Locked In with Ian Bick - George Santos: How I Survived Prison

Episode Date: November 30, 2025

George Santos sits down with Ian Bick for his most revealing interview yet — sharing how he went from serving in Congress to serving time behind bars. In this episode, Santos opens up about the investigations, the scandals, the pressure, the downfall, and what prison was really like on the inside. He discusses the moment everything came crashing down, how he survived prison life, what he learned about himself on the inside, and how he views his future now that he’s out. Santos also speaks candidly about corruption, power, public scrutiny, media narratives, and how quickly someone in politics can rise — and fall. Whether you know him from headlines, controversies, or comedy sketches, this conversation goes far beyond the memes and viral clips. This is George Santos telling his story in his own words: the mistakes, the reality check, the consequences, and the lessons he took from prison and public disgrace. #GeorgeSantos #PoliticalScandal #PrisonStories #TrueCrimePodcast #LockedInWithIanBick #FederalCase #PublicCorruption #redemptionstory Thank you to AURA FRAMES, BLUECHEW & CASH APP for sponsoring this episode: Aura Frames:  Exclusive $35 off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/LOCKEDIN. Promo Code LOCKEDIN BlueChew: Get 10% off your first month of BlueChew Gold with code LOCKEDIN. Visit https://bluechew.com/ for more details and important safety information Cash App: Download Cash App Today: https://click.cash.app/ui6m/6pao71et #CashAppPod Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. Connect with George Santos: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georgesantosny/?hl=en X: https://x.com/Georgesantos Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00 George Santos Interview Intro 02:35 Growing Up in Queens: Childhood, Family & Early Identity 06:11 Teen Years: Bullying, Ambition & First Taste of Politics 09:37 First Jobs, Hardship & Building a Career 13:39 Career Shifts: From Sales to Political Aspirations 18:10 Entering Politics: Motivation & Winning a Congressional Seat 23:52 Inside Congress: Daily Life, Pressure & Losing Control 27:00 What Being a Congressman Really Means 34:38 Scandals, Wealth Questions & Political Controversies 39:31 Campaign Funding, Donations & The Fallout 43:10 Media Frenzy, Vulnerability & Weaponized Politics 50:57 Indictment Breakdown: DOJ, Prosecutors & Court Reality 01:01:48 Life After Indictment & Expulsion from Congress 01:10:08 Prison Sentence: Emotional Toll & Facing Time 01:17:03 First Days in Prison: Shock, Fear & Reality 01:22:28 Inside Federal Prison: Culture, Routines & Staff 01:26:41 Solitary Confinement & Systemic Injustice 01:32:00 Release, Pardon & Returning Home 01:39:00 Lessons Learned, Redemption & Advocacy Work 01:44:36 Closing Thoughts: Misconceptions, Regret & Moving Forward Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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What's happening? I cried. I sobbed. I wept like a little baby. How is that not insider trade? It is. Do you think the Department of Justice was weaponized against you at the time? 100%.

It was get George and fine crimes. Do you think people with money in the criminal justice system get away with a lot more? If it's not classified, I'll tell you it. Tell us about day one in prison, self-surrendering everything. Don't drop the soap. George Santos went from Congress to a prison cell, and today he's sitting down to explain exactly how it happened and how he survived it.

George Santos, welcome to Lockton, man. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. Ian, it's great to be with you. Just so fun being here, but touring your studio has been wild. That's the best part. All the guests love it. You just gave me a little bit too much deja vuille. by going into an actual prison cell. But yeah, I know, very, very cool. Yeah, and you just left one

three weeks ago. Normally the guests are months or even years out. Yeah, no, five weeks ago, but five weeks ago, you know what, I got to say, I did not miss it. You just proved to me I did not miss it. Yeah, that's always the best part. I feel like it's such a good icebreaker, especially with people that, you know, went to prison that can come and see it and feel it. I mean, prison, prison was so sobering for me. And to go back in there now and see it and the way you have like all the food in there, like, oh my God, this is like, it's like a real commissary hall. You just didn't have sodas out there.

Yeah, we actually put it in the fridge. Wait, you guys had bottles? Yeah, we had bottles. Oh, that's new. Oh, what did you have cans? Yeah, cans or the fake soda machine. Oh, no, we totally bottles. And it sucks because it's all Pepsi products and I hate Pepsi.

I have a diet Coke obsession and addiction. It's so good. Like one can of Diet Coke a day. is like my rule. And it's just like not having that was just really rough because I hate Pepsi. Yeah. Where do you grow up, George? New York City.

Born and raised. And it's great that we get to talk about this because nobody's ever asked me that. And people always like, well, he says like, no, let me correct the record. Born and raised in Queens. Born in Jackson Heights, Queens, Elmerst Hospital, very specific, okay? And grew up in Queens my whole life. I've lived in various parts of Queens as an adult moved to Manhattan for like a couple of years. like almost like a whiplash ran back to Queens after like three years in Manhattan saying like,

you know what? I was tired of having to go walk my dog in a sidewalk and compete for space for my dog to pop a squat. I was just like, no, I can't do this anymore. So it went back to Queens where we have like more suburbia lifestyle. And now we're leaving New York City after 37 years. Who are you raised by? I was raised by my mom predominantly. My parents divorced at the age of 10 when I was 10.

and my sister was going on two. So it was predominantly raised by my mom. But, you know, mom and it took a village kind of like my aunts and uncles kind of chipped in. So it was a group effort. What did your mom do for work? So my mom worked, my mom when she came to this country, like everyone else, she scrubbed toilets. And my mom worked secretarial jobs. She worked cooking jobs.

