US House Speaker Mike Johnson slammed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s health department staffers for politicizing the agency by forming a “global oppression working group” that accused Israel of committing genocide.
“Instead of trying to force a radical-left foreign policy agenda, the bureaucrats in Zohran Mamdani’s Department of Health should focus on delivering the services New Yorkers pay for with their tax dollars,” Johnson (R-La.) said in a statement on X Tuesday.
Johnson linked to a Post exclusive report revealing that DOH staffers had created the “Global Oppression and Public Health Working Group,” which held its first meeting last week during the middle of the workday from the agency’s headquarters in Long Island City, Queens.
“We really developed in response to the ongoing genocide in Palestine,” one presenter reading from the group’s mission statement said near the beginning of the meeting, according to video obtained by The Post.
Critics — including City Council Speaker Julie Menin — have called for an investigation over whether the department’s employees were using taxpayer resources to promote a political agenda.
It’s unclear from Johnson’s statement whether the House of Representatives would take up the matter.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — whom Mamdani defeated in the mayoral election last year — claimed the politicization of the health department was “criminal” and called for the city Department of Investigation, city Comptroller Mark Levine and the council to launch probes.
“Why don’t you worry about the mentally ill people on the street who are freezing to death,” Cuomo said on his Sunday 77 WABC “Pulse of the People” program.
“Where is the Department of Investigation? Hello. Wake up, Department of Investigation.”
Cuomo called it “criminal” to use public resources for political advocacy — and also questioned Mamdani’s new office of mass engagement.
Mamdani and the DOH had no immediate comment.
