There may never have been a member of the US House who achieved so much notoriety in so little time as George Santos.
(Bloomberg) — There may never have been a member of the US House who achieved so much notoriety in so little time as George Santos.
The embattled New York Republican’s florid fabrications about his family, education and business experience have made him an object of curiosity and fascination in popular culture and at the US Capitol.
He’s trailed by a cloud of reporters and cameras when he walks the halls of Congress and is the butt of comedy sketches on late-night television. His usual attire — a crew neck sweater under a blazer — has been subjected to fashion analyses by critics at the New York Times and Washington Post. He’s even inspired the Bobblehead Hall of Fame to create a figurine with his likeness.
None of it appears to deter him.
“It’s great, I love it,” Santos said of his new job in a brief hallway interview. “The more I get to do it, the more I love it.”
Santos, who has mostly tried to avoid reporters as he moves through the Capitol complex, said Wednesday that he would hold a news conference to answer “all the questions” that have been swirling around him since winning election in November.
He gave no time or place for that event.
“It will be fantastic to address every single issue when we get there,” said Santos, who has made previous promises to tell his story. “We’re working on it.”
On Wednesday, he gave his first speech on the House floor, a one-minute address condemning Iran for its violent crackdown on protesters. “It felt great. We get to talk about issues, right?” he told a Bloomberg reporter immediately afterward.
When he’s been on the House floor, Santos, whose district encompasses parts of Long Island and the New York City borough of Queens, has gravitated to a handful of other Republicans who themselves have been lightning rods for criticism and scrutiny — Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Matt Gaetz of Florida and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, among others. He usually sits in the back of the chamber on the Republican side.
“I would consider us, you know, workplace colleagues. We don’t hang out with each other on each other’s birthdays,” Gaetz said, stopping short of calling Santos a friend. He acknowledged that people sometimes gravitate to him when they have issues, given his own controversies. “Whenever people are embattled I tend to be a good shoulder, given my last term,” Gaetz said.
While some of his fellow Republicans have called on Santos to resign, so far he’s maintained a crucial lifeline with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who needs every vote he can get in the closely divided House, both to pass legislation and to keep his job.
McCarthy has set a high bar for policing lawmakers, suggesting at a news conference this week that Santos would keep his seat in Congress unless he was found to have broken the law. Lying wouldn’t be grounds for expulsion.
“You know why I’m standing by him? Because his constituents voted for him,” the speaker told reporters Tuesday night. “I will hold him to the same standard I hold anyone else elected to Congress. If for some way when we go through Ethics that he has broken the law, then we will remove him.”
Gaetz, echoing McCarthy’s rationale, said in an interview “that the leadership made the right decision, and I don’t think that means anyone’s embracing George. I think they’re respecting the decision the voters made.”
Republicans put Santos on two low-profile committees, Science, Space, and Technology, chaired by Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, and Small Business, led by Roger Williams of Texas.
Neither has sounded particularly enthusiastic about the selection.
“We don’t condone what he said,” Williams told reporters last week, while Lucas said “somebody’s going to win the prize” of having Santos on their committee. Both said this week that they hadn’t yet met with him.
House Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican who has been a key ally of McCarthy, declined to say anything about Santos. “I’m watching this like everybody else,” he said.
After trying to avoid attention during his first couple of weeks in Congress, Santos has taken the initiative.
He’s slyly teased the reporters who’ve been camping outside his office door in the Longworth House Office Building by promising them “a surprise” this week. On Tuesday he placed placing a box of Dunkin’ Donuts and some coffee on a table. On Wednesday it was a bag of Chick-Fil-A sandwiches.
On Twitter, he ridiculed comedian Jon Lovitz’s impression of him on the Tonight Show. “That was embarrassing — for him not me!” Santos tweeted.
He also dismissed an allegation he pocketed $3,000 from a GoFundMe campaign in 2016 for a homeless veteran’s dying dog. “The reports that I would let a dog die is shocking & insane,” he tweeted.
He also fired back at Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, who told reporters Tuesday that Santos was “nutty as a fruitcake” and a “bunny boiler,” a reference to a gruesome scene in the 1987 thriller “Fatal Attraction.
Santos said such language has “no place in Congress.”
Democrats, at the same time, have been using Santos as a political punching bag and attempting to draw a direct link between his behavior and the rest of the Republican Party.
Santos is facing multiple investigations and complaints related to how he financed his campaign. He’s also wanted in Brazil on fraud charges.
Still, he’s said he has no plans to resign and is rightfully a member of Congress.
“Didn’t the voters vote for me?” he asked.
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