From the July 23, 2022, edition of Fox News' One Nation with Brian Kilmeade

BRIAN KILMEADE (HOST): Welcome back. Pennsylvania is the quintessential purple state. President Trump won it once and is convinced he won it again in 2020. In this projected red wave year, Dems clearly are nervous the GOP will flip the governor's seat, reining in those loose election laws that maybe characterized the 2020 election when it came to Pennsylvania. So they formulated a plan, did the Democrats. Let's not just support our nominee, Josh Shapiro, let's also support the most extreme Republican candidate who also believes Trump really won the election in 2020. Why not? In theory, that person would probably get swamped in November, right? The candidate of choice, Doug Mastriano. They've pump money into his campaign big time.

...

KILMEADE: In fact, the Dem candidate outspent Doug Mastriano himself on commercials. They sent out mailers on his behalf to put him atop the GOP field. Well, it worked. The state senator, retired Army colonel who happens to have a Ph.D. in history, won. Now, the problem: The race is not a blowout at all. With four months to go, in fact, Shapiro and the Republican are neck and neck. That Republican, Doug Mastriano, joins us right now. Doug, thanks so much for being here. What did the Democrats not know about you?

DOUG MASTRIANO: Well, first off, I'd like to thank them for doing this because Napoleon said never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake. But on the other side here, there's confusion in the camp. What they don't know about me is really there's nothing extreme about me. I'm, you know – imagine this, Brian. Thirty years in the Army, promoted from, you know, from second lieutenant to colonel, constantly being vetted. I had a top-secret clearance for 30 years, constantly being investigated. If there's anything extreme about me, obviously our nation would not allow me to have access to some of its most sensitive secrets here. Basically, I'm one of those guys that just loves my country, served in the Army my entire adult life here, and could not stand aside as I was retiring, as I saw our country going down the tubes. So I stand for the people. I'm the voice of the people. The Democrats have nothing to run on except calling people names and attacking people and demonizing people.

KILMEADE: Right now, you got two polls, one has Shapiro up four, the other one has him up three. You just told me there's another poll out of Pittsburgh that has you in the lead, but people point to the fact, just like Virginia, in many ways, Pennsylvania is purplish, right? So Youngkin is very conservative, but he says, hey, listen, my constituency isn't, so when it comes to abortion, I'm going to go out and we've got 15 weeks. You say still, abortion for you is a zero-sum game. Abortion should not be allowed in Pennsylvania and it should be a Second Amendment sanctuary. Do you still hold to both those things?

MASTRIANO: Well, here's the reality. And, you know, having read the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade, I love what they said in the third paragraph on the first page. The issue of abortion is not up to Gov. Mastriano. What it says in the decision, the issue of Roe v. Wade is now handed back to the people and the people's representatives. So the people of Pennsylvania get to decide what abortion and life looks like in Pennsylvania. They're the ones are going to have the say. If that's a heartbeat bill, if that's a fetal pain bill, that's what comes to my desk.

KILMEADE: I want you to hear what Gov. Christie just told me on the radio about you. Evidently, you attended a conference, not many people knew about you in the Republican Party. They were pretty impressed on what they heard. Let's listen.

(CLIP BEGINS)

CHRIS CHRISTIE (ABC CONTRIBUTOR): Doug Mastriano made what I hear was a great appearance at the Republican Governors Association meeting this week in Aspen. He gained a lot of supporters out there. And, you know, Pennsylvania is going to be a place where we're going to fight hard for the governorship and we're going to fight hard to – for Dr. Oz to win the Senate seat.

(CLIP ENDS)

KILMEADE: Doug, evidently our people didn't know much about you. They heard some extreme things, but they were impressed with what they had. Do you think you'll get their support?

MASTRIANO: You know, obviously, they're going to have to make that decision. And I believe – I believe in the end, Brian, that the Republican Governors Association will back us because it's a neck and neck race. You know what? What I laid out to the good folks at the RGA over there in Aspen was that we had a tough primary. There was nine people on the ballot. I was outspent 16-to-1. But I've been fighting for the people against the shutdown and, you know, trying to find voter voting integrity and connected with the folks out there. And that's why it's close.

My opponent should be double digits ahead. The last Republican that ran against our Gov. Wolf, he was never within single digits. I come out of a hot, heated primary just a couple of points behind my opponent. This tells me we're going to win because we're on the right side of the issues. You know, Democrats want to talk about, you know, calling people name, he's far this, he's extreme, which is quantifiably false, by the way. And I'm going to talk about the issues. We're going to talk about inflation and we're going to talk about Pennsylvania's energy potential. We are going to talk about gas prices and the remedies that we have in Pennsylvania to address that to make life bearable and livable.

KILMEADE: All right, Doug Mastriano, we'll see if you can add governor to your resume. It's already pretty long. Thanks so much for joining us. I appreciate it.

MASTRIANO: Thank you. God bless you, Brian.