What to Know About Newsom’s Civil Rights Complaint Against Trump Administration’s Dr. Oz

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a civil rights complaint against Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), after he accused Armenian crime groups of being responsible for health care fraud in Los Angeles.

“My office is filing a civil rights complaint seeking an investigation into Dr. Oz’s baseless and racist allegations against Armenian Americans in California,” Newsom said.

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In a letter addressed to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Newsom’s office alleged that Oz “spewed baseless and racially charged allegations targeting the Armenian community in Los Angeles” in a video he posted on Jan. 27. The complaint stated that “false public statements by anyone involved in administering these critical federal health care programs seriously risks chilling participation in those programs by individuals targeted by the statements.”

In the video, Oz can be seen touring the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles, an area with a significant Armenian population. The Trump Administration official claimed that the high frequency of hospices in the area was potential evidence of “fraudulent activity” which is being investigated.

“There’s roughly $3.5 billion of fraud taking place here in Los Angeles in hospice and home care. It’s run, quite a bit of it, by the Russian Armenian mafia,” claimed Oz, standing outside a building he identified as a hospice. “You notice the lettering and the language behind me is of that dialect. It highlights the fact that this is an organized crime mafia deal.”

Oz’s allegations came as part of his wider claim that California “has become one of the epicenters for fraud, waste, and abuse in America.” Oz previously alleged a seven-fold increase in hospice in L.A. County, claiming that “these fraudsters do tend to be foreign influences… these are Russian Armenian gangs, mafia.”

One of the businesses shown in Oz’s video was an Armenian bakery. Movses Bislamyan, who operates the shop, said he is “really disappointed” by Oz’s remarks and reported a 30% drop in customer traffic after the release of the video.

“Recording my signs, my location, and talking about some kind of fraud going on here. We have nothing to do with it. It has nothing to do whatsoever with the store,” he told ABC7 News.

Newsom condemned Oz’s video during an interview earlier this week and accused him of “attacking a small business for pure politics.”

He also discussed his own efforts to tackle fraud in the state.

“Hospice [fraud], we’ve been after that for years before Oz was even on the scene,” said Newsom, referencing a state law in 2021 that banned all new hospice licences “due to concerns about fraud and abuse in this sector.”

On the same day he posted his video, Oz authored a letter to Newsom, asking for “detailed information regarding program integrity, eligibility verification, and provider oversight within California’s Medi-Cal program.”

Claiming that In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) expenditures in California have grown by 348% between 2015 and 2026, Oz said this has “raised concerns about California’s oversight of these funds.”

The letter to Newsom laid out dozens of questions regarding program oversight in California, requesting a response from the Governor’s office within 21 days. 

Aside from filing a civil rights complaint, Newsom has also targeted Oz’s past in a series of social media posts, pointing to criticisms of his medical advice and controversies linked to Dr. Oz’s former TV show, which aired from 2009 to 2022.

A 2014 study stated that only 46% of the recommendations on The Dr. Oz Show were backed by medical evidence. Citing an article that referenced the study, Newsom said via social media: “This is the man Trump put in charge of Medicare and Medicaid.”

Oz was also warned by lawmakers in 2014 that he should proceed with caution when offering weight-loss tips on his show.

“Your credibility is being maligned by fraudsters and frankly being threatened by the notion that anybody can take an itty-bitty pill to push fat out of their system,” Oz was told by former Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri during a hearing.

TIME has contacted Newsom and Dr. Oz’s respective offices for comment.

Newsom’s history with the Trump Administration

Newsom has repeatedly clashed with the Trump Administration over the past year.

During California’s wildfires last January, Trump launched into fresh criticism of Newsom, accusing him of preventing the release of water reserves to address the fires. He also resorted to using the “Newscum” nickname he had previously assigned him.

Newsom’s press office responded, saying “the Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need.”

Tensions flared once more in June when Trump, without the approval or request of state leaders, deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles to help quell protests held in response to raids carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Newsom said the move was “purposefully inflammatory” and would only serve to “escalate tensions.”

Newsom went on to file legal challenges against theTrump Administration in relation to the deployment. He notably sought an injunction to stop the deployment of the National Guard from stretching into the state elections in early November. (After much back-and-forth, a federal judge ordered the Trump Administration to immediately end its deployment of California National Guard troops in Los Angeles in December.)

Newsom also celebrated a legal victory over the Trump Administration in October when a federal judge blocked the President from sending any National Guard troops, including ones from California, to police Portland, Oregon.

Following the state elections, in which Californians approved redistricting measures, the Trump Administration filed its own lawsuit against the state, arguing that “the legislature created a new map in which Latino demographics and racial considerations predominated.”

Meanwhile, Trump and Newsom have continued to clash outside of legal proceedings, with the two of them often targeting one another online.

Newsom has adopted Trump’s social media style since the President returned to the White House, often posting messages in capital letters and echoing Trump’s vernacular. He even launched his own alternative to MAGA merchandise last year, selling hats that read “Real Patriot” and “Newsom was right about everything!”

In December, Newsom’s office responded to the White House sharing a memorandum about Trump’s MRI results by posting his own mock medical report.

When asked about his different approach to social media, which somewhat holds a mirror to the MAGA playbook, Newsom previously told reporters: “I hope it’s a wake-up call to the President of the United States following his example. If you have issues with what I’m putting out, you sure as hell should have concerns about what he’s putting out as President. To the extent it’s gotten attention, I’m pleased.”