Dr. Oz: Medicare fraud & how the stolen billions benefit the Democratic Party

Summary

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Pod Force One – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Dr. Oz: Medicare fraud & how the stolen billions benefit the Democratic Party
Host: Miranda Devine (New York Post)
Guest: Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator for Medicare & Medicaid
Date: April 22, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this revelatory episode, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator for Medicare and Medicaid, sits down with Miranda Devine to expose the scale and mechanisms of Medicare and Medicaid fraud, its origins, how criminal and state actors—foreign and domestic—take advantage, and the indirect political repercussions—especially the role of Democratic-leaning states in perpetuating fraud. Dr. Oz details his agency’s battle with widespread organized theft, the complex web of interests that benefit, and offers solutions, including a major push for interagency cooperation and reform. He also touches on public health, personal medical responsibility, and his experiences working with President Trump.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Nature and Scale of Medicare/Medicaid Fraud

• Historic Responsibility: Dr. Oz describes working at the center of American healthcare delivery, overseeing a massive chunk of federal spending, guided by the moral imperative to protect society’s most vulnerable: children, the elderly, and those “living hauntingly in the shadows.” (00:28)
• Systemic Exploitation: Fraud has increased due to “shysters” and sophisticated organized criminals, many of whom are foreign nationals or working for foreign governments (e.g., Cuban, Russian, Chinese groups). The Covid pandemic, with its expedited emergency funding, worsened exploitation and taught people "they could steal from the federal government and they wouldn't get caught." (02:12)

2. Personal Care Services: Fraud Hotspot & Political Patronage

• Personal Care as Jobs Program: In states like New York and California, personal care is the number one government-paid job, with little oversight. Many providers are family or close associates of the patient, making fraud easier and harder to detect. (05:04)
• Unionization and Political Cycles: These workers are targeted for unionization, with union dues recycled into Democratic Party campaigns—a feedback loop of patronage fueled by federal dollars. Dr. Oz calls this "political patronage" and not accidental: "This is not a flaw system. This is a feature of the system for Democrats." (25:42)
• Notable Quote:

  “We are using federal tax dollars to support the unionization of a class of people that we’re not even sure should be hired. … It’s political patronage.” (07:38)

3. Specific Scams & State Case Studies

• Minnesota Autism Fraud: Dr. Oz recounts discovering a textile building (Griggs Building) in Minnesota packed with sham operations, “paying moms of kids who were healthy to lie and say their kids had autism so they could actually get services that were unnecessary," ballooning intended $3 million spending to $400 million. (12:26-15:27)
• Hospice Fraud in California/LA: Over one-third of American hospices are in LA county. Many are shells, used for billing fraud. Dr. Oz’s team has shut down over 400 fraudulent hospices in 10 weeks—"hundreds of millions of dollars" siphoned, with no complaints from supposed service providers, underscoring the scam's depth. (17:03)
• Foreign & Ethnic Crime Rings: Scams are run by Cuban, Chinese, Russian, and Somali groups, with laundered funds heading overseas. (09:57, 10:28)
• Notable Quote:

  "If we could just get that money out of the fraudsters and put it into the system, we would double the life expectancy of the Medicare trust fund." (08:38)

4. Administrative & Law Enforcement Response

• “Honey Badger” Strategy: Dr. Oz wants his agency to be relentless, collaborative, and immune to intimidation, invoking the honey badger as a symbol of tenacity—"When it bites something, it doesn't let go. ... There are some problems that are too important for us to fail, where failure is not an option. I think about fraud that way." (45:14)
• Changes Initiated:
  • Moratorium on new Durable Medical Equipment suppliers (e.g., wheelchairs, canes, often part of scam billing chains) (08:38)
  • Payment deferrals to states with suspicious claims (Minnesota example) (11:45)
  • Regular audits, DOJ partnerships, SWAT raids, and payment freezes for suspect services/providers (17:03, 19:17)
  • Closer collaboration with Treasury to trace laundered funds (19:17)

5. Political Incentives and Systemic Issues

• Voter Registration and Medicaid: Tying Medicaid sign-up to automatic voter registration expands the Democratic base ("a very effective tool to get more voters"). (05:04)
• Deliberate Nonchalance: Oz argues Democratic officials have tolerated fraud as a side effect of broader political and patronage goals—"It’s a good thing that you can actually throw money at some of these problems, because some of the benefits are going to be your voters." (25:42)
• Immigrant Fraud & Benefits: States like California have diverted billions to provide Medicaid coverage (including dental and vision) to illegal immigrants—sometimes with richer benefits than Medicare seniors. (27:15)
• Notable Quote:

  "We’re actually giving the illegal immigrants a better deal than our Medicare recipients." (27:15)

6. How Fraud Undermines Social Programs

• Real Victims: Fraud exhausts resources for the genuinely needy, eroding public trust and the efficacy of safety nets—"You dilute the care that the kids who truly have autism need." (12:26)
• Bipartisan Outrage: Both Republicans and Democrats are becoming increasingly indignant, though for different reasons, as the scope of waste comes to light. (19:17-20:54)

7. Media & Whistleblowing

• Media Complicity and Awakening: The mainstream media ignored these issues for years. Whistleblowers (e.g., YouTuber Nick Shirley in MN) were essential for drawing attention and forcing action. "The media has certainly not had this on their radar, but the good news is it’s definitely there now." (22:53)

8. Public Health, Prevention, and Personal Responsibility

• Doctor’s Duty & Personal Practice: Dr. Oz discusses lessons from heart surgery, the importance of preventive health, and the role of diet, sleep, and exercise, advocating for simple dietary changes and digital health tools. (36:10)
• Notable Quotes:

  “If you take care of [your body], it’s gonna last you a long, long time. … The most valuable thing you’ll ever get from your parents is your body.” (37:25) "Dessert is metabolic suicide." (44:15)

• Food Systems Reform: Push to revamp school and hospital feeding programs to align with new, evidence-based food pyramids, correcting decades of disinformation. (41:08)
• Annual Wellness Exams: Dr. Oz urges listeners to take advantage of free annual Medicare wellness exams and new digital health initiatives. (56:30)

9. Partisanship, Leadership, and Personal Reflections

• Dr. Oz’s Political Journey: Clarifies he has always been Republican, motivated by “new ideas” and entrepreneurial energy. Attributes values of honesty and respect to his immigrant surgeon father. (30:54)
• Working for President Trump: Describes Trump as “incredibly giving” and “mission-oriented,” praises his focus, responsiveness, and selection of committed staff. (47:12)
• On RFK Jr. and Vaccines: Discusses the vaccine debate, supports careful scheduling and parental choice while affirming the value and safety of core vaccines (“let’s use a schedule that seems to work like the Danish schedule”). (52:32)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Fraud Scale:

  “We think it’s about $100 billion a year.” (08:38, Dr. Oz)

• On Political Patronage:

