Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, shouts during a press briefing at the White House on June 2, 2026.Aaron Schwartz/CNP/AP
Apparently “because of woke,” disparaging a whole community of people based on their nationality and using that sentiment to justify extensive fraud investigations that lead to cutting social services and occupying cities with federal agents is racist.
“You’re not allowed to complain about Somalians because that’s racist,” President Donald Trump’s administrator for Medicare and Medicaid, Dr. Mehmet Oz, complained on Tuesday on Fox News. “And the worst thing you can be in Minnesota is a racist.”
He added that the state’s supposed response “was ironic because the people you’re hurting are often Somalians and other folks that look different than you.”
In other words, a guy who is implementing racist policies is decrying racism.
Just before, Oz claimed that investigators told him they were “ostracized” and “walked out of the building” when they tried to speak to Minnesota officials about alleged fraud in social programs.
Two things here: One, the Trump administration is hurting Somalians and “other folks that look different than you” the most, as several of my colleagues and I have reported amid the federal raids in Minnesota. Second, there seems to be an acknowledgement that the people who have the authority to hold others accountable all look the same.
And that idea is a significant part of why we are where we are.
