California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Dr. Mehmet Oz continued trading verbal blows as the governor implied that President Trump’s Medicaid czar was deliberately singling out Armenian-owned California businesses for accusations of fraud.
“Our office is reviewing reports that Dr. Mehmet Oz targeted the Armenian American community in Southern California recently — making racially charged claims of fraud outside Armenian owned businesses, including a popular bakery,” Newsom’s press office wrote on X Wednesday morning.
The office concluded the fiery accusation with what appeared to be an oblique suggestion that Oz’s Turkish heritage played a role in the facilities he pointed out as taking part in the emerging alleged fraud scheme.
Dr. Mehmet Oz posted a video earlier this month in which he pointed to California hospice facilities he said were fueling billions of dollars in fraud, noting much of their storefront signage were written in Cyrillic or Armenian. London Entertainment for NY Post“Given the historic sensitivities involved, we are taking these allegations seriously. Any and all acts of hate have no place in California.”
Newsom and the former TV doctor have gone back and forth for several days after Oz threatened a major campaign to root out medical fraud in California, which he says is being spearheaded by members of the Russian and Armenian mobs.
Oz posted a video earlier this month in which he toured LA to point out hospice facilities he said were fueling billions of dollars in fraudulent activity, noting many of their storefront signage were written in Cyrillic or Armenian.
He said Monday that the Trump administration is “aggressively” cracking down on Medicaid fraud in the state and the gangsters allegedly behind it.
Gov. Gavin Newsom implied that Oz was deliberately singling out Armenian-owned California businesses. Getty Images
Newsom’s office appeared to suggest that Oz’s Turkish heritage played a role in his fraud accusations. AP“This mafia seems to have taken over the system. They corrupted doctors, they’ve normalized fraud so that everyone sort of expects it, but the magnitude of it is so great that we have to take it out aggressively,” Oz said in the clips.
Speaking in front of a hospice center in Van Nuys, Oz detailed what he alleges is billions of dollars in fraud happening in broad daylight at the expense of LA taxpayers.
“We have learned there’s roughly $3.5 billion of fraud taking place here in Los Angeles in hospice and home care, quite a bit of it by the Russian and Armenian mafia,” he said, calling the city “an epicenter for health care fraud in America.”
Dr. Oz is the son of Turkish immigrants, with Newsom’s office alluding to Turkish-Armenian hostilities as the reason for Oz’s accusations against California’s Armenian communities. ZUMAPRESS.comThe video built upon the claim Oz made earlier this month that hospice care in Los Angeles had increased “sevenfold” in the last five years — a skyrocketing rate he told The Post sparked an investigation.
Oz claimed that the “scale is huge” in California, making the Medicaid fraud in Minnesota pale in comparison.
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A representative for the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to requests for comment by The Post.
A spokesperson from Newsom’s office said its X post “speaks for itself.”
