Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz has spoken out about a video he recorded in April that went largely unnoticed until his rival retweeted it. In the video—which Lt. Gov. John Fetterman's campaign manager says shows Oz "clearly has never been in a grocery store before"—the candidate gets the name of the store wrong and expresses surprise at the cost of "crudite" ingredients, including broccoli and asparagus. Oz told Newsmax on Wednesday that he was talking about "how ridiculous it is that you can’t even put vegetables on a plate" because of inflation, Politico reports.
When he reposted the video, Fetterman joked that in Pennsylvania, crudite is called a "veggie tray." Asked whether he was "relatable to the everyday hardworking American there in Pennsylvania," Oz said he has always tried to help people in any way he could, including saving lives as a cardiothoracic surgeon, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. "We’ll do whatever we need to do to make sure the people of Pennsylvania respect what we’re about, and we’re going to work as hard as we can to fix their problems,” he said.
In the video, Oz says he is at "Wegners"—a store that doesn't exist, though the chains Wegmans and Redner's operate in Pennsylvania. He told Newsmax he got the name mixed up because the campaign trail had tired him out. "I was exhausted," he said. "I don't think that's a measure of someone's ability to lead the Commonwealth." Fetterman said the video had helped him raise more $500,000 for his campaign, including with sales of a sticker reading "Wegners—Let Them Eat Crudite." (More Mehmet Oz stories.)
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