Senate Candidate Josh Mandel Lashes Out Over Covid Question He Calls ‘Immoral,’ Then Rages at Media: ‘You Guys Are the Enemy’

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel was asked a straightforward question by a local TV reporter about the possibility of children acting as carriers and transmitters of Covid-19.

Mandel is a former Ohio state treasurer who is vying for the 2022 GOP nomination to replace the retiring Rob Portman, a Republican.

The issue of whether to require children to mask up in school as the school year has proven to be something of a lightning rod. As of now, the vaccine against Covid-19 has not received authorization for emergency use for people under the age of 12 like it has for everyone over that age.

“Kids aren’t vaccinated at this point,” Josh Rultenberg of Spectrum News 1 in Ohio said to Mandel during an interview on Thursday. “If they were a carrier for the disease, if they go to school and come home… how do you protect those that they’re going home to if they are the carrier for this?”

Then things got weird.

“Well, the premise of your question if completely immoral and unethical,” said Mandel. “You are asking the question of putting kids as human shields to protect adults. That’s completely immoral. It’s completely unethical. Our kids only get one childhood, and over my dead body I’m I gonna allow journalists like yourself or politicians to advance the argument that kids should be used as human shields for adults. That’s insane.”

After an awkward pause, a stunned Rultenberg said, “Ok. Do you have anything else that you wanna add?”

“Uh, no,” came the reply.

“Ok. I don’t know why you took a personal shot there, but I mean, I literally just asked a question,” said Rultenberg.

“Listen, man,” said the candidate. “You’re a professional, I’m a professional. You shouldn’t take that personally. I just thought the premise of your question was–”

“I remember the last time we spoke,” Rultenberg interrupted, “when I went to Strongsville you called me ‘fake news,’ so I just–I didn’t understand that either. I’m literally just doing my job. I’m a local journalist, you know. Not doing anything crazy here.”

Mandel replied Rultenberg’s framing of questions “is completely biased” and “totally in line with fake news.”

The candidate said he’d be “glad” to keep doing interviews with Rultenberg, but added, he won’t “kiss your butt like some of these other candidates do.”

Mandel further took things up a notch by echoing a certain former president, saying, “I think the mainstream media like yourself, you guys are the enemy. You guys have been pushing this fake news on Covid, fake news on impeachment, fake news on January 6th, and I really believe in my heart of hearts that your guys are the enemy. And you guys have created so many of the problems in this country.”

“Ok,” Rultenberg said. “Thank you for taking the time. I really appreciate it.”

Watch above via Spectrum News 1 Ohio