  “If you’re going to win an election… you do not want to tolerate fraud. It completely undermines the social safety net of this nation.” (26:50, Dr. Oz)

• On Personal Care Fraud:

  “It’s diabolically clever, isn’t it?” (08:07, Miranda Devine)

• On System Reform (“Honey Badger”):

  “When it bites something, it doesn't let go. ... There are some problems that are too important for us to fail.” (45:14, Dr. Oz)

• On Food and Health:

  “Dessert is metabolic suicide.” (44:15, Dr. Oz)

• On Vaccine Policy:

  “Let’s use a schedule that seems to work like the Danish schedule. They have almost half the number of shots that we give our children.” (52:32, Dr. Oz)

• On Trump’s Health:

  “I think President Trump is healthy as a bull.” (49:36, Dr. Oz)

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Important Timestamps & Segments

• 00:28 – Dr. Oz on the morality and responsibility of his agency
• 02:12 – COVID as the explosion point for fraud and international actors
• 05:04 – Voter registration as part of Medicaid and political strategy
• 08:38 – $100 billion estimated annual fraud; durable medical equipment scam
• 12:26 – Minnesota autism fraud exposé
• 14:35 – Cultural roots of certain frauds (e.g., Somali corruption traditions)
• 17:03 – LA hospice fraud; shutting down 400+ hospices
• 19:17 – Money laundering, foreign criminal partnerships
• 22:38 – The role of whistleblowers and media coverage
• 25:42 – Political incentives for tolerating fraud
• 27:15 – Medicaid funding for illegal immigrants
• 41:08 – Reforms to American food systems
• 44:15 – Dr. Oz’s dietary practices
• 45:14 – “Honey badger” philosophy
• 47:12 – Working with Donald Trump; leadership style
• 52:32 – Vaccine policy debate and Danish model
• 56:30 – Annual wellness checks and digital health

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Tone and Language

The conversation is fast-paced, accessible, and tinged with frustration and urgency—Dr. Oz fuses moral gravitas with a combativeness fueled by outrage, highlighting both the tragic and the absurd elements of the system. Miranda Devine’s tone oscillates between incredulity at the cleverness of the scams and clear advocacy for reform. Both attack the issues with clarity; Dr. Oz is unsparing about political and bureaucratic failures but equally unapologetic about his mission to fix them.

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Conclusion

This episode is a clarion call outlining not only the scale and complexity of Medicare/Medicaid fraud, but how it is enabled and sometimes politically incentivized within the system. Dr. Oz elucidates both the cost to the nation and a roadmap for reform—rooted in vigilance, transparency, and a “honey badger” refusal to let go.

Practical Takeaway:
For listeners: Be vigilant about fraud. If eligible, get your free Medicare annual wellness exam and use digital health tools. For policymakers: Political patronage in key programs undermines democracy; reform is crucial.

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Transcript

[Miranda Devine]

Doctor Oz, welcome to Pod Force One.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Glad to be with you. I've been listening to you, watching you. Now I get to participate in person.

[Miranda Devine]

Fantastic. And we're here in this wonderful office in the Hubert Humphrey building just very close to the Capitol. Tell us about being here. What's it like to be in this kind of historic place where you are now in charge of I think a quarter of the federal budget with Medicare and Medicaid.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Well, I'll start off by saying it's the best job I have ever had, really. And I've had wonderful jobs. I love being a heart surgeon. I hung up my surgical cleats several years ago when I ran for public office. But I practiced my whole life. Hosting television show was wonderful and great friendships. I. I felt in both cases like I was in the change business. And in this building I feel more than ever that's exactly what I'm able to achieve, which is to get folks to work together to make big changes that are necessary. I don't know if you noticed as you walked into building you gave the name Hubert Humphrey, but there's a quote from him. Yes, engraved in marble. And he speaks, I'll paraphrase that it is the moral obligation of government to take care of those at the dawn of life which are children. And we cover most children in the country through Medicaid. And chip those in the twilight of life which are the seniors, that's Medicare. And those living hauntingly in the shadows, folks who are struggling, people with substance use issues, people who are depressed, people just have fallen, they have trouble getting up again. And the ability of any great people to take care of their most vulnerable, which is what defines a great nation. And we are great people. We're going to do that is incumbent upon us here at Medicare and Medicaid, which is why if we don't get it right or if people take advantage of the system, which is always possible, then you're taking away something that all of us as a nation have agreed to give folks who are vulnerable. And we've got to fix that problem.

[Miranda Devine]

I mean that's exactly what's happened is that shysters have taken advantage crooks and frauds and you've now confronting that multi billion dollar fraud schemes seems like organized theft. What are you actually doing about it and why has it got so bad?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Well, you ask an important question. How do we get here? A lot of it started in Covid because we gave away a lot of money in an urgent situation and we taught people they could steal from the federal government and they wouldn't get caught. When I say people, I'm talking about oftentimes foreigners and foreign governments. It's not just Americans perpetrating this fraud. And so during that era of especially when you couldn't go out of your house and there was a lot of opportunities to make money, people began to learn more about where the opportunities are to take advantage of the US healthcare system. Because unlike other parts of the US government, we are a massive payer. As you point out, we give out about $1.8 trillion a year, but we have to have beneficiary numbers to do that, which means everyone has a little code that a fraudster could get their hands on and pierce the system. So think of us as a massive hippo and we're wandering around the savannah and all you need to do is get a spear and put into our side and you can bring us down. And if you put enough spears into us, you can start to pull out significant amounts of money. And. And as you began to see folks weaponize this process and as they get greedier, which they will always do, you begin to realize that if they're able to steal from you, the beneficiary, they'll also hurt you. They don't care about you. And much of what's happening now is not just a financial aberration, it's morally reprehensible. They're taking away livelihoods, they're stealing people's health, and they're completely void of any moral hygiene in this process. They were perfectly willing to leave autistic children without care to take people who are at the end of their life, supposed to be in hospice and let them wilt away without care, stealing of course, their insurance along the way and the money that would have gone to them. And so I've asked our agency to become like honey badgers. And I use this same storyline when I was making the show. If you really want to thrive, if you want to be the best at the business, you've got to be tough and resistant to criticism because people who have money will come after you. Not all the people involved in this fraud are small time hucksters. Some of them are very wealthy, sophisticated people who know how to play the game. And I'm seeing evidence of this in New York, I see evidence of it in California, other states as well. And we should walk through this because the real question that you should be asking yourself is why would anybody, anybody, Democrat, Republican, why would anybody allow this

