George Santos Isn’t Going To Let…All That Keep Him From Running For Re-Election

Last week George Santos avoided a dark fate: His fellow House representatives voted against expelling him from the chamber. That doesn’t mean he’s out of the woods just yet. The New York lawmaker is still facing a House ethics probe, which may prompt another expulsion vote. (Oh, and he still has a federal investigation to worry about.) But for now, at least, Santos is worrying about that and is doing what he’s been doing for the last 10 months: pretending that everything is normal while constantly fielding questions about the prolific allegations against him.

In an interview that aired in full Sunday, Santos sat down with CNN’s Manu Raju, and the two talked about his chances to keep his House seat in 2024. He seemed cautiously optimistic, saying he would “absolutely” run again even if he’s expelled.

“Elections are tricky,” Santos replied. “There’s no predetermined outcome.”

Santos then made a curious argument: that people probably didn’t even notice the many embellishments and outright lies he told during his election campaign.

“Nobody elected me because I played volleyball or not. Nobody elected me because I graduated college,” Santos said. “Nobody knew my biography, nobody opened my biography who voted for me.”

Santos was of course referring to two of his medium-sized whoppers, namely that he was a college volleyball star and that he has a diploma from Baruch College. Neither is true. And few, it seemed, knew they were true until after he’d already been elected.

Since then, reporters have belatedly dug into Santos’ claims, debunking one bizarre lie after another, including his claim that his mother died in the September 11 attacks. (She wasn’t even in New York then.) Santos has stubbornly held fast, although John Oliver recently argued that his “most transparent lie” may be that he doesn’t care that fellow House Republican Steve Scalise has been snubbing him, because even he doesn’t want his stench on him.

In the meantime, Santos has another year to convince voters that a guy who lied about being a producer on one of Broadway’s biggest disaster is someone to trust with anything.

(Via Huffpost)