Councilmember Nazarian Moves to Hold Mehmet Oz Accountable for Defaming Armenian American Community

In a motion filed in Council this morning, Nazarian calls on the City’s Civil and Human Rights and Equity Department (LA Civil Rights) to assess the impact of Oz’s inflammatory attack on a vulnerable immigrant community, to quantify the damage done to the businesses he has defamed, and to identify the legal remedies available to the injured parties, including the City’s potential participation in the civil rights complaint filed by Governor Newsom.

In a video posted on social media last week, Dr. Oz, the Administrator of the federal government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, suggested that businesses in Los Angeles with signage in Armenian were somehow involved in a criminal conspiracy.

“Such rhetoric by a high-ranking federal official not only incites discrimination and ethnic scapegoating but also ignores the intergenerational trauma of a community that has historically faced systemic persecution and genocide,” said Councilmember Nazarian in his motion.

“We’ve seen this administration dangerously target communities time and time again – in Los Angeles and in cities across the country,” said Mayor Bass. “This latest inflammatory rhetoric against Armenian Americans is incredibly offensive. We will always fight for Angelenos’ rights against racially-charged allegations and any form of hate.”

“The Armenian Bar Association strongly supports the City of Los Angeles’ efforts to hold Dr. Mehmet Oz accountable for his inflammatory and deeply offensive remarks equating Armenian ethnicity, language, and identity with fraud,” said the Armenian Bar Association. “We thank Councilmember Nazarian and the City of Los Angeles for standing up for the rights of their fellow Angelenos. The Armenian-American community is proud to be both American and Angeleno. While we fully support efforts to combat fraud and hold wrongdoers accountable, the vilification of our ethnicity and culture is offensive, harmful, and blatantly unconstitutional—particularly when it comes from a public official entrusted with serving and protecting all communities.

The complete text of Councilmember Nazarian’s motion is attached below.

The City of Los Angeles is home to the largest and most vibrant Armenian-American community in the country, whose contributions to the city’s economic, cultural, and civic life are foundational to the identity of neighborhoods from Little Armenia to Valley Glen.

On January 27, 2026, Mehmet Oz, acting in his official capacity as Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), released a video filmed in the Valley Glen neighborhood that baselessly targeted the Armenian-American community through harmful ethnic profiling. During said video, Administrator Oz stood directly in front of a family-owned Armenian bakery, specifically singling out the Armenian alphabet on the business’s signage as a “dialect” indicative of what he termed the “Russian-Armenian Mafia” and a $3.5 billion hospice fraud scheme.

These reckless and racially charged allegations were made without providing any evidence linking the specific small businesses shown to criminal activity, instead using cultural and linguistic markers as proxies for criminality. The impact of this collective indictment has been immediate and severe, with the targeted bakery reporting a devastating 30% drop in sales within days of the video’s release, threatening the livelihood of hardworking Angelenos.

Such rhetoric by a high-ranking federal official not only incites discrimination and ethnic scapegoating but also ignores the intergenerational trauma of a community that has historically faced systemic persecution and genocide. The City of Los Angeles maintains a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech, racial profiling, and the weaponization of government platforms to disparage specific ethnic groups.

I THEREFORE MOVE that the City Council instruct the Civil + Human Rights and Equity Department (LA Civil Rights), with assistance from EWDD, to report within 60 days on the impacts of this incident, including but not limited to the following elements:

1. Detailed Accounting: detailing Mehmet Oz’s specific, alleged defamatory or discriminatory statements, identifying the targeted groups (especially the Armenian community), and categorizing the nature of the claims.
2. Civil Rights and Discrimination Analysis: an analysis of the claims against established civil rights law, focusing on potential unlawful discrimination based on Armenian national origin, examining the resulting hostile environment, and assessing non-economic harms like emotional distress and reputational damage
3. Economic Impact Assessment: quantifying and detailing the financial damage sustained by local Armenian-owned businesses due to the statements, including lost revenue, increased costs, and devaluation of assets.

I FURTHER MOVE that the City Council instruct the City Attorney to report on the legal standing of the City of Los Angeles to join the Governor’s civil rights complaint or to file a separate amicus brief, and to explore all available local and state legal remedies regarding the defamation of the City’s commercial districts by a federal official.