Fresh off his crudités fiasco, Mehmet Oz needed to do a better job looking like a man of the people. This ain’t it.
At a recent campaign event, a Democratic campaign worker did an amazing job getting Oz to simultaneously lie and look even more out of touch than he looked getting the name of the grocery store wrong as he pretended to buy asparagus, a huge bag of whole carrots, and a small crown of broccoli with the apparent intent of dipping them in guacamole and fresh salsa. It was a simple question, or should have been: “How many houses do you own?”
“Legitimately, I own two houses,” Oz answered. (When the answer starts with “legitimately,” you know to look deeper.) “But one of them we're building on, the other ones I rent,” he added. Wait … he owns two (“legitimately”) but then after the one he’s building on, the other ones, plural, he rents? What does that even mean?
It means he’s trying not to answer the question, but he doesn’t know how to get out of it.
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The Daily Beast, which obtained the footage, counts 10 properties owned by Oz, whose net worth of around $100 million comes from his time as a celebrity TV doctor:
• a 9,000-square-foot mansion in New Jersey
• a 7,000-square-foot country house in Pennsylvania
• a condo in New Jersey
• a piece of residential real estate in Sariyer, Turkey
• another piece of residential real estate in Sariyer, Turkey
• a Manhattan condo
• another Manhattan condo
• an oceanside mansion in Palm Beach, Florida
• a cattle farm in Okeechobee, Florida
• and a piece of residential property in Konya, Turkey, which appears to be used as a student dormitory
When Oz said, “the other ones we rent,” you could have been forgiven for thinking he was saying he rented multiple homes from other owners, but no, he has properties he rents out. Oz’s wife has an additional two properties.
To be fair to Oz, despite all of the trolling he’s taken from his Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, one of his 10 properties is in Pennsylvania. That’s 10%!
His Pennsylvania property—the one he bought in late 2021 after launching his Senate campaign—is presumably the house Oz referred to as the “one of them we’re building on.” Since buying it, he has claimed to be renovating it—though, The Philadelphia Inquirer recently reported, “there’s little sign of work at the property, and he continues to live at his in-laws’ home in the nearby borough of Bryn Athyn.”
By contrast, that’s two properties in New Jersey, one of them his main residence for years, at which he has continued to film campaign videos, and the other of which he failed to disclose and has rented out to Turkish nationalists. And two properties in Manhattan. And two properties in Florida. And three in Turkey.
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