More reaction today from last night's political debate between Pennsylvania Senatorial candidates Dr. Mehmet Oz and Lt. Governor John Fetterman.
Carlos Carter, President and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh, says he would have preferred to hear more substance from the two candidates last night:
“I thought it was more focused on personal attack and nasty personal attacks and less on policy solutions I think it’s easy to deflect with attacks versus saying, ‘here’s what I can do’,” said Carter.
Carter telling Larry and Marty on the Big K Morning show that at the end of the day, he doesn't believe the debate will have an impact on people's decisions on whom they will vote for in November.
But Carter did say the debate was hard to watch at times due to the auditory challenges of Fetterman, who is a stroke survivor.
“795,000 loved ones a year are impacted by strokes and every 40 seconds and every 3.5 minutes someone dies, it’s a leading cause of disability but I think it’s also important that we’re educated about the risk factors,” said Carter.
The Fetterman campaign claimed the closed captioning that Fetterman was using to help with his speaking was “filled with errors.”
But the Nexstar Media Group,, that hosted the debate, refutes any errors, claiming the Fetterman camp didn’t practice enough.
“It is unfortunate that Mr. Fetterman is now criticizing the closed captioning process employed by Nexstar during tonight’s debate,” Nexstar communications chief Gary Weitman said in a statement. “Both candidates agreed to the technical set-up for the closed captioning process weeks ago, which was implemented at the request of the Fetterman campaign. Both candidates were offered the opportunity for two full rehearsals with the same equipment used in tonight’s debate; Mr. Fetterman chose to do only one. In fact, Nexstar’s production team went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the effectiveness of the closed captioning process, and to accommodate several last-minute requests of the Fetterman campaign. The closed captioning process functioned as expected during rehearsal and again during tonight’s debate. We regret that Mr. Fetterman and his campaign feel otherwise.”
Fetterman’s Communications director said that they were happy with the Democrat’s performance.
“We are thrilled with John’s performance,” said Gary Weitman. “He did remarkably well tonight – especially when you consider that he’s still recovering from a stroke and was working off of delayed captions filled with errors. John won countless exchanges, counter-punched aggressively, and pushed back on Oz’s cruelty and attacks.”