Serial liar congressman George Santos says ‘the truth still matters’

The Republicans are under siege Rep. George Santos come to the floor of the House on several days to give short speeches – celebrating small businesses owned by women, a special high school in her district or raising concerns about the diversity of countries in the crisis.

Other times he can be seen running through the halls of the US Capitol as lawmakers do, from one meeting to the next. He once the donuts are gone of the press corps staking his office.

Far from chastening widespread criticism, ridicule and rejection which Santos received afterwards who admitted to making many aspects of his life story, the newly elected congressman is moving forward in Congress. He rejected calls for his resignation all while rewriting the narrative in real time.

For Santos, it’s a unique up-is-down approach that would have been almost unimaginable to an earlier generation but one that heralds new norms held amid the depths of a post-truth era in Congress. .

“The people elected me to come here to represent them, and I do that every day,” Santos told The Associated Press in a brief interview on the House floor.

“This is hard work. If I said it was easy, I’d be lying to you — and I don’t think that’s what we want, right?”

Pressed about the idea of ​​a post-truth era, Santos said, “I think the truth is very important.”

Maybe not since Donald Trump launched his presidency with exaggerated claims of the number of people at his inauguration with an elected official who arrived in Washington and sought boldly and defiantly to convince the public of a reality different than the one before them .

Santos is coming of age in politics at a time of a lackluster civic life, when a sworn member of the US Congress can continue, business as usual, despite admitting to lying to the voters. about his resume, experience and personal life while he was running. for elected office.

While Santos faces a crush of investigations — in House Ethics Committee and a New York county prosecutor – as well as questions from previous cases in Brazil, where he lived for a while, he seems unmoved by the challenges.

Just a few days ago, Santos filed papers to potentially run for re-election.

“It used to be that if a politician lied, and they were caught, they were ashamed – or there was some kind of accountability,” said Lee McIntyre, the author of “Post-Truth” and a research associate at Boston University.

“What I see in the post-truth era is not just that people lie or lie more, it’s that they lie with political intent,” he said. “The scary part is getting away with it.”

At stake is not just “truth,” as comedian Stephen Colbert once called lies in public life, but broader questions about the expectation of truth-telling from political leadership.

Santos admits that he describes himself as something he is not – not a college graduate, not a Wall Street whiz, not from a Jewish family of Holocaust survivors, not the child who lost his mother in 9/11 World Trade Center attack.

Since then, more questions have flowed, including about the origin of a $700,000 loan he made to his campaign for Congress and his self-reported wealth.

Fellow Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito of New York, a freshman who won election last fall from neighboring Long Island’s district, said: “I don’t think this is the state of politics. I think it’s an individual’s situation – and the situation he’s in is a delusion.

D’Esposito introduced a pair of bills that would prevent elected officials from profiting from wrongdoing and said he is working with others to ensure that Santos is not “the face of our party. We have made it clear when “Okay. He’s not our brand. He’s not part of us.”

While Santos did remove himself from his committee assignments as the investigations continued, he faced pressure from Republicans to resign and from Democrats to be impeached.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who won a slim Republican majority with a handful of seats to spare, said voters chose Santos and “he has the right to serve.” If found guilty, Santos could be removed from office, he said.

“He should have resigned a long time ago,” said Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the Democratic president of the freshman class who sponsored the resolution to expel Santos.

“This is not just what the Democrats and their Republican colleagues in New York are saying,” Garcia said in an interview. “He doesn’t want anything in DC”

But Santos appeared emboldened as his profile rose, despite being parodied on “Saturday Night Live.” He has introduced his own bills in Congress — including one requiring cognitive tests for presidents — and is trying to move forward.

“I own it, and I’m cleaning it up,” he said, referring to the public apology he made in December.

When President Joe Biden arrived to deliver the State of the Union address last month, Santos angered his colleagues by positioning himself in the center aisle — the place to see and be seen greeting the high-profile guests. He is criticized by fellow Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, who said it was inappropriate for Santos to “parade in front of the president” and so on.

“Senator Romney just echoed something I’ve heard all my life, right, from a minority group, from a poor family: Go into the back room and shut up. Nobody cares to hear about you,” Santos recalled. “Well, I won’t do that.”

Santos often turns the tables, engaging in the whataboutism that has become commonplace in modern politics – the verbal somersault of matching one’s actions with another’s, even if they are not in the same circumstances.

“You know,” said Santos, “haven’t you ever lied? Think hard.”

It’s what McIntyre calls a classic “disinformation tactic” designed to provide not clarity but confusion, and avoid accountability.

Asked if he was here to stay, Santos said, “I’m here to do the job I was elected to do for the next two years.”

But will he run for reelection? “Maybe.”



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