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Janae Pierre: You're listening to The Takeaway. I'm Janae Pierre in for Melissa Harris-Perry. Most of us know that politicians don't always tell the truth, but Representative George Santos has taken that to a whole new level. The Republican representative of New York's third Congressional District, which covers parts of Long Island and Queens, is now facing several investigations into his lies and embellishments. The freshman lawmaker was only sworn in a month ago and is also facing calls from some lawmakers in his own party to step down. Here's what Senator Mitt Romney said about Santos to members of the press after President Biden's State of the Union address Tuesday.
Senator Mitt Romney: He says that he embellished his record. Look, embellishing is saying you got an A when you got an A-. Lying is saying you graduated from a college you didn't even attend. He shouldn't be in Congress. They're going to go through the process and hopefully get him out, but he shouldn't be there, and if he had any shame at all, he wouldn't be there.
Janae Pierre: Santos responded to Romney by saying--
Representative George Santos: I think it's reprehensible that the Senator would say such a thing to me and the demeaning way he said it wasn't very Mormon of him. That's what I can tell you.
Janae Pierre: This from a politician who once claimed Jewish heritage and then backed off that claim by saying he was--
Representative George Santos: Jew-ish. Remember, I was raised Catholic.
Janae Pierre: At the end of January, Santos recused himself from his two House committee assignments ahead of an expected House Ethics Committee probe. Some of Santo's lies include--
David Cruz: Lying about attending a private high school in the Bronx, being a volleyball star in college, graduating college, getting an MBA from NYU, working on Wall Street.
Janae Pierre: In response to these findings, Santos told WABC radio in New York--
Representative George Santos: I'm not going to make excuses for this, but a lot of people overstate in their resumes, or twist a little bit, or ingratiate themselves. I'm not saying I'm not guilty of that.
Janae Pierre: It's not just lies on his resume. He said his mother was inside one of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11, but immigration paperwork shows that she wasn't even in the country. That's not even the full list of lies, and his constituents are not happy. A recent Newsday/Siena College poll found that 78% of those surveyed in his district want Santos to resign. On Tuesday, a busload of Santos' constituents wrote down to DC, protested on Capitol Hill, and handed his staff members a petition for his resignation.
Representative Santos' Constituents: Santo's, it's time to go. Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Santos it's time to go. Hey, hey. Ho, ho.
Janae Pierre: With me now is David Cruz, WNYC's People & Power politics editor. David, welcome to The Takeaway.
David Cruz: Hi, there. Thanks for having me.
Janae Pierre: Of course. I understand that you went to Long Island and you spoke with some of Santos' constituents. What are they saying?
David Cruz: I did go there recently, and the main consensus here was that Santos was just not fit to serve them while he's in office. They essentially have read a lot of the coverage within the last nearly two months and they found that he's essentially not really the person that they thought that he was. This was coming from both Republicans who had voted for him, who don't have a stake, they're not really just political insiders, they were simply just voters, and they felt like they've been had.
Of course, I also spoke to Democrats who are also livid. Although I did ask, just for the sake of fairness, if a Democrat were to have been on the same plane as Santos, would they also want them to resign? The answer was yes. They just feel as if the level of lying was just too great. A lot of them knew that politicians always lie, but not to this extent. That was the major, I guess, takeaway from walking around there for a couple hours, nearly the whole day, speaking to constituents.
I did speak to several who had a level of sympathy for Santos. There's one voter out in Port Washington, which is on the northern end of the district, said that they're a Christian and they feel as if they should always forgive someone for these level of transgressions and that we should not be pointing fingers. She really was very sympathetic, stood by him, but that was really just a rarity throughout the day. Really, the consensus all around was that he really should step aside.
Janae Pierre: This list of lies, it goes on, and on, and on, and on. Talk about the extent of these lies, David.
David Cruz: Well, part of the falsehoods here was that Santos positioned himself as this businessman who was not like any other standard GOP member. He was openly gay, he was married, and he claimed to be this financier, and of course, he also, as the clips said, reminded us that he lied about being Jewish. All of those factors, really, there was a cascading effect because it wasn't just one isolated lie, it was just one after the other.
When I went also to Long Island, there was this level of exhaustion when it came to the number of lies that came out of Santos' mouth. There's one thing people say, it's one thing to pad the resume, it's another thing to flat-out lie. In terms of the other lies, he had [unintelligible 00:05:56] that he was a volleyball player. He said that he had knocked out two of his knees as a result of playing volleyball at Baruch College. He said it with this level of-- You would not think the way he uttered it out of his mouth, it seems as if it was the real deal, but then when you begin to look at it, you see then he never went to Baruch College, therefore, he never played volleyball.
