“Who else pulls an expulsion look like I did?,” George Santos told me last week over lunch, sipping champagne out of a flute, with a splash of orange juice. “Don’t give a gay man an assignment, and get mad when he understands it.”
You might think being ejected from Congress, amid a media frenzy covering nearly every detail of your biography as a lie, a House ethics probe examining every line of your paperwork, and a twenty-three count federal indictment, would kill your career. But you would be wrong. You might then think all that would at least kill your mood. But then, too, you would be wrong.
“I never thought I would say these words, but now I’ve become…a pop culture icon,” he adds, insisting, “and I’m still very conservative.”
Santos has a different vibe than he did almost a year ago, when I first met him. He was already emerging as somewhat of a political cultural fixture then — he showed up at my 30th birthday party, which was written about in New York Magazine, where he was dubbed “MAGA It Girl” — but he came off guarded, anxious, stilted, wound up. At that time, his woes weren’t at all as bad as they are now, when his biggest problem was pretty much media drama — a (very) biting New York Times story that led him to voluntarily step away from his committee assignments. Now, he’s just lost his job, he’s cleaning out his DC apartment, and he’s being hounded by nonstop press requests and the Department of Justice, but he seems so much happier and much more confident.
“It’s funny, when I first met you it was last February, and I find that now, you seem so much lighter, you felt stressed when I met you,” I tell the former congressman after he just finished telling me he thinks he’s going to federal prison.
“I’ve been freed from the shackles of Congress,” he quickly cuts me off.
“The hate is over”
“Do you remember Aladdin, as a kid? Remember when Aladdin wishes the genie free? That’s kinda how I feel right now,” he explains, laughing. “People say, ‘Hey can you advocate for a bill?’ No! ‘Can I get a wish?’ No!” He breaks out into “Free,” the 90’s dance song by Ultra Naté.
We are sitting at my table at the Upper East Side’s Beach Cafe, a now somewhat infamous hangout for conservative writers in New York City, described in New York Magazine as “the Republican Cheers,” and Page Six as a “powerhouse political hangout.” It’s really just an American bistro that will host a clique too ink-stained and distasteful to mingle in polite liberal society. Until recently, that was basically the only spot Santos could appear at in the city — and even then, it would always get buzzy when he walked in — but now, he tells me, that has changed.
“I really love the job [as a congressman], but I was, like, shackled, I couldn’t do anything,” Santos continues. “That’s gone. I was just getting out of the car, and some Spanish guy was, like, ‘Amigo! Como estas!’ and I’m like, oh my God, that wasn’t the reception just three weeks ago. It’d be like, ‘Resign!'”
“We were in Jamaica, Queens, two days ago — Jamaica fucking Queens — by the courthouse, and I’m coming back into the car, and this guy from the street starts screaming, ‘George! George!’ — This really well-dressed guy comes up to me and he’s like, ‘I love you, you got a raw deal, fuck them, can I get a selfie?’ The hate is over.”
The well-dressed guy in Jamaica fucking Queens isn’t the only one looking to get a glimpse of Santos. The former congressman is making five figures — per day — being a “Cameo superstar.”
I tell him I think I read he’s making $150 grand a year on Cameo, and he interrupts: “You mean a week? Get your shit right!”
The waiter interrupts to hand us another round of mimosas, as Santos shows me the list of hundreds of order requests for a 30-second video of him saying “happy birthday” in a sassy tone for a fee of $500. “Essentially every time I click on one of these and turn on my camera, I’m printing money.”
“I broke every marker in history. The title holder of most requests in a day and highest revenue was Bon Jovi and Sarah Jessica Parker— I dwarfed them,” he tells me.
“I’m a fan of both of them,” he says, as he belts out, “Shot through the heart!” “It’s like, I can’t believe this, but hey, here we are.”
George Santos, brought to you by AOC
His cavalier attitude and excitement about his new status as an “icon” has me convinced of his consolation, until he tells me his (real?) background and entrée into politics — “born in the ghetto” and led into the arena by a populist groundswell in recent years that produced former President Donald Trump and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who he tells me was his inspiration.
“I was born in the ghetto… in Jackson Heights, Queens, in a basement apartment, to two immigrant parents. My dad was a blue collar guy, and my mom worked odd jobs. Got into corporate America, worked in corporate America,” he recalls. “I always thought politics was for Clintons and Bushes, the rich people of the world, the Kennedys … It was until it wasn’t. You know who changed that? AOC.”
“AOC — hate her or love her — she showed me. I never thought I’d run for office until she won!” His tone starts to trail up and he is visibly excited talking about the Bronx upstart rep. “I’m like, wait, she won, the bartender from the Bronx, or, Jenny from the block, that can’t even point out the block,” he laughs, sipping on a second, or third, I’m not sure what round we’re on now. “I go, ‘Wait, I can do this shit too!’ So I said let’s do it!”
Capitol thrill: sex and money in Congress
Santos eventually launches into a catty polemic, rattling off gossipy accusations against his former House colleagues.