[Miranda Devine]

to happen and why is that? Because these Democrat states, you Talk about New York, California. We also had Minnesota with Tim Waltz where you visited. These are Democrat states. Is there an electoral reason why they've turned a blind eye to this fraud?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Well, it's federal law that if I sign you up for Medicaid, which again, is the insurance coverage for folks who are not making enough money to buy their own insurance, I also have to give you the ability to sign up to vote. So it is a very effective tool to get more voters. But there's also an element of unionizing some of these workers. And that has become more a concern for me as I've gotten more into some of the problems with personal care services. So let me take a step back and explain what's actually happening within the healthcare system that allows this fraud to happen. Because it's not fraud of hernia operations or brain treatments. This is fraud generally of services that your family would have provided for you in the past. But because we have decided to take on some of these societal challenges to provide the services your family would normally offer, we'll drive you to the doctor's office, we'll take you home from an operation, take care of you. Well, we'll hire a member of your family or someone living with you to carry the groceries upstairs. So it's a jobs program. And in some states, New York's a good example. The number one job in New York is not retail, which you would think it would be. It's personal care services paid for by the government. Paid for by the government, directed by the patient. So I'll say it very simply. You get up in the morning, you feel slightly confused. Maybe you're not in your best that day. You don't want to get the groceries upstairs. In order to theoretically keep you from going to a nursing home or to a hospital, the state says we're going to, on behalf of the federal government, pay for someone often who lives with you or near you to come take care of you. Well, in theory, that sounds great, but it's not licensed. There's no professional involved. The patient and the person they're hiring might be closely linked, so they might be in cahoots. So there's not a lot of quality control. And next thing you know, 500,000 people in New York state are providing personal care services. Even more people are providing personal care services in California. Now, think about this. These folks in California in particular, there's no financial intermediary. It's the county government literally saying, you know what, you look like you might need some help, fine. Whatever you ask for you're going to get. Now the people that they hire to do this work, they're approached by the unions as they join the union. They pay dues. Those dues are rotated back into partisan politics, often of course, supporting the Democratic party. And then I start asking myself, well, you know, how is this possible in New York State? Literally, I have contracts between unions at 1199 and the potential fiscal intermediaries, the guys who are supposed to run these personal care services saying, hey listen, we have the right and we want to make a contract with you to get the names of all the people who sign up to help in the personal care services. And if I get their names and they did that, by the way, they're sending notes now to these folks trying to unionize them. So we're using federal tax dollars to support the unionization of a class of people that we're not even sure should be hired. Certainly in that magnitude, it's political patronage.

[Miranda Devine]

It's so diabolically clever, isn't it? And I mean, it seems that that system though is inherently going to be fraudulent. How can you guard against that kind of fraud when you're driving people to their doctor's appointments and it could be their know, their husband or their brother or their friend who's getting paid and then they get some, a bit of a back, you know, money as well. How do you guard against that? Should, should we just scale back and say, look, we'll give you a voucher for an Uber?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Well, this is a unfortunate situation because the honor system was what was the way we generally manage these programs. And the president, understandably, he's been very upset by the magnitude of fraud, but a number on it. We think it's about $100 billion a year. $100 billion. Just to put it in context, if, if you're worried about having Medicare there for you when you retire, this beautiful safety net program that's been crafted and works 60 years, we would double the life expectancy of the Medicare trust fund if we could just get that money out of the fraudsters and put it into the system. So it's massively important the well being of the health care system. So the President, as you know, State of the Union address, appointed the Vice President to run a task force. The day after that we announced that we were going to start deferring money from Minnesota. Separately, we were going to ask that there be no more durable medical equipment suppliers granted the right to sell in America until, for a six month period. So that moratorium is now intact. We can start to deal with this problem, which I'll explain in a second, but just to put a number on it, there are twice as many people selling wheelchairs and canes. That's what durable medical equipment suppliers do. Twice as many people doing that in south Florida than McDonald's.

[Miranda Devine]

Right. I mean, so is that, that's obviously a scam as well.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Is it also a scam? And that's in Florida.

[Miranda Devine]

Do people not even get the wheelchairs?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

No, they don't ship anything. These are all bust out operations, which means they don't actually ship anything. They steal your beneficiary number, they pretend you're ordering something. And this is much we believe, run by the Cuban government, or at least Cuban nationals or foreign nationals living in South Florida. And so this becomes a fairly diabolical process where there's now siphoning off billions of dollars outside of our country. We see, by the way, the same things with the Chinese in, in California, in New York, we have the Russian mafia in Los Angeles, These are not innocent players.

[Miranda Devine]

Somalis in Minnesota, Somalis in Minnesota, Armenians in. So which of all the ethnic groups, which is the worst? The biggest scammers?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

It's hard to tell who's the biggest. The fact that they're out there scamming us.

[Miranda Devine]

Yes.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

And they don't share our values is, is bad enough for me. I'm not even keeping score. What I am pledging to do is to be a honey badger and make sure that we don't allow this to continue. And so the Vice President's task force is out there every day hammering away, making sure we have an all of government approach. Because the other side of this discussion is how do you get your arms around this? How do you actually police the transportation that you just mentioned? But you do it by getting everyone in the same place and say, stop being in your silo, break down the barriers, work together. I'll give you concrete examples. We have the ability to work. I'm at cms, Medicare, Medicaid, we have investigators called the Office of Inspector General. We need to work more closely together. If they refer us a case, we must act, we must stop payment. And if we refer them a case, they should share that information with the Department of Justice. We are getting that to work much more.

[Miranda Devine]

But isn't that just like whack a mole? Wouldn't it be better to. Rather than stopping it after the fraud?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Preventing the fraud, of course, which is the main focus of the war room. We have a fraud war room and its major goal is this is to make sure that no money leaves this building that you're sitting in right now.

[Miranda Devine]

And you did that with Minnesota, with Tim Waltz, didn't you?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

With Minnesota, we said, we just look back and we saw. We audited the last three months, and we can't understand some of these bills. And unless you explain them to us, we're not going to pay you federal tax dollars. And as you probably know, we were taken to court by the state of Minnesota, and so far, we prevailed. So we're going to keep watching what's coming in from them. If they can prove that they spent this money wisely, appropriately, if there are people who actually are able to provide services, who provided services, great. And if not, we're going to continue to insist that we get some backup. That's our job.

[Miranda Devine]

But you went to Minnesota, didn't you? And you inspected. I think you said there was a building there called the Griggs Building. Tell us about that.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Well, the Griggs building is this massive building that was used for textiles. There's. There's tons of small little offices in there. And apparently there were many, many, many of these fraudsters running different operations, autism being a big one, but other processes, you know, these manufactured businesses of that nature. So the first question I had was, who owns the building? Like, the person owning the building must have some clue there's a problem going on here. Then I tried to walk towards the building. I was immediately surrounded by Minnesotans. I guess they were just local protesters trying to block us from even looking at the building, really, which I would think you'd want me to do. I'm not going there to arrest anybody. I'm trying to find out what's actually going on inside the building. And as we began to look into this whole problem in Minnesota, in particular with autism, and I'll focus on it because it's so reprehensible. They were paying moms of kids who were healthy to lie and see their kids had autism so they could actually get services that were unnecessary. So, again, you're bribing the mother, paying her money that, by the way, saddles the child even though they're healthy, with the diagnosis of autism, which they're going to have to lift that load for a long time. Then you have people who are recent high school graduates being put into the place of babysitting these healthy children, again under the guise that they're autistic. But here's the unfortunate problem. If you have an autistic child and needs services, which is a real issue and you need help, and that's great. And we will, as a society, pay into a tool to make sure that happens for you to a fund. But if every mom in the block says their child is autistic, you can't take care of all those kids. And more importantly, you dilute the care that the kids who truly have autism need. And so we witnessed in Minnesota, and we're seeing it elsewhere as well, a complete corruption of the system. We call it fraud or waste of abuse, but it's fundamentally a corruption of. Of the very foundation of the social safety net.

