor, and a known election denier who attended Mr. Trump's speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021.
"Mastriano for Governor for sure. Iffy on that vote on that senator yet," said a voter named Pam who was decked out in a "Team Trump" hat and a shirt that read "Ultra MAGA."
Another attendee at the rally said she had mixed emotions on the Pennsylvania candidates, Oz, in particular. She said she liked him but didn't agree with him on "every little thing."
In the Fox News interview on Tuesday, Oz was also asked directly if he's a "MAGA Republican." He did not use the word "MAGA," saying only that he supports what Trump said while he was in the White House — that America can be made great by putting the country first.
Driving through rural Pennsylvania between Wilkes-Barre and Pittsburgh, there were multiple signs for Mastriano lining the roads along the rolling farmland. What was also notable is that voters in the conservative stronghold who had already put up signs for the GOP nominee for governor on their land were not doing the same for Oz.
While Oz said he would have voted to certify the election — which has provided enough impetus for Trump to attack other Republicans — he also stated he would not have voted to impeach Trump, noting that the president was "already leaving office by then."
