Dr. Mehmet Oz, the cardiothoracic surgeon turned daytime-TV host, has announced that he’s entering the Republican primary field to replace the outgoing Sen. Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania. And on Wednesday’s episode of “The View” the panel of women were absolutely baffled by that decision.
In discussing Oz’s planned run, the hosts first watched a clip of Oz’s appearance on “Hannity,” in which he said that his political ideology “matches” that of Sean Hannity — “an America-first, Make America Great Again conservative.” At that, Joy Behar bawked.
“What happened to him?” Behar marveled. “What happened to him? He’s gone over to the dark side.”
Host Sunny Hostin noted that she feels Oz “took a turn… with COVID in particular,” citing his April comments about kids returning to schools as particularly problematic. At the time, Oz referred viewers to a piece that asserted “the opening of schools may only cost us 2-3% in terms of total mortality.”
“Any life is a life lost, but to get every child back in to a school where they’re safely being educated, being fed and making the most out of their lives with the theoretical risk on the backside, might be a trade-off some folks would consider,” Oz said at the time.
Moderator Whoopi Goldberg shot back that she thinks he “turned before that” but before she could get in any deeper, Behar wanted to offer up a caveat to her thoughts.
“Can we say something good about him too? Because I know him a little bit. I’ve been to his house for dinner,” Behar said. “Somebody that we know was having a medical issue, I picked up the phone, I asked him ‘What should we do?’ He told you exactly who to call. He’s very, very, personally, a doll. This is some political aspiration he has that must be controlled. Mehmet, please, come back!”
Hostin agreed that, in her experiences with Oz, he was lovely, and that’s what makes his latest move more confounding.
“That’s what’s so confusing because he is, personally, he seems to be a nice person,” Hostin said. “But would a nice person sacrifice people’s children? Would a good person do these things?”
At that, Whoopi finally let loose, saying yes, good people do do the kinds of things, and that we’ve seen it in politicians a lot lately. But in the end, she was blunt about her thoughts on Oz’s stance on COVID precautions.
“Listen, you either get that this is about other people’s health — this is not whether you like the idea of a mandate, or getting a shot. That has nothing to do with it,” Whoopi said. “Kids going back to school deserve to be safe and if you, as a doctor, and a physician, can’t see that, then you’re not somebody I want to vote for, no matter how much I like you!”
To punctuate her words, Goldberg then called back to Oz’s criticisms of “Elites with yards” who “told those without yards to stay inside, where the virus was more likely to spread.”
“No matter how much I like you, you don’t have the right to talk to people like this. Talkin’ about elites and who is an elite,” Whoopi said. “Dude, we live in a similar area! I got a yard. I didn’t tell people not to come, I told people to come walk in the yard, and I would stay in the house. What did you do?”