[Miranda Devine]

And how did that happen, particularly in Minnesota? Is it because it's sort of Minnesota nice? It's a high trust society. And then you had a whole bunch of Somali immigrants who came in who aren't used to having government take care of them, and they think it's just open season to steal the money.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Minnesota nice was part of it. There was also the reality that I'm told that in Somalia, corruption is normal.

[Miranda Devine]

Yeah.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

And so stealing from the government's not wrong. It's not unethical. We all do. It's your duty almost. If you could, if you didn't steal as much as the next guy, that you're a fool.

[Miranda Devine]

Right.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

And I actually think they didn't steal as effectively as they could have stolen, which is why they get caught first.

[Miranda Devine]

Right.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

But they actually, and we. I went, spoke to whistleblowers in Minnesota. They were chased out of the building basically when they were trying to work within Health and Human Services, their equivalent to take in the Health Department to make sure that the right things were being done. And they put their hands up and say, hey, things are not looking good here. These bills don't add up. There's too many services going here. I mean, after all, they were anticipating spending $3 million on autism. They ended up spending $400 million. That's not a rounding error. That's a massive difference. You're spending 130 times more than you said you'd spend. There's a problem.

[Miranda Devine]

But why did Tim Waltz's government not identify that?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

I do believe this is politics. I can't guess what he was thinking, but he did not want to have a problem with the Somali population. They were very loyal to him. They supported him, voted with him, and he just didn't want to have a problem. And he needed those votes to make sure that the state was as. Was far to the left as possible. I'm actually, you know, I'm stunned by Minnesota, but I'm even more Flabbergasted. In California, where the Auditor General of the state four years ago told the Governor Newsom that they had a massive problem with hospice fraud. Think about this. There's. Of all the hospices in America, of all the places you may go to die, you live your last few months in America, one third of them, one third are in Los Angeles. Think about that. I mean, how many people are dying in LA? Not California, LA, just the city of Los Angeles. So four years ago the Auditor General tells the entire country, including their own governor, that they've audited the system and they found it wanting and they needed someone to fix hospice. Well, four years later, you know, there was a proposal put in to stop doctors from owning multiple hospices. Which by the way, why would a doctor own multiple hospices? It's because they're being bribed to lie and say that patients are terminal when they're not really terminal. This rule would have fixed that problem. There was a Health and safety rule from the Department of Health 10 days before the end of the year. This is back in December, somebody very senior still stop that. Did code change. So they actually literally prevented the one thing that would almost automatically.

[Miranda Devine]

Wow.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

It cleaned up the mess. So in the last 10 weeks, and I'll announce this here on your show, the last 10 weeks we have shut down, stopped paying over 400 hospices in Los Angeles and California.

[Miranda Devine]

And how much would that be worth?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Oh, it's, it's hundreds of millions of dollars. But here's the better part of this. Guess how many have complained to us? Zero.

[Miranda Devine]

Wow.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Not one. Now if I stop paying you for doing this podcast, would you call me? Yeah, right. No, nothing. Like nothing.

[Miranda Devine]

Crickets says everything, doesn't it?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

And so when I went, I was blessed to go out to California with Billy as Haley, who's a wonderful U.S. attorney out there for a SWAT sting operation. To arrest a bunch of these fraudsters in these pre dawn operations is out of a movie scene. They're sawing through the gate, they're taking their, their, their trucks into the driveway. This plush, beautiful mansion that this fraudster doctor and his nurse wife had built, bought with, with ill gotten gains from hospice. And you know, it just does make you feel good as an American that law enforcement is walking these folks out in handcuffs. But you are not going to beat the, the, the bad guys just with that, that sends a very clear message to you're in the wrong place. If you want to defraud America, you better leave la. They're now going to Nevada. So I went to Nevada. Nevada now has seven times more hospices than they had only a few years ago. So these bad guys, they just, they flow over to the next state. Now they're going to Arizona and Texas. That's the same problem we're seeing in New York, where we have these things called social adult daycare centers, where you're basically giving places for people to congregate and then bribe each other to provide fake services so you can actually build up pretend services that might benefit you and your family. And these are jobs programs. And the fact that no one's intervening and we think the Chinese are involved with this area. And Flushing, Queens, where I went. And by the way, I ran into my charge nurse, of all things. You know, I practiced at Columbia University. And she initially was very happy to see me because she didn't know why I was there. But. And when I informed her that I was inspecting these, these adult social daycare centers, she panicked, said, you, you, I have to leave. You must leave. This is very dangerous. I couldn't understand why.

[Miranda Devine]

Wow.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Until I began to appreciate that you have organized crime and foreign governments involved in some of these endeavors. So the vice President is taking this very seriously. The task force is now brought together, everybody, including, by the way, treasury, because if you really want to know where the money is, right, get into the bank accounts and see the, the money laundering take place as they move it up the chain into the pockets. There's just a few people, but there are folks making a fortune on this fraud. And they are using all their lobbying tools, all their political power. They're partnering up with bad apples that have other influence in the political system to get folks to look the other way. And that's why this is such an important topic, because for Democrats, it's embarrassing that their elected leaders would allow this to happen. They want to help people, but they don't want to throw the money away. Republicans are indignant because what they suspected all along with these massively growing social programs that don't seem to actually help get people off the street if they're homeless or take care of their mental health issues or support their substance use disorders or reduce the autism, those don't seem to be working because a lot of the money is being stolen. So you have people on both sides of the aisle agreed that this must stop. And, and this task force is that all of government effort, we're breaking down all the little barriers and bringing people together to normally would be siloed and working in their own little disciplines. And that's why? From stopping the payments and leaving the building to tracking the money. Where it goes. We catch you no matter where you are, even if you're overseas. To arresting the bad apples in their luxurious homes. We're going to send a very clear message to fraudsters that you're not going to corrupt our precious society any longer.

[Miranda Devine]

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[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

All I can say is when Nick Shirley starts talking about leering centers and highlighting the ridiculousness of the fraud, it certainly gets everyone indignant about it.

