New Jersey Republican millionaire and Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz is facing significant criticism after comments he made in 2014 in which he appeared to give the green light to incestuous relationships resurfaced.
During an interview with morning radio show The Breakfast Club in February 2014, Oz was asked to weigh in on a question sent in by a listener about someone struggling with an incestuous relationship.
At the time, host Angela Yee asked Oz the following question:
"I’m going to ask you this and you tell me if this is safe for this person, okay?”
"Well, he said, ‘Yee, I can’t stop smashing my cousin.’ That means sleeping with.”
“‘We hooked up at a young age and now in our 20s, she still wants it. No matter how much I want to stop, I always give it to her. Help me.’ What advice would you give that person?”
Rather than point this individual toward counseling services, Oz shocked listeners when he downplayed the situation and took the conversation in an entirely different direction, saying:
"If you’re more than a first cousin away, it’s not a big problem." ...
“Every family has genetic strengths and weaknesses."
"And so the reason we naturally crave people who are not so like us is because you just mix the gene pool up a little bit so that if I had one gene for, let’s say, hemophilia, which is a classic example where you bleed a lot if you cut yourself, I don’t want to marry a cousin who has the same hemophilia gene, because the chance of our child having both those genes is much higher.”
"You know, that’s why children, girls don’t like their fathers’ smell. Their pheromones will actually repel their daughters because they’re not supposed to be together."
"My daughters hate my smell."
Oz's remarks resurfaced following reporting by Jezebel's Caitlin Cruz, who noted that considering Oz "has already been saying too much as a candidate, you know the things coming out of his mouth must have been pretty bad before."
Indeed, these remarks soon caught the attention of John Fetterman, Oz's Democratic opponent, who said they represented "Yet another issue where Oz and I disagree."
\u201cYet another issue where Oz and I disagree\u201d— John Fetterman (@John Fetterman) 1662498025
Social media users were quick to echo Fetterman's sentiments and offered their own criticisms of Oz.
\u201cHow is @DrOz fit for office of any type? Wow, this is bad.\u201d— madninnie (@madninnie) 1662564423
\u201cOz is going down in flames.\u201d— Laura mcconnell (@Laura mcconnell) 1662548541
\u201cSick\u201d— Nancy Stanfield (@Nancy Stanfield) 1662542638
\u201cI. Can't. Even. OZ should be a hard NO for everyone.\u201d— Ann Saxena (@Ann Saxena) 1662521096
\u201cFetterman was probably gonna win, but this is the day he locked it up.\u201d— Nate Blouin (@Nate Blouin) 1662508576
\u201cHonestly, what is happening in the US?\u201d— Rod Farva's litre of cola (@Rod Farva's litre of cola) 1662515328
\u201cWow, OZ is really weird.\u201d— GD Benton (@GD Benton) 1662514728
\u201cWhy wouldn't you just drop out at this point\u201d— E. Alexander Zimmerman (@E. Alexander Zimmerman) 1662502644
\u201cOz is ignorant, evil & totally clueless.\u201d— Sue Reyes-Sardelli (@Sue Reyes-Sardelli) 1662512317
Oz has attracted significant scorn on social media in recent months, particularly for running in Pennsylvania's Senate race despite living in New Jersey.
Fetterman, who suffered a near-fatal stroke in May, has generated support in his time off the campaign trail by launching social media campaigns that have emphasized Oz's ties to New Jersey and minimal ties to Pennsylvania.
Last month, Oz was widely roasted on social media after his past tweets about "poop" resurfaced.
Oz, who made millions and became a household name as the titular "Dr. Oz" on a show that garnered heavy criticism due to his promotion of pseudoscience, including on the topics of alternative medicine, faith healing and various paranormal beliefs, wrote several tweets about bowel movements in over a decade of being a regular Twitter user.
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@BillAckman/Twitter