‘Liar’: Casey, McCormick accuse each other of dishonesty in first Pa. Senate debate

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In a heated and testy debate, Senator Bob Casey and his challenger, Republican Dave McCormick, tangled in a fiery exchange with pointed fingers and sharp accusations. Both candidates accused each other of lying about their own records and distorting the truth about their opponents.

“He’s thrown some whoppers — there are a lot of Pinocchios here,” McCormick said about Casey during one exchange.

Casey accused McCormick of not being a resident.

“We’re supposed to believe this person who lied to the people of our state about where he lives,” Casey said at one point.

The debate covered several topics, including abortion, the Middle East, the border, energy, and inflation.

Israel, Hamas and Antisemitism

The exchange started with a question about the biggest story of the week: would either be “willing to put American troops on the ground in the current conflict” in the Middle East?

Both candidates said they wouldn’t, but each also claimed the title of biggest Israel booster.

“I’ve been a strong supporter of Israel every year I’ve been in the United States Senate over and over again,” Casey said. “That’s why Israeli organizations across the country support me.”

McCormick recounted how he had visited Israel earlier in the year and “saw firsthand the brutality that Hamas brought to the Jewish people,” before accusing Casey and Joe Biden for being weak on antisemitism within the U.S.

In April, Casey introduced the Antisemitism Awareness Act to address antisemitism on campuses. During the debate, McCormick called it “a good bill” but argued that Casey had not been able to get it passed, although Republican Senators Rick Scott of Florida and Tim Scott of South Carolina co-introduced the bill.

Casey retorted that McCormick invested “millions of dollars in a website that platforms hate, Holocaust denial, and antisemitism,” referring to Rumble, which the Anti-Defamation League says gets used to spread “violent and conspiratorial content,” including Holocaust denialism and antisemitic hate speech. McCormick has called Rumble “social media” and argued investors can’t be responsible for what the users say.

McCormick has made courting Jewish voters in Pennsylvania a central strategy of his campaign, focusing on the Israel-Hamas conflict and what he saw as anti-semitism on campus. He visited the protest encampment at the University of Pennsylvania, where he said the student activists should all “be arrested.”

Abortion

Both candidates have been on record taking different positions on abortion. In a debate for the 2022 Republican primary race for the Senate seat currently held by John Fetterman, McCormick said that he said abortions should only be available in “very rare instances, there should be exceptions for the life of the mother.”

When asked about that statement, McCormick explained, “The thing that I said in that debate, I did say, and I’d also said before that and after that, that I was in favor of the three exceptions.” He added that he did not support a national abortion ban and agreed with former president Donald Trump that it should be left to the states.

Casey was asked about his own evolution on the topic. Previously calling himself a “pro-life Democrat,” he says that he supports the tenets of Roe v. Wade. He used McCormick’s response as an opportunity to paint him as a liar, bringing up questions about McCormick’s residency, which has been in question over the debate.

“Probably the biggest lie told in this whole election … was the lie when my opponent said he lived in Pennsylvania when he was living in Connecticut,” he said, referring to an Associated Press article from last year. That report found that McCormick sold his house where he was living in Fairfield, Connecticut, and bought a $2.8 million mansion in Pittsburgh, just a few months before launching his first campaign for the Senate.

According to another report, McCormick changed his voter registration around the same time to reflect his new residence. It has also been found that he has regularly been flying between his Pittsburgh house and a $16 million mansion he currently rents in Connecticut.

McCormick replied that he is “a seventh-generation Pennsylvanian. I grew up in Bloomsburg, was born in Washington County,” he said, adding that his parents were local teachers. “I’ve spent the majority of my life in Pennsylvania.”

The McCormick campaign has said that he continues to spend time in Connecticut because his daughters still live there with their mother.

China, the Border, and Fentanyl

Both candidates have hammered each other on the fentanyl crisis in ads, each blaming the other for some of the fentanyl deaths.

“The fentanyl crisis that’s come across our border is the direct result of the weakness of Bob Casey not standing up to these terrible cartels,” McCormick said. He added, “We learned just recently that 25,000 convicted murderers and rapists have come across the border.”

As a result, McCormick said he supports Trump’s mass deportation plan and argued they should begin with “first and foremost those convicted criminals.”

It’s difficult to find where McCormick arrived at that figure. Donald Trump has made the claim that the Biden-Harris administration has “let in” more than 13,000 “illegal, alien murderers.” That number likely comes from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement list of immigrants convicted of homicide that are not currently accounted for but which includes data from over the course of decades, the majority of which contains crimes committed well before the Biden-Harris administration.

WHYY News reached out to the McCormick campaign for clarification about the number he used in the debate and will update upon a response.

Casey responded that he twice voted for a Senate border bill negotiated between Democrats and Republicans to enhance border security but that McCormick opposes it “because the leader of his party said don’t support it because it might help us politically not to have the problem solved.

“That same bill is supported by the Border Patrol Union,” he said. “That bill also would provide the investment we need in the technology to find and screen for fentanyl.”

Casey also accused McCormick of investing “in the largest producer of fentanyl in China,” referring to $1.7 million in investments the hedge fund he ran, Bridgewater Associates, made in a company called Yichang Humanwell, which is China’s leading producer of fentanyl. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has called China “the primary source” of fentanyl fueling the crisis in the U.S.

McCormick replied that Bridgewater only invested in “companies that were legally approved by the United States government.”

It’s the Inflation

The conversation continued onto the next topic: the economy and inflation. Casey has argued that “greedflation,” the business practice of taking advantage of market demand by excessively increasing prices, caused higher prices for goods.

“These big conglomerates, these big corporations, rig those prices and jack them up to levels we’ve never seen all while they’re getting record profit,” Casey said at the debate. Casey, who introduced the Price Gouging Prevention Act along with Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, denied that it involved “price controls” but that they would use courts to determine if suspect companies were engaging in such price gouging.

McCormick argued that greedflation is a “hammer looking for a nail. The cause of inflation is… the out of control spending of Biden-Harris,” he said. Some studies have found that some prices have increased more than could be accounted for by other factors. However, a Federal Reserve study conducted earlier this year found that such markups were not likely significant. The current annual inflation rate of 2.5% is also considerably lower than the pandemic high of 7%.

The latest polls place Casey ahead of McCormick but vary on how far. The candidates are scheduled for a second debate on Oct. 15 in Philadelphia, hosted by 6abc.