[Miranda Devine]

Where's the media been the last four, eight years? How long has this been going on?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Well, the media has certainly not had this on their radar, but the good news is it's definitely there. Now. I've had, you know, we had CBS reporters embedded in the, the, the events that took place in Los Angeles Last week. Obviously the major cable networks are now covering it, but I think across the board, you know, the Post, California Post, New York Post, have been all over this as the stories. They offer a choice to a lot of folks who are going, you know, either reading or watching what these stories are. Whether you want to stand up and be counted and act and start to make noise about this. Are you going to tolerate this anymore? Are people taking advantage of your largesse, of your kindness? Are you going to let the elected officials who have been asleep at the wheel get away with it for yet one more term? And I think that puts a tremendous amount of power in the hands of the viewers. And what they're seeing is reinforcing a fundamental reality. You have to fight for what's right every day of your life. And there's many stories that we tell ourselves during our lives. But when you're trying to help someone who's fallen and needs a hand up and someone gets in the way and knocks your hand away and pushes them down and steals what you're about to give that person, you know, you get indignant, you know, and you appropriately should, you know, be willing to pass judgment in one action. And the President knows that. That's why the President is absolutely insistent we not let this go. That no matter how many times people have been warned, it doesn't matter. This administration will not tolerate this fraud. And every part of our government is fully focused on this.

[Miranda Devine]

Do you think that when there's, you know, inevitably, I guess, a Democrat president comes back, Democrat government, that they will be as motivated to stop this fraud? Because it seems to me there was a hand in glove situation, particularly after Covid with Joe Biden and the various Democrat governors that, you know, we will just turn a blind eye and the patronage system will, will continue. And it's very difficult to break that up.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

There's a lot of reasons for Democratic leaders not to take this problem seriously. It goes against the grain of what they've been preaching, which is that we can give this service away, whatever it might be, and it's gonna be safely delivered and everyone's gonna be happy when it occurs. Instead, what you're really doing is you're farming a lot of these problems. You're making the problems actually worse by throwing money at them. Because bad actors get involved and get engaged and they can cause real, real damage to the system. But the political patronage that you've outlined is fundamentally important for folks watching right now to understand. This is not a flaw system. This is a feature of the system for Democrats. It's a good thing that you can actually enroll more people on Medicaid than should be on Medicaid, because you cannot be able to get them to vote. It's a good thing that you can actually throw money at some of these problems, because some of the benefits of benefit are going to be your voters. And if you have a jobs program masquerading as a Medicaid support program, personal care services, that's not bad for your state either, then you bring the union employee, you know, unionized employees on board as well. It's a perfect storm. It's just what you want. And I just want to lay this out as cleanly as I can, because when I first started getting involved and understanding the magnitude of the fraud, I was purely focused on how it was that these guys got so good at stealing money from the federal government. Only after I delve into it a little deeper that I appreciate that it wasn't a flaw that we were letting this happen. It was a feature that was tolerated by a prior administration, not just here in Washington, but across the country. And we don't want that to repeat itself. If you're going to win an election in the future, I don't care what party you are, you do not want to tolerate fraud. It completely undermines the social safety net

[Miranda Devine]

of this nation and illegal migration. I remember during the 2020 Democratic primary, every single candidate on the stage put their hand up and said, yes, they would give free health care to illegal migrants. And that seems to be what happened. Do you know what percentage or how much of the Medicare funds have gone to illegal migrants?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

I do know. And since you bring up illegal immigrants, I actually think what we're witnessing in Medicaid fraud, Medicare fraud, is this election's an analogy to illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants came in because the Democratic Party at the time was not willing to deal with the problem. They just looked the other way. They averted their. Their. Their glance, their gaze. And so they let a problem happen, hoping that no one would notice or hold them accountable for it. It's the exact same thing we're seeing now in many ways within healthcare. Purposely looking the other way, hoping no one notices. It brings jobs, it brings money, it brings voters. It brings all the things you sort of want. Sort of like immigration might have been able to do in the past. But when it comes to illegal immigrants getting healthcare services, it's also a good example of how it's been shockingly easy to steal money from the federal government. Let me just lay this out for everybody. You pay federal taxes. No matter where you are in this country, you're paying federal taxes. The state of California is taking those federal taxes and buying their illegal immigrants health care benefits, including, by the way, vision and dental. Now, I'm not against giving people vision support and dental support for illegal immigrants, maybe even. But if you're not giving it to Medicare beneficiaries, older Americans in the rest of the country do not get vision and dental. No, they have to pay for it themselves. So we're actually giving the illegal immigrants a better deal than our Medicare recipients. And In California, it's $1.6 billion just in the last year that they have siphoned to illegal immigrants that they've pretty much acknowledged because they're paying us back. Now, there are several other states that are also using their state Medicaid plans to wrongly support illegal immigrant elective procedures. If you have an emergency, you're going to have a baby, you're in an accident, you're getting a career, it doesn't matter if you're a legal immigrant as is. You know, you need to respect that part of the health care system's ability to save lives. We don't want people dying. We just want people to honestly get the care they deserve and pay for it. If you come here illegally, do not ask. If you, and you're in California, do not ask Texas or New Mexico taxpayers to foot the bill of your largesse. And although the California leadership, Governor, Governor Newsom has said that, you know, we're mean for not paying for their illegal immigrants to get free health care, as soon as the federal government said we're not paying for it anymore, guess what? California did, they cut those benefits. So it's great to be nice and, and be very kind and have largesse when it's not your cash. But if you're inviting people to the dinner that you're going to serve, you need to pay the bill.

[Miranda Devine]

Is that part of the problem is that the states, if you've got a Democrat state, they really don't care about the federal money. They're not going to look after it.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

I don't think it's about Democrats and Republicans in this regard. I think it's about individuals. There are plenty of Democrat leaders in states that are very much focused on taking care of the money that they're getting and not wasting it, throwing it away so frausters can steal it. And we've gone after red states as well. But for example, in Florida, when I sent a letter to the governor, the DeSantis immediately wrote back and said, you know what? You're upset about this. I'm gonna double down. I'm gonna fix that problem. You. You guys give us the right to stop paying Medicaid towards these durable medical equipment suppliers, and we'll stop. And we did, and they stopped paying. So I think it's how we embrace the problem. And I've spoken to plenty of Democratic governors who don't want this in their state. This is not good leadership. You're the steward of the taxpayer's money. You swore a duty to protect the most vulnerable in your state, do your jobs by doing just that.

[Miranda Devine]

You used to be a Democrat once upon a time.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

I was.

[Miranda Devine]

What changed?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

No, I was never a Democrat.

[Miranda Devine]

Really?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

No. I grew up. It's interesting. I grew up. My dad and my parents are immigrants, and my dad, when I was a little boy, and we grew up right in the border between Pennsylvania and Delaware. And so he was, you know, an area that was. Was seemingly Republican at the time. And my dad said, you know what? The Republicans just seem more interested in new ideas. And so we're going to be Republicans. I remember him telling me that, like, he. He wasn't any party. He just objectively looked at it and said, republicans seem to have better ideas. We're going to join that party. And I've never changed my mind.