Those are the kinds of things that really had shaken a lot of the constituents. It's really shaken, too, the Nassau County Republican Party, they want nothing to do with him as well as a result of the lies.
Janae Pierre: From a legal standpoint, has Representative Santos done or said anything illegal?
David Cruz: Well, at the moment, that's what the Ethics Committee and other investigations are looking at, primarily around his financial disclosures, which there was a lot of omissions, there were omissions on where exactly he got the money, and that's where it stands right now. At this point, it's not really clear whether or not violations were made. Those violations will be determined by the Ethics Committee. I believe the Nassau County District Attorney's Office is looking into whether or not any falsehoods amounted to any illegality, but at the moment, it's really not very clear-cut. A lot of this will be unraveled, I imagine, in the months ahead.
Janae Pierre: I want to talk a bit about the Ethics Committee investigation. What can you tell us about that?
David Cruz: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy spoke with reporters out in Capitol Hill this week and he hinted that the Ethics Committee was looking into Santos, but then he walked it back and he simply said that these are merely complaints that the Ethics Committee is looking at. As far as we can tell, we know that there was a complaint submitted by Representatives Ritchie Torres and Dan Goldman of New York, both of whom are Democrats, essentially asking the Ethics Committee to look into the finances of Santos.
It looks as if he had submitted paperwork to the Federal Election Commission that was incomplete, and they want to get to the bottom, just where the source of his money came from. That really remains a mystery at this point. Right now it's really, at this point, early stages in terms of whether or not he had broken any laws.
Janae Pierre: We'll have more on the trail of lies from Congressman George Santos right after this. [silence] Hey, folks, I'm speaking with WNYC's People & Power politics editor, David Cruz, about Congressman George Santos. Are there any other repercussions for Santos? Is there anything that his constituents can do at this point?
David Cruz: Really, at this point, the short answer is no. It's a petition, and the poll pretty much show that Santos will likely be a very ineffective member of Congress. He himself has indicated that he will be ineffective because he stepped down from two committees because he said he would likely be a distraction. It rendered him to be really an ineffective member of Congress.
Constituents really will have to just wait it out and determine whether or not he resigns, whether the Ethics Committee finds him guilty of some level of transgression, which will likely trigger a vote on whether to expel him, which also seems very unlikely, or he could resign. At the end of the day, the voters do have the power here because Santos will be likely, or maybe not, run for reelection and they'll likely make those voices heard at the ballot box.
Janae Pierre: How likely is it that he'd resign?
David Cruz: At this point, it seems like it's very unlikely. He's really dug himself in in terms of wanting to stay. There's been calls from the Nassau County Republicans, members of his own party, constituents, and even with that level of pressure, it doesn't seem to really phase Santos at this point. He'd be worn down by it eventually, but to see him resign at this point just seems unlikely. He seems to typically just hit back whenever there are detractors. We clearly saw what he said about US Senator Mitt Romney. To see him resign just really at this point seems very unlikely.
Janae Pierre: David, I'm wondering what's preventing other lawmakers from continuing this trend of just lying?
David Cruz: There are several stories that can come out of the George Santo's case. There is this cautionary tale that if you lie the way you do, you will eventually be found out. I think that there is this acceptance, I guess, from the general public that politicians tend to pad the resume a little bit, but not to this extent. I think this would probably serve as a cautionary tale. If you lie this way, you could very well be under major scrutiny and your whole credibility can really be ruined.
I would also think that there is a story to be told about vetting candidates internally as well. The Nassau County Republicans, they felt like they weren't heard in terms of-- and not really fully understanding or verifying much of Santos' biography. I would imagine there's a bit of soul searching in terms of how to really go about the vetting process moving forward.
I also thought that there is a media story to be told in that sometimes when races are not really fully covered, there might be a candidate who comes out who deserves a level of scrutiny, but simply just doesn't get it. There's obviously a whole other story about the local news ecosystem and how it's been really impacted within the last few years, but I feel if you look at that specific angle, you can see that how important having local news coverage can be. It could result in things like this.
Janae Pierre: David Cruz is WNYC's People & Power politics editor. David, thanks for being here.
David Cruz: Thank you.
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