President Joe Biden has asked two celebrity members of the President's Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition to resign their posts because they've chosen to run for Senate.
TV host Dr. Mehmet Oz and former NFL star Herschel Walker were appointed to two-year terms on the council by former President Donald Trump in December 2020, shortly before Trump left office. However, CNN and NBC News report that the White House has asked both to resign from the panel.
The administration asked for Oz's and Walker's resignation via a letter sent to both men. The letter reportedly states that it's against administration policy for federal political candidates to serve on presidential boards.
Oz is running for Senate as a Republican in Pennsylvania. Walker is seeking the GOP's Senate nomination in Georgia.
Oz pushed back against Biden's request in a video posted to Twitter on Wednesday evening.
"I am beyond grateful to President Trump for appointing me to this very prestigious and important position. I am also grateful to my colleagues on the committee and council, and the amazing accomplishments we were able to achieve. I've got no intentions, my friends, of resigning. None," he said.
I received this letter on behalf of @POTUS requesting I resign from the President's Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition. It’s sad that he would politicize such an important issue like health. The doctor he should ask to resign is Dr. Fauci, for a multitude of obvious reasons. pic.twitter.com/fJaVLKVWOC
— Dr. Mehmet Oz (@DrOz) March 24, 2022
Oz also used the video to levy an attack against Dr. Anthony Fauci, a White House medical adviser and the director of the National Insitute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases.
Walker also said he does not plan to resign.
"President Biden is so scared about us beating Raphael Warnock that he has asked me to resign from my unpaid position on the President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition," he tweeted Thursday. "I'm not a quitter so you are going to have to fire me."
President Biden is so scared about us beating Raphael Warnock that he has asked me to resign from my unpaid position on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition.
— Herschel Walker (@HerschelWalker) March 24, 2022
I’m not a quitter so you are going to have to fire me.
