The Dr. Oz campaign has entered full panic mode, and that includes some in Trump’s orbit who are trying to push the liberal television host over the finish line. The gloves came off Wednesday after a recent poll showed Kathy Barnette surging into second place.

Apparently believing they’ve put David McCormick to bed (not a sure thing, in my opinion), Barnette is now in the crosshairs, and some of her old tweets are being used against her. The problem here is that the tweets are being purposely taken out of context to paint her as something she’s not.

Ric Grenell joined the chorus, sharing this old tweet from Barnette.

Good God. Yikes. https://t.co/N8G4cyui7X

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) May 11, 2022

As I explained in a previous write-up, Barnette was not supporting BLM or the movement to defund the police in that tweet. Rather, she used the hashtags as a way to draw attention to a video she made and put on Facebook, in which she lambasted the BLM movement and supported the police. Another video is also circulating which is edited in a way to cut off what she’s saying, but the full video reveals her slamming the rioting that followed George Floyd’s death.

I see some people are dishonestly using the first part of this clip to smear @Kathy4Truth as a BLM supporter. She is NOT a BLM supporter. She has denounced them from the start. In the very clip people are dishonestly cutting up she goes on to call the riots "parasitic behavior". pic.twitter.com/Iu8WlEkou2

— Lavern Spicer🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@lavern_spicer) May 11, 2022

Things got ugly after that, with Grenell seeming to suggest that supporting Dr. Oz was some kind of loyalty test to Donald Trump. Several conservatives, including Julie Kelly, who has been the source in exposing the abuse of January 6th detainees, didn’t take too kindly that suggestion.

Yes. That’s allowed.

— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) May 11, 2022

For the life of me, I don’t understand why Grenell would go this far. I understand he’s in the Trump camp and wants to be seen as supporting the former president’s picks, but as Allie Beth Stuckey notes, Dr. Oz is a really stupid hill to die on. If he loses the primary, so what? And why attack Barnette, who is actually an original Trump supporter from 2016 and was talking about election security while Oz was still parroting Democrat talking points?

What makes this all the more ironic is that while the Oz campaign is falsely smearing Barnette as a BLM supporter, Oz himself actually was a supporter of the movement. He’s even gone so far as to push the “systemic racism” narrative that Democrats have made a centerpiece of their politics. Given that, isn’t it pretty silly to go after Barnette with an out-of-context clip for something Oz is far more guilty of?

Look, I know tensions are high and that Trump wants to keep his winning streak going, but everyone needs to take a breath. That includes the Trump surrogates who need to respect the fact that many voters in the base of the party do not like Oz. In the end, if a few of Trump’s endorsements lose, that’s really not a big deal, and fracturing the movement over it is dumb. Besides, trying to destroy Barnette is just a bad look. If Oz deserves to win, he should go win fair and square.