[Miranda Devine]

Right. And your dad was a surgeon like you?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

My father was a physician surgeon. I remember scurrying along next to him in the hallways as he would go from room to room. And I always admired the fact that although he was sometimes giving patients bad news, they always respected him because he told them the truth. And that's actually a good lesson. I think, for a lot of leaders today, it's hard to give people news they don't want to hear. And maybe they'll be upset for a while, but they'll respect you. And I'd much rather be respected than have people temporarily like me, because I told them good news. I'd rather tell them the truth.

[Miranda Devine]

And then feel betrayed.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Yeah, because they will feel betrayed. If you ask taxpayers in California and New York and Minnesota, they feel betrayed right now.

[Miranda Devine]

And so you were sort of almost preordained that you would become a doctor.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

It is like. Like being a shoemaker's son. You have a certain bias. But what I. What I. I mean, obviously, I. I love my dad, but I also love that he loved medicine. I think he adored medicine in part because he realized he would never master it. You would learn every day, and you can look someone in the eyes like I'm looking at you right now and make sure they knew that you were there for them. And there's something incredibly uplifting about being able to do that every single day, which is what you do as a doctor, which is what I try to tell physicians who are in Medicare and Medicaid. You have a remarkable gift. And sometimes I feel doctors have lost their mojo. They don't realize the power they really have. If I could get my brethren to regain the confidence they should have about their employees importance in society because, you know, doctors have several responsibilities. We always have to tell the patients the truth and take care of them as number one because that's Hippocratic oath. We have to learn and advance the field. We have to police each other. But we have a civic responsibility to speak out, to actually be the ballast of the ship of society when it travels in the troubled waters. And if we're not able to perform that function that a professional should be able to do, then we're abdicating our responsibility. Responsibility. And America more now than ever, needs its professionals to come in there and go to bat and stand up for what's right and make some comments that might come across as difficult or challenging of the system, but you're doing it because you love the country.

[Miranda Devine]

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[Mike Slater]

Hey, this is Mike Slater. I have a podcast called Politics by Faith. I would love for you to listen. We take the news of the day and we run it through the Bible. What does the Bible have to say about this? Because there's nothing new under the sun. Read the headlines. Everything's all crazy. World's coming to an end. It's all in the Bible. And after every episode, hopefully you leave with a proper perspective and a biblical piece. Please join us wherever you listen to podcasts and we also have a YouTube page as well. YouTube.com politicsbyfaith.

[Miranda Devine]

You were almost Maha before Maha became popular. You know, you got several bestselling New York Times best selling health books about how you can, you know, perfect your diet and exercise and so on. Where did that come from? And was it because you were performing heart surgery and you saw diseased hearts and thought, I don't want to be like that?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Heart surgery is beautiful for the surgeon, not so pretty for the patient.

[Miranda Devine]

Right.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

And so I would.

[Miranda Devine]

Why is it beautiful?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Because you're building something. You're not cutting something out, you're fixing something. By putting in new tubes, changing valves, you're crafting something bespoke for that patient's heart. It's incredibly creative. And yes, there's an exhilaration when you stop a human heart. This internal metronome we all have and have had beating in our hearts since we're just a few weeks of age. And there's something almost sacred about being able to even touch the heart. Heart. For most of human history, you could never touch the heart and expect the person to live. If you touch someone's heart, they were going to die. And only recently do we have a technology to do that even more audaciously fix the heart. So I love all that, but so much of what I was repairing could have been prevented the problem in the first place if I just been able to get this patient to understand a few simple, basic realities about the importance of sugar and carbohydrates and causing problems in pathology and inflammation in your body, addressing some of the cholesterol issues, and then more importantly, things like being overweight or high blood pressure, having bad blood sugar. These are really devastating problems. They drive 80% of the healthcare budget.

[Miranda Devine]

What does an unhealthy heart look like compared to just a young, fresh, healthy one?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Well, an unhealthy heart's bloated. It actually is fatty. It has fat layers on top of it. It looks slovenly almost, and it doesn't have that tight Spherical. Look, a healthy heart, it doesn't compress blood the way a balloon that's deflating would expel air. It's literally like. You know how you take a towel and you wring it to get the water out. That's how the heart beats. It wrings the water out. That ringing motion, that powerful, like a python coiled in the chest, twisting away, that's what it's supposed to look like. And it doesn't look like that when it's been diseased, which is, I always thought, especially because I was doing heart transplants for much of my career, your body's rejecting you. Like the most sacred thing inside of you. You know, this most poetic of all of our organs, the heart, the bleeding heart, stone heart, cold heart. This. This organ had rejected you because you hadn't taken care of it. So the thought that I could address that by just preventing the problem. The first. The first place was, to me, a huge opportunity. But the real driving force is my wife, Lisa, who would listen to me lament the situation of whatever patient I would try to take care of that day. And she'd say, stop complaining and moaning and groaning. Go out there and tell people what you know. Leave the ivory tower of Columbia University and go out there and teach. America's not getting the message because you're not giving it to them, right? And so that's a pretty healthy challenge. So I did just that. I began working on the Oprah Winfrey show, began writing books, as you point out. I learned a lot about how to popularize important information. How do you deliver a message in a way that makes people feel like they could do it? My goodness. I mean, now that I get it, now that I have the epiphany of what my body really is, about how divine it really is, now that I know I can control my body, I can change the world outside of it. That's sort of the mindset that we wanted people to have, by the way. We have a children's foundation that does just that. We raised about $100 million for it. We're in schools all over the country teaching that basic same message. You're given this incredible gift. The most valuable thing you'll ever get from your parents is your body. And so you should take care of it like it's a special, beautiful entity, because you only get one. And if you take care of it, it's gonna last you a long, long time. And part of the focus for me here at Medicare and Medicaid is to think differently about how we invest in people's health. That's why we're so focused on some of the technology tools that we believe can better the state of humanity. But if we take the Maha movement, which is fundamentally eat real food that comes out of the ground looking the way it looks when you eat it, get activity so you get breathy, a little heavy breathing at least once a day in any way you can do it. Make sure you're focused on your sleep, which means you have to deal with the stress, but that prevents your sleep issues. Those fairly simple, age old, proven tools. And of course we've made it hard to do that in America. So if you make it easy to do those things, you're actually fulfilling the Maha destiny. But let me shock you with a number. If we can invest this country's resources in a way that improves the health of all the people who can hear my voice right now, and make our people so healthy that they want to work one extra year, just strive to do one more year of effort to improve your lot in life, the job you're doing, produce more value for the country. The value of that to the GDP of America is almost a trillion dollars. I mean, it's a massive lift to our society if we can get people to be healthy, which is why this is so important. We are spending twice as much money as any other country per capita on our people's healthcare because we're so sick.

