HARRISBURG (TNS) — Get Pennsylvania’s Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz to give you his undivided attention in a quiet room for a few minutes, and you can learn some things.

In a newly-released NBC interview, for example, Pennsylvania voters learned that Oz would be a likely “no” vote on Sen. Lindsey Graham’s proposal to ban abortions nationwide at 15 weeks.

The interview came just days after Oz’s Democratic rival in the Pennsylvania Senate race, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, did an hour-long interview with PennLive’s editorial board. Oz and his campaign have been invited to do the same; they have not yet responded.

But Oz, the heart surgoen-turned-daytime television superstar who began making his home in Pennsylvania in late 2020 and jumped into the state’s open seat U.S. Senate race late last year, did sit with NBC, and covered a lot of ground in nearly 20 minutes with reporter Dasha Burns.

Oz, while declaring himself personally pro-life, made clear that he prefers all legislation on the abortion issue to be set at the state level. He said, “you should have local values, percolating through local medicine, expressed through your local government.”

“I don’t want the federal government dictating to Pennsylvanians what women here are going to do,” Oz said, when pressed for his position on the Graham bill. “Let Pennsylvania voters and their legislators, and the doctors, figure that out and come up with solutions.”

Oz, before he was running for office, has often taken a dim view of government restrictions on abortion, though he has described himself as personally pro-life. In this year’s campaign, he has stressed his personal view that life begins at conception, but argued that abortion rights are a state issue.

Oz said this week he would likely oppose red flag laws, at the federal level. These proposals are designed to, through police and local courts, help separate at-risk persons from guns. Oz said he believes there’s too much room for abuse of that process.

Instead, Oz said he would try to work toward the same goals by strengthening the current background check system, by ensuring that the databases that are reviewed at the point of a gun sale include all available data about an individual’s mental health history.

That would help plug loopholes at the point of sale, but it would not address the issues of people in crisis who already have access to firearms.

Oz voiced support for the limited gun reform measure passed by the Congress this year in the wake of the Uvalde, Texas school shootings, especially the increase in funding that it carried for mental health programs and school safety, and expansion of background checks.

As an adjunct to the the crime issue, Oz also gave full-throated support to expanded school choice programs that would permit, for example, students in Philadelphia to get financial support to attend better-performing parochial and private schools there.

He said he’d like to see new federal initiatives and funding on that front, and said it’s an important way to improve the quality of life in crime-traumatized communities.

Oz said he is supportive of President Joseph Biden’s recent decision to pardon all persons convicted of possession of marijuana in the federal court system.

“Going to jail for marijuana is not a wise move for the country,” Oz said. “It’s a rational move, yeah.”

Biden last week moved to pardon thousands of people convicted of marijuana possession under federal law and said his administration would also review whether marijuana should still be in the same legal category as drugs like heroin and LSD.

The blanket pardon clears everyone convicted on federal charges of simple possession since it became a crime in the 1970s. It will not affect the vast majority of simple possession cases handled by state courts, though the president encouraged American governors to follow suit.

White House officials noted there are no people now serving time in federal prisons solely for marijuana possession. Biden’s move will help remove obstacles for people with past convictions trying to get a job, find housing, apply to college or get federal benefits.

The NBC interview did not address broader issues surrounding legalization of marijuana, which Fetterman supports.

Oz drew a major distinction between himself and Fetterman, on commutations for violent criminals, though that’s more an issue of Fetterman’s state record than what either candidate will have on their desk in the Senate.

Fetterman, a critic of mass incarceration policies that grew out of attempts to combat crime in the 1990s, has voted for more commutations of convicted murderers than any of his recent predecessors in the lieutenant governor’s office in their role as chair of the state Board of Pardons.

Fetterman believes encouraging rehabilitation and showing mercy where it’s warranted needs to be part of the criminal justice system.

He has also called for the elimination of the state-level automatic life sentence for people convicted of second-degree murder, which generally applies to accomplices in robberies or other crimes that resulted in a murder, even for people not directly involved in the killing.

Hitting Fetterman for those stances, Oz said “for me, I prioritize the innocent over the criminal… Too often John Fetterman seems to pay more attention to the feelings of the criminals than the innocent who are hurt.”

Oz distanced himself from some biting remarks that his campaign staff has made about Fetterman’s health, and his much-discussed recovery from a stroke suffered several days before the Pennsylvania primary election in May.

Among them was a sarcastic statement that Fetterman may have never have had the stroke if he had ever eaten a vegetable in his life.

Asked if he, as a doctor, would talk to a patient like that, Oz said, “No.”

But he stopped short of apologizing for the remarks issued by his campaign, instead noting that it’s been a hard-hitting race for both sides. He chalked his team’s actions in part to frustration over their inability to get Fetterman to participate in more debates.

Fetterman, Oz argued, does still have a duty to voters to be more forthcoming with medical information about his health and recovery.

“When people ask me questions — and the often do — about his health, you know what I say? ‘I have no idea,’.” Oz said. “Because I’ve only seen a few fragments of data from a doctor who took care of him five years ago, saw him again once. You know, what really happened when he got sick?”

As it is, both candidates have agreed to a joint appearance on Oct. 25, that will be broadcast across the state.