“You know what’s funny,” he muses, “if every member of Congress went through the same scrutiny I went through… you would see so…” he trails off; he’s in bitch mode.
“You know there’s members of Congress fucking each other. Meanwhile, they’re both married.”
I’m somewhat disappointed — I was a producer in primetime television and edited a New York tabloid; class presidents hooking up doesn’t do a lot to get my attention — “Oh, I bet. I’m sure that’s the least of it.”
But he goes on, “When I went into Congress, I realized there were a bunch of homos, when I first walked in and started meeting these guys, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, he’s gay.’ There are members of the Republican Party who are closeted, so deeply closeted its disturbing. I’m like, ‘Wait, why are these guys so closeted?'” Okay, now I’m sitting up straighter; scathing delivery of that last line, in his gay twang.
Without naming names (boo), he pivots from sex to money.
“They’re selling the country down the river,” he says of members of Congress. “I actually witnessed conversations of them saying, ‘Oh, this lobbyist is who’s the better one, she’ll hook you up on your campaign, just vote for this.’ I mean, selling the country out, openly, on the House floor. These are the same people who turned around and voted to expel me without allowing me an ounce of due process.”
“[Rep.] Nicole Malliostocktips (Malliotakis) (R-NY) is insider trading. [Rep.] Mike Lawler (R-NY) is taking money from his campaign and paying his company that he has stake in. Did you see [Rep.] Brandon Williams’ (R-NY) daughter is an OnlyFans porn star? I mean, I can go on and on,” he claims. I’m amused.
The Wall Street Journal reported in April that Malliotakis bought stock in a regional bank before it took over Signature Bank’s deposits following its closure. “Days before she bought the stock, she said she met with financial regulators to discuss the bank’s closure,” the Journal writes.
Local paper City and State reported in October that Lawler paid his consulting firm, which he reportedly currently works at while being a sitting member of Congress, over $200,000 in consulting fees from his Assembly campaign and his congressional campaign.
The same day Santos and I met, reports surfaced that Williams outed his daughter as a camgirl after, he alleges, his former aides threatened to expose her.
“Kay Granger, the chairwoman for appropriations, gets up in the middle of a meeting [to negotiate a continuing resolution], the whole conference was there, she gets up and says, ‘I have a fundraiser to go to with all my lobbyist donors, I can’t sit here anymore,’ and leaves. ‘Fuck the American people, donors are more important.’ That’s the mentality in Washington, DC. Whoever greases your pockets the most, matters the most. That’s it.”
Axios reported in September on the meeting Santos was referring to in our conversation, that Granger walked out of a special meeting to discuss government funding to avert a shutdown, so that she could attend a fundraiser. “Granger left the 4:00 p.m. meeting to attend a 4:30 reception for her that was on the rooftop of a lobbying firm,” the outlet reported, adding that attendees paid $1,000 a head to be there.
Speaker Jeffries
“It’s a joke, the whole thing is a joke.” He’s leaning forward. “Everything they do in that building is for themselves, it’s for their own special interests, and their self-interest, and self-promoting, benefits, so they can make money.”
“Here’s my prediction for you,” this isn’t bitch mode anymore, “we will change power of the House, from one party to the other, without having an election. We will be swearing in [Rep.] Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) as Speaker of the House at some point next year.”
“I vehemently believe that, like, every fiber in my being, I believe that’s going to happen.”
As we are just about to drop that black pill in our flutes, we are interrupted by a (handsome, as Santos makes sure to point out, and he’s not wrong) man who approaches the table with books under his arm. He is a book agent, here to court George.
Curtain Call
“Congress is theater,” was one line Santos told me during our rendez-vous that I walked out of the restaurant thinking about. “It’s all for show.”
I think most people who watch politics with a close eye know this, but this episode illustrates it in a way we rarely see.
I know we’re supposed to be shocked and appalled with Santos’s pathological lying about his life and background, past experience, his alleged misuse of campaign funds and alleged violation of campaign finance law, his flagrant violation of trust that is supposed to exist between the people and their representatives.
But, did Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) not lie about her ethnicity? Did Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) not lie about his career? Did Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) not pay herself, via her boyfriend, then husband, through her campaign? Did Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) not do much worse than anything Santos is accused of? Are we all just supposed to be mad at Santos because he was less graceful about it? I’m supposed to be mad at him for being less polished about it? Is that the reason for the cult following Santos has now garnered?
Santos is in no small part — intentionally and unintentionally — a performance artist. He is a caricature of modern American politics, and his existence and subsequent fame holds a mirror up to a political system that is morally bankrupt and extremely online. He seems to clearly understand the moment we live in, though, and the potentially lucrative opportunities for people who do. That said, he is resting in power now, but we live in a culture that can hold attention as long as it takes to read a meme. But for reasons that I can’t fully explain, I’m rooting for Santos’s Act Two.
Emma-Jo Morris is the Politics Editor at Breitbart News. Email her at ejmorris@breitbart.com or follow her on Twitter.