Nineteen Americans are dead from heat during a holiday weekend, found in homes without air conditioning, while their government sends billions to foreign wars and the mayor of New York tells residents to crank their thermostats up to 78 degrees.

The bodies started turning up Thursday. New Jersey Health Commissioner Dr. Raynard Washington confirmed the toll in a press briefing Saturday: "We started to see what we believed to be heat-related deaths as early as Thursday of this week… many of these individuals were found in homes without air conditioning."

Central Park hit 100 degrees that same day — the first triple-digit reading there since 2012 and a tie for the hottest day in the city since 1966. Real-feel temperatures surged past 110. Subway platforms turned into ovens, with temperatures in the mid-to-high 90s and real-feel readings breaking 100.

Meanwhile, New York City's new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, took to X with advice that would sound like satire if people weren't dying: "New York: it's hot out there, and the power grid is working overtime to keep us cool, set your AC to 78 degrees, turn off lights/electronics you're not using, and unplug what you can."

Set your AC to 78. Unplug what you can. This is the best the apparatus of government can offer — a social media post telling sweltering citizens to use less power during a historic heat emergency.

A city hall spokesperson insisted the Mamdani Administration is mounting a "whole-of-government response to extreme heat" and noted that approximately 500 New Yorkers die annually from heat-related illness. If 500 deaths a year is a known figure, the response clearly isn't working.

Thunderstorms packing 60 mph winds swept through Friday, downing trees onto cars and power lines in New Jersey's Morris and Monmouth Counties, trapping residents and knocking out power. More than 10,000 New Yorkers in Queens lost electricity. The storms brought no lasting relief — temperatures neared 100 again Saturday.

New York City health officials said there were no confirmed heat-related deaths in the city so far. The 19 dead are across the Hudson, in New Jersey, where people sat in uncooled homes during a holiday weekend.

The Post covered the death toll and the infrastructure strain straight. TMZ, meanwhile, devoted its holiday coverage to Khloé Kardashian and Tristan Thompson enjoying a parade in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho — a cool lake town where the celebrity class spends its summers. No heat deaths in that zip code.

The grid can't handle the load. The state can't keep the power on. People die alone in hot apartments. And the official response is a post telling you to use less electricity. Washington sends $175 billion to Ukraine, but the treasury is apparently bare when it comes to keeping Americans from dying in their own homes during a heat wave that everyone saw coming.

Nineteen dead, and the holiday is over. The question isn't whether the next heat wave is coming — it's whether anyone in power will have done a single thing about it before it arrives.