Recently expelled U.S. Rep. George Santos cast his former Capitol Hill colleagues as “frauds” and said he had never heard of major historical figures like James Baldwin in a wide-ranging interview with the comedian Ziwe that aired on Monday.
Santos, who represented the 3rd Congressional District covering parts of eastern Queens and Nassau County, gave the interview after being booted from Congress by a 311-to-114 vote early this month. The former Congress member, who invented large swaths of his background while running for office last year, was ousted after an Ethics Committee investigation found he had likely committed a litany of federal crimes related to using campaign funds on personal indulgences.
He also faces 23 federal criminal charges for allegedly defrauding voters, laundering money and falsifying campaign finance information.
During Santos’ sit-down with Ziwe, a comedian known for her deadpan satirical interview style, he railed against his former colleagues for voting to kick him out of Congress.
“They’re all frauds,” Santos said, in the interview that aired on YouTube Monday. “If you were to put them all under the same scrutiny I was put under, you’d f–cking vacate the whole g–damn building.”
After Ziwe pressed Santos to name the representatives he was referring to several times to no avail, she began rattling off names and asking the ex-lawmaker whether or not they were a fraud. Santos said far-right extremists like U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) do not fall into that category, but others such as U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) — who was recently indicted on federal corruption charges — do.
Santos took the opportunity to slam one of his sharpest critics: U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-Manhattan/Brooklyn).
“He doesn’t pay his rent,” Santos said, referencing Goldman’s landlord suing him earlier this month. In the suit, Goldman’s landlord alleges the Congress member owes him four months of unpaid rent for the swanky Tribeca apartment.
“Dan is owing $180,000 worth of rent right now on his $45,000 monthly rent, which is what most Americans f–cking make a year,” Santos continued. “You let that sh–t sink in.”
The former lawmaker also repeated his vow to run for Congress in the future, but said that down the road he is considering campaigning as an independent instead of a Republican.
“I’ll be back. I’m 35, they’re all in their 50s, I’ll outlive them, each and [every] last one of them,” Santos said of his former colleagues.
In another portion of the sit-down, the comedian listed several historical “icons” and asked what they mean to Santos.
“Who the hell is James Baldwin?” Santos asked in response to Ziwe naming the late author and civil rights champion. When asked about deceased politician and gay rights activist Harvey Milk, Santos said “I have no clue who that is.”
Moving into more philosophical territory, Ziwe asked Santos if he could define “empathy.” Santos could not explain the term but “believes” it applies to him.
“You know, what’s great about that? Empathy to me is probably, I don’t understand it because people will accuse me of having no empathy, and maybe I can’t define empathy,” Santos said. “ But I believe I’m empathetic, to causes, to people, to situations.”
