Trump on Chris Stigall Show: ‘The last person Josh Shapiro wants to run against is Doug Mastriano’

Former President Donald Trump called into Philadelphia radio host Chris Stigall’s show on Tuesday, where he slammed outgoing U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bill McSwain; plugged leading GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano; explained why he passed on endorsing long-time supporter Lou Barletta, and continued to spread baseless claims of election fraud.

Asked by Stigall about the importance of the Keystone State, and its potential role in a 2024 comeback bid, Trump said the commonwealth is “a very powerful place in terms of the election.”

He continued: “We won it [Pennsylvania] in 2016, as you know. I did much better in 2020, where we won it by much more. The election was just absolutely rigged … what they did was a disgrace to our country.”

Toomey, who is retiring at year’s end, is “bad news,” said Trump, who criticized the Lehigh Valley pol for his opposition to the former White House’s protectionist trade policies.

“You’re so lucky to get rid of him. This guy did nothing but fight me on tariffs for China,” Trump said, adding, “He was one of the worst people. He didn’t run because I wouldn’t endorse him. He was one of the worst people.”

Asked about his endorsed  U.S. Senate candidate, television physician Mehmet Oz, Trump said he hopes “Dr Oz is going to do well. I think he’s tough. He’s very smart.”

Oz, a talk show host, “has been on for 18 years. He’s been, as I like to say, in the bedrooms of the people he wants to represent and they’ve liked him .. He’s a real popular guy, and in a certain way, he’s very tough. It’s a crazy election.”

As for McSwain, a former federal prosecutor who declined to investigate Trump’s claims of election fraud, netting him a very public slam by the former president, Trump said: “I don’t want to use the word coward, but perhaps he was a coward.”

Trump said he passed on a gubernatorial endorsement former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, of Hazleton, one of his earliest Pennsylvania supporters in 2016, because of his double-digit loss to U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., in 2018.

“I know Lou, I like Lou. The problem is he ran a very bad race the last time. He was a little missing in action. It wasn’t rigged or stolen, he just didn’t run a good race, and he got beaten pretty badly,” he said.

State Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin, who netted Trump’s endorsement over the weekend, “has a very big base. Mastriano has been very loyal on election integrity.”

“When I hear [Democratic candidate Josh] Shapiro saying he’s dying to run against Mastriano, that’s just misinformation. The last person he [Shapiro] wants to run against is Mastriano,” Trump said.

Listen to the full interview here: