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John Fetterman is responding to baseless accusations of illicit drug use that Donald Trump made about the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on Saturday.
"More and more lies from Trump and Dr. Oz; another day, but it's the same crap from these two desperate and sad dudes," the Fetterman campaign said in a statement provided to PEOPLE from spokesperson Joe Calvello.
Fetterman, Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor and the former mayor of Braddock, is in a heated race against Trump-backed candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz to fill the seat left open by outgoing Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, who isn't seeking reelection.
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"Fetterman supports taxpayer-funded drug dens and the complete decriminalization of illegal drugs, including heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, and ultra lethal fentanyl," Trump said during his speech on Saturday. "By the way, he takes them himself."
Trump offered no proof of Fetterman's alleged drug use.
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The former president also mocked Fetterman's preference for wearing hoodies and shorts at campaign stops, comparing him to a "teenager getting high in his parents' basement."
"He may not look like a Senate candidate for New York or California, but he's just fine for Pennsylvania," Ed Rendell, a Democratic former governor of the state, told The New York Times of Fetterman in a May profile. "He's a very believable candidate for the working class."
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In his first public appearance since his Palm Beach, Florida, resort was searched by the FBI last month, Trump railed against the Department of Justice, his former political rival Hillary Clinton, President Joe Biden and continued to claim that the 2020 election was rife with fraud.
Fetterman, who's used social media to relentlessly depict his opponent as an out-of-touch transplant from New Jersey, returned to the campaign trail in July after suffering a stroke just days ahead of the state's primary election in May.
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He recently hit back at criticism from an official for Dr. Oz's campaign, who said if he'd "ever eaten a vegetable in his life, then maybe he wouldn't have had a major stroke."
"I had a stroke. I survived it. I'm truly so grateful to still be here today," Fetterman tweeted in response to the comment. "I know politics can be nasty, but even then, I could *never* imagine ridiculing someone for their health challenges."
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