Fetterman spokesman mocks ‘desperate and sad’ Donald Trump and Dr Oz

A spokesman for Pennsylanvia Lieutenant Gov John Fetterman’s campaign ridiculed Donald Trump and his chosen acolyte, Dr Oz, in the state’s US Senate campaign on Saturday after the former president baselessly smeared his boss as a user of hard drugs.

Mr Fetterman’s spokesman Joe Calvello told The Independent in a statement that a remark made by Mr Trump during his rally Saturday evening was “the same crap from these two desperate and sad dudes”.

During his rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on Saturday evening, the former president appeared alongside Dr Mehmet Oz at his first public event since his home was raided by FBI agents.

Dr Oz is notably the Republican candidate in Pennsylvania currently running for Senate opposite Mr Fetterman, the Democratic candidate.

A fired-up Mr Trump attacked Mr Fetterman, unleashing a barrage of nonsense accusations apparently based upon the lieutenant governor’s vocal support for the decriminalisation of marijuana at the federal level. The drug is legal for medical and/or recreational use in dozens of states.

“Fetterman supports taxpayer funded drug dens and the complete decriminalization of illegal drugs, including heroin, cocaine, crystal meth and ultra lethal fentanyl,” said Mr Trump on Saturday, before adding: “And by the way, he takes them himself”.

Mr Fetterman leads his opponent in just about every poll of the Pennsylvania Senate race, where candidates are running to replace a retiring GOP senator. The race was once seen as an easy defence for Republicans, but since Dr Oz’s razor-thin win of the GOP primary, it has trended strongly in favour of the sitting lieutenant governor. Mr Fetterman has relentlessly criticised the celebrity TV doctor for his misleading claims about various treatments on his show while depicting his opponent as a carpetbagger who only recently began residing in the state.

The Republican nominee has, in recent weeks, launched a series of increasingly vicious attacks aimed at the Fetterman campaign. Those attacks have included statements mocking the 53-year-old for a recent stroke and accusing him of hiring “murderers” -- a smear that originates from the lieutenant governor’s hiring of two men who were freed from prison by a unanimous decision of a parole board after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

The lieutenant governor was far from alone in being on the receiving end of the former president’s vitriol on Saturday; Mr Trump also took time to lash out at the FBI, whom he denounced as “vicious monsters” for their execution of a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, his residence and Florida resort, where classified materials were apparently being kept illegally.