[Miranda Devine]

And is it the food?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

The food's a major driver. Sugar, simple carbohydrates, which is sugar. All the white foods, white rice, white bread, white flour, white sugar. And which of course, we dishonestly claimed that meats and saturated fats were the problem, that that data was never there. And the food pyramid, which we flipped appropriately back on its head, essentially this is all done with Secretary Kennedy's leadership and Secretary Rollins at the Department of Agriculture. They have now created a food pyramid that I can now tell hospitals, which I have done, they need to use that food pyramid, feeding their patients in the hospitals. We're telling schools, feed that food to the kids in your schools. And by reversing some of these unfortunate decades long lies about what's good and what's bad in our food system, we're making it easier to be healthy in America. Because here's the question that Maha moms are asking all of us. Why is it so much harder for me to raise healthy children than it was for my mom to raise me? We have to answer that question.

[Miranda Devine]

That's right. Because fruit and vegetables and so on, you can Cook them. But it's a lot more effort, takes a lot more time. How do you get over that?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Well, I'll just give you an example for the food system in school, in hospitals. We have a program now in Tampa General in Florida run by Jeff Zakarian, who's a well known chef. And Jeff has changed the entire food system. In the hospital. You order your own meal off a menu and they only bring you what you order, which is made for you. And it tastes great because locally sourced and it costs them 5% more than the junk food they used to serve these patients before because you throw away at least a quarter of the food you serve in the hospital because no one wants to eat it. I'll tell you. I was a resident at Columbia, an intern. And you go to the ICU and in the intensive care unit you cannot leave because the patient's intention too sick. So they would always bring us an extra tray of food that they were giving to the patients. The chief resident came over to me and said, don't eat the hospital food. I said, why not? He says, you'll get sick. And sure enough, I skipped the food. I didn't get sick, everyone else did. And no flu, no gastroenteritis, all those illnesses that you get from eating bad food that doesn't actually nurture your body because that's the big takeaway. Your brain is looking for nutrients, not calories.

[Miranda Devine]

So what did you have for breakfast this morning and lunch?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

I don't eat breakfast.

[Miranda Devine]

Oh really?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

No, I intermittent fast, so I have a dinner. Usually I'm done by, you know, 7:30 or 8. What do you eat? Dinner might be a steak or a fish. It's really high protein. Yeah, it's generally low carb. So I won't have a dessert. The dessert is vegetables. Vegetables I love, but I happen to like vegetables. If you don't like vegetables, you can eat other foods. But I'll tell you, the thing you have to be really careful about is dessert, because dessert is metabolic suicide. Right? Dessert. When you take sugar in dessert form high density, you drive up your insulin, which takes all the calories you had during your meal and deposits on your thighs, right? So also if you have dessert the next morning when you get up, you'll be hungrier. And so by, by not having anything super sweet at dinner, by the next morning you're basically fasting, which means your hormones are flat and so you don't have that desire to eat. So I don't really have anything until I have tea. Maybe at around 10 in the morning.

[Miranda Devine]

Cup of tea.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

A cup of tea. A little milk in it. Yeah. Don't add sugar. And then usually by noon, I'm hungry, and then I'll start eating and I'll have a soup or I'll have blueberries. At yogurt. I'll have something like that.

[Miranda Devine]

You bring it in.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

It's in the fridge right inside there. I'll give you a steep preview. It's right there.

[Miranda Devine]

You don't go to the cafeteria.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

There is a cafeteria here. We're still working on it. It's a work in progress.

[Miranda Devine]

I noticed there was a lot of pizza down there.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Was there? I didn't notice. I don't. I don't actually go to the cafeteria. Right. I. I probably just as well. Probably. But I also. We joke that the cms. There's a CMS diet, which means you don't have time to eat because you're just working all the time. That's what you want. You want to be the honey badger. You'll be chasing after all the. All the things that. All the issues that are out there that you'd have to be tenacious about because you get lobbied in this job. And people are very smart. They're offering you ideas that seem to make sense. But I would always tell my team, if you want to win these Emmys, then you actually have to be a honey badger.

[Miranda Devine]

And that's why you've got the honey badger, the stuffed, real honey badger from Canada sitting on your cabinet to remind you to be tough.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Well, the honey badgers originally are from Australia. Someone stuffed it and brought it where I could get it. Really? Yes. But that is a real honey badger. And the honey badger is interesting animal because it can attack cobras. In fact, a cobra will sting it or bite it and it'll pass out for a few. For a few minutes, recover, and then eat the cobra. But when it bites something, it doesn't let go. And that's actually the real metaphor. There are some problems that are too important for us to fail, where failure is not an option. I think about fraud that way. There's plenty of reasons just to let it go. It's so painful, and you're destroying people's lives and you're going after, you know, issues around, you know, that seem almost political and it doesn't matter. No matter what it takes, we're going to go after it. We've had similar problems already in the time I've been in this administration. One of the beautiful parts about serving in government now is the president literally says, I don't care. Fix the problem. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try. @mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for

[Miranda Devine]

3 month plan equivalent to $15 per

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

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[Miranda Devine]

only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

See full [e-mail] hey, Bill O'Reilly here. Please check out my new interview series. We'll do it live. Each Thursday I sit down with the most influential people in America where I know some no script, anything could happen you can find. We'll do it live on BillOriley.com, youTube or wherever you download your podcast.

[Miranda Devine]

What's it like working for Donald Trump? You've known him for, I think almost two decades, haven't you?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

I have.

[Miranda Devine]

What's it like?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

He's an incredibly giving man and I know that's going to shock a lot of folks listening. I met him, by the way, asking if I could use his golf club, his golf course, rather the Club Trump International for a charity, for the children's charity I mentioned earlier.

[Miranda Devine]

Right.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

And he said, what are you going to do with it? I explained, fine. I said, what do you mean fine? Just take it. So. Yeah, but don't I have to do. No, no. Just take it and use it. And he is incredibly giving and emotionally, because he'll call you and say, hey, I saw you did an interview and here's how I would have done it differently or I'm really mad about this thing. You know, he's not always happy when he calls. But, but he understands if you talk to him honestly about what's going down and what you're doing to fix the problem and you deliver the news that he needs to hear, not the news he wants to hear.

[Miranda Devine]

You once had him on your show in 2016, and I think you did sort of a health check of him and you told him that he was overweight.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

I did. That was an interview that was it was important for a bunch of reasons just to remind everyone of the situation. It was right before the 2016 election. There was a lot of banter between two campaigns about how the other person was sick. So the Clinton campaign was arguing that Donald Trump was not in good health because he had a medical Note that they didn't think was a believable, one plausible one. The president's campaign was arguing the same thing back. So I invited them both on the show. They both agreed. And then Hillary Clinton got sick that week, and understandably. So she pulled out. And then everyone said, well, don't have Donald Trump on the show. And I said, why not? He's running for president. He was nominated by.

[Miranda Devine]

He's not sick.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Yeah, he's not sick. He wants to come on. So I had him on and I challenged him to all these issues that had been circulated in the press about his health. He answered them. Well, then he pulled out a piece of paper that had a recent. That week's doctor's note with all of his lab results. I was stunned. So I opened it up and I read the note. And I mean, his testosterone was great. You know, his regular blood tests were great. The one problem was his weight, which he, to this day, gives me a hard time about. But I told him he's lost weight, though. Yes, he looks good.

