Owner of site that Mehmet Oz picked for election night party organized buses to Jan. 6 rally

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz has scheduled his election night party at an upscale Bucks County fitness club whose owner organized three buses to the Jan. 6, 2021, rally through a political action committee.

Oz’s party is set for the Newtown Athletic Club, which offers on its website “elite amenities, services and programs” and also hosted Oz’s primary election night party.

Its owner and operator, Jim Worthington, an Oz donor and the campaign’s southeast Pennsylvania finance and events director, sent three buses with 200 people from Bucks County to the Jan. 6 rally through his People4Trump political action committee, according to a WHYY radio report cited by the John Fetterman campaign.

The rally protesting former President Donald Trump’s loss, based on lies and conspiracy theories about the election, preceded the march and deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“If Dr. Oz wants to show he’s serious about standing up against Republican extremism, he should start by canceling his own election night party and finding a new location that isn’t hosted by a top January 6th insurrectionist, who funded hundreds of people traveling to D.C. to attack the Capitol,” said Joe Calvello, spokesperson for the Fetterman campaign.

Oz’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Worthington and Oz served on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition together after being appointed by Trump.

Worthington’s ties to Jan. 6 have come to light after Oz, who has portrayed himself in recent weeks as someone against extremism, has been connected to others associated with the rally and insurrection.

First, it was reported that two staffers on the Oz campaign were at the rally and one marched to the Capitol.

Then, PennLive reported that four attorneys who fought to overturn election results in Pennsylvania in 2020 had donated to Oz’s campaign.

Oz has also appeared at two rallies on Saturday, one in Wilkes-Barre and one in Latrobe, with Trump and governor candidate Doug Mastriano, both of whom continue to lie about the 2020 election results.

Last week, Worthington introduced Oz at a rally and said, “We didn’t win in 2020, supposedly.”

“Oz’s continued embrace of the GOP’s most radical and dangerous election deniers prove he is too extreme and totally unfit to represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate,” Calvello said.

On Nov. 5, 2020, Worthington posted on Facebook about the election result.

“There is no doubt in my mind that the results reported in this election are inaccurate and corrupted and need to be challenged at every level legally or otherwise,” he wrote.

A year after the attack on the Capitol, though, Worthington sought to distance himself from the violence, telling WHYY that he didn’t travel on any of the buses but did attend Trump’s speech on Jan. 6.

Worthington told the radio station that he left Washington before “knuckleheads” attacked the Capitol. And, Worthington said a woman who worked for him rented the buses and he only went to the rally because his son asked him to.

“I don’t even know the names of the people that went” on the buses, Worthington told WHYY.