Biden asked Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker to resign from a presidential council or be terminated

• President Joe Biden asked Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker to resign from a presidential council on Wednesday.
• Oz and Walker are running as Republican US Senate candidates in Pennsylvania and Georgia, respectively.

President Joe Biden's administration sent letters to television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz and former NFL player Herschel Walker Wednesday, asking them to resign from the President's Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition or be terminated by the end of the day.

Walker and Oz, who are running for the US Senate as Republican candidates in Georgia and Pennsylvania respectively, were appointed to the council by former President Donald Trump in 2018.

Government employees, such as those serving on presidential boards, "may not be candidates in partisan elections, per the Hatch Act. Gautam Raghavan, an assistant to the president, made the request for their resignation in a letter sent to the pair on Wednesday.

"On behalf of President Biden, I am writing to request your resignation as a Member of the President's Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition," Raghavan wrote. "Please submit your resignation to me by the close of business today. Should we not receive your resignation, your position with the Council will be terminated effective 6:00 p.m. tonight."

Oz condemned the decision in a flurry of tweets later Wednesday.

"Clearly, Joe Biden can't be around anyone who doesn't completely fall in line with his fear-mongering authoritarian one-size-fits-all COVID handling," Oz wrote. "I am proud of my service and will not resign."

—Dr. Mehmet Oz (@DrOz) March 24, 2022

Representatives from Walker's campaign did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, and the White House did not immediately respond to Insider regarding the response from Oz.