[Miranda Devine]

He's 79. That's a huge job. He doesn't sleep. He seems to have lots of stamina. What is it about him that allows him to keep going? And is it a worry that, you know, maybe he needs to lose more weight or do more exercise or sleep more?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

I think President Trump is healthy as a bull.

[Miranda Devine]

Yeah.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

And I think his success to longevity as well as good health is his incredible passion for what he's doing. He believes 110% in the things that he's doing. That's an infectious process because you get everyone else around you to understand why these are really important issues. And he's always there for you.

[Miranda Devine]

So that's more important than McDonald's, maybe.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Yeah. Well, he defends his. His decisions about food and fast food by saying that when he's on the road, he doesn't want to get sick. So he eats at large brands because he knows they're not going to skimp on the quality of the food. But, you know, when you eat with them normally, he's not always doing that.

[Miranda Devine]

No, no, he's quite healthy in the White House.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Yes, he generally eats food that is pretty good for him, but he is a remarkably focused individual. And I think that has made it such a joy to work with him in this administration, because when I call him with problems, he's very mission oriented and he's also solution driven, and he's hired and surrounded himself with wonderful human beings. Suzy Wall is a good example. I mean, that woman will run through a wall to get the right thing done, not just for the president, but for the country. And I feel blessed in this agency because the real reason I think this is the best job I've ever had is actually people who work with me here because they are the best, the best people in healthcare. I believe in the country and I'm not alone in singing their praises. But what I love the most about them is that they actually get along with each other and they are very meticulous in finding solutions to problems that have really perplexed the American healthcare system for a long time. I always joke with them that my main job in my role, hire the smartest people I can find and make sure they don't kill each other.

[Miranda Devine]

And RFK Jr. Of course, is, you know, famously a Democrat who came across and he's the Maha master, but also he's been criticized for being anti vaccine, which I don't think is completely true, but he still is less pro vaccines than you are. I think you recently were urging people to get the measles vaccine. What is it about vaccines that has become so scary now for people?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

I think a lot of the vaccine story is hyped by media who want the fight. Secretary Kennedy also said to take the measles vaccine. I've known Bobby for a long time in a close way. He also came on my show. Bobby's whole idea around vaccines is that if you truly love somebody like your child and you're putting them in a car seat, do you double check that the car seat is inserted correctly, buckled in correctly, that they're correctly placed in the seat? Yes. It's not because you don't distrust a car seat, but you want to.

[Miranda Devine]

And there have been too many vaccines, it seems recently. You know, when we were small, we had a number of vaccines, measles, whooping cough, et cetera. But now it seems there are just dozens.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Well, it's 72 shots, which is quite a bit more than when you and I were young. And it's more than the Europeans give their children in general. So Secretary Kennedy's idea, and the President supported this, was let's use a schedule that seems to work like the Danish schedule. They have almost half the number of shots that we give our children. And the reason the Danes gave for doing that was because they believed that if mothers knew that it was a core group of vaccines that were absolutely essential. You give them all those vaccines, like the ones for polio and measles and the ones that maybe you're not so Worried about day in and day out, those vaccines you can still get, too. And by the way, we pay for them all. If you want a vaccine in America, you could have the vaccine, and we will pay for it. You know, especially for the children's vaccine schedule.

[Miranda Devine]

But you won't mandate them.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

But we don't. Yeah, we don't. But that was the point, that the. That the schedule would be adjusted so that you have the ones that are core essentials, then the ones that are. They're good. They're fine to take them if you want, but it's up to you to take them. And that's a process that is still an evolution. Obviously, it's in. There's litigation around it, but I think it is worth us asking questions. And that's what the secretary is saying. He's not claiming anything about the vaccines. He's saying double check, triple check, why not? And this administration will pass along data as fast as we get it.

[Miranda Devine]

And didn't Covid really besmirch the idea of vaccines by calling the COVID Jabber vaccines seen and mandating it especially for children to go to school?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

Covid did a lot of things that undermine the confidence that people have in public health. We had arguments and everything from how far to stand from other people to, do you wear a mask for a year and a half afterwards? Do you close schools? Some of the decisions made during COVID in retrospect, were very harmful. Now, it's easy to criticize in hindsight, but some. Some of these issues, even months after the beginning of the pandemic, were relatively evident. I didn't think, for example, there was a good reason to close all of our schools in America, in some states and other states, of course, did not close their schools and didn't pay a price. And the Europeans didn't close their schools. They did fine. And, you know, the reason you keep the schools open is because for many children, especially underserved kids in poor neighborhoods, that's the best place for them to be during the day. And those kids have been hurt by being kept at home, especially when there wasn't, in retrospect, a clear health benefit for doing that.

[Miranda Devine]

Do you think Anthony Fauci scared Americans?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

I do.

[Miranda Devine]

Why did he do that?

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

I think he had a vision as a virologist of how to handle a public health issue. But public health people are different from virologists. Virologists work in test tubes. Public health people look at you in the eyes like a clinical doctor does, and it has to deal with the reality of your life. Because you know, Oster was a famous doctor from Hopkins 100 years ago, but he's famed for saying that a good doctor takes care of the disease, but a great doctor takes care of the patient who has the disease. My job, a public health servant's job, is to take care of the person with the disease. The disease is also a problem. But I got to take care of you. That's why we're so focused. For example, meeting you where you are. Let me leave you with one last stat. And in a plea to your audience, we give in Medicare, a free wellness exam. To everybody. Everyone gets. It's free, no strings attached, no cost. Less than half the American people take it. Why? They tell us it's because they're healthier than the other people. Right? But in reality, because we see the claims data, we see how often they go to the hospital, they're actually sicker than the people who get the exam. So we need to meet people where they are. The real solution to the healthcare woes of this country is to give you access to the best care possible in your palm. And we're doing this, rolling it out, giving for the first time ever, digital tools, apps and the like that we're going to support that will make it easier for people to get the care they desire whenever they want to get it. And that's my hope. And by the time we leave in this four year tenure that we've made it much easier to be healthy in America. That's truly maha.

[Miranda Devine]

So get a health check once a year for free.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

It's yours. It's for free. Or at least take advantage of the digital tools we're giving you. They're yours. We just want you to stay healthy. You'll be more productive, you'll be healthier and it's the right thing for the country.

[Miranda Devine]

Terrific. Thank you, Dr. Oz.

[Dr. Mehmet Oz]

God bless.

[Miranda Devine]

Thanks for joining Podforce One. I'm Miranda Devine. Please hit the like and subscribe buttons. But more importantly, let me know what you thought of today's interview. You in the comments below. I do read them. See you next week. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Because behind every headline is a bottom line. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings. There's a money side to every story. And when you see the money side, you understand understand what others miss. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at bloomberg. Com.