And I was a private chef type person. So she worked a lot of, she did what she had to do. Let's just put it that way in order to put food on the table and keep the roof over our head. Did you have any relationship with your dad at all? Not for like a good solid chunk of my life. I last saw him at 10, maybe in between 10 and 21. I saw him twice, but just like in passing essentially. So it was like an 11 year like suspension.

But today I have a relationship with my father. Hey, he was one of my shirt or so I could stay out of prison on bail. Oh, thanks, dad. Do you think that had a big impact on your life, not being raised by your head? A hundred percent. Everybody has an impact when you grow up in a fractured home. It's tough, you know, but I'm not making an excuse of it. I'm just saying it's tough.

It's not easy. What was teenage George like? You know, I was a really sweet kid. You're still sweet. I don't know about that. It depends who you ask. It depends who you ask, really. Like, if you get on my bad side, like, I'll Virginia George.

So, no, but really, teenage Georgia, I was a sweet kid. I was bullied a lot. So I was like the most popular kid in school when I was in junior high, kind of ran the show. And then in high school, it became so toxic. People, like, I was threatened to be stabbed. And that's what led me to leaving high school and getting a GD. I said, I can't do this. Like, the bullying was incessant.

I was like a good kid. I didn't know how to stand up for myself, even though I did Jiu-Jitsu. You would think, like, I would, but you're also taught when you're grappling to not use it as to weaponize the, the art of jiu-tuttu and, and like your, your martial art skills. So it's like I had good restraint in that, in that sense, but never really, um, nothing eventful as a teenager. It was just like a good kid, like, easy, sweet kid. Why'd they bully you? You know, I don't know until this day. I don't, so there was this misconception that I was a rich kid, which I wasn't, but my uncle who drove an escalate at the time would pick me and my cousin up from school. So we were both very much bullied, she and I. But I think it was because of the whole, he gets in an escalate every day after school and he's dropped off by another car. So, you know, and then my cousin, this is, I'll put this on my cousin, Ashley, who I think she told some of her friends that her dad was her driver.

as we were attending public school. And I did not know that until like months later. And then I'm like in the car with I'm like, wait, why do you tell people your dad's your driver? He goes like, you said I'm what? I was like, that was like, we're talking junior high high school. Like eighth grade, ninth grade, somewhere in between there. And he started forcing her to go home walking, which was not a bad walk. It was like maybe 15 block walk, which easy like 15 minute walk, you know.

But yeah, that was that was, it started there. And my aunt, who was a great part of, like, raising me with my mom, she went out of her way to make sure that I, I looked apart. So I never got into streetwear, right? So like what you see me dressing up, like this whole sweater vest, collar or polo shirt, I've dressed like this my whole life. I don't know any better or do any better on on that. So I looked that very disconnected, especially going to like IS-125 in Sunnyside in Queens, going to junior high there. Kids were rocking like Echo, like big the rhino like logo and like Jordans. And I'm like, like, spears and loafers.

Tods. I'm like, yeah, let's go. Or my occasional, you know, very regular pay-lust stuff. So it's like it wasn't really, I don't know, I just didn't fit in. I never really fit in. What were your aspirations while you were in high school for the future? Did you ever see yourself getting into politics? I always like politics since I was a kid.

My aunt, Vicky, who was, again, big part of my life, my mom's older sister. She would teach me about politics from the age like four. So my whole family calls me Anthony. So let me clear this out because it's a big, like, He has, what is Israel? My name is George Anthony DeVolder Santos. George Santos is the man, the politician, right? Hello, right?

But my whole family calls me Anthony. And the reason George Anthony comes into play is it was a dispute between my mom and my dad. She wanted me to be Anthony. He wanted me to be George because she wanted to honor her brother Antonio who passed. He wanted to honor his brother Jorge. But they refused to make my name Jorge Antonio because I'd sound like a soap opera, like actor. So they went with George Anthony, but Anthony stuck. Right.

So my family still calls me Anthony. So as a little kid, my aunt would be like, Anthony, who's the mayor? And I'd be like, Giuliani, who's the governor, Pataki, you know, who's the president, Bill Clinton. So that was kind of like my upbringing, right? I was doing that. And I was always very interested in politics. And that aunt of mine is super conservative. But I'm not going to say like right-wing extremists or anything like.

It's just a conservative woman. I don't know what her views are on Trump. I never asked. But she was George Bush. It was like God in the sky and George Bush on earth. That was kind of like the vibe there. So I was always political, I guess, from a very young age. So do you think her beliefs shaped your beliefs or do you learn those independently?

I think politics are, they are environmental. So there was an environmental play with, politics and I did listen a lot to my aunt's beliefs, but I also shaped my own. I just gravitated towards conservative beliefs because I believe in like savings, you know, like, like basic macro and microeconomics. And I was just like, that makes sense. Dems don't seem to care about spending. So that's kind of why I gravitated. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers.

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And I showed up the third time. Did not even half the semester got a double grade and like bounced. I can do it. I can do it. Which is funny because we'll get to that probably eventually. But I started working at 17. And my first job ever was at a tattoo shop in the village called Kingdom Tattoo. Now, my dad was horrified because I needed to fit in.

So what do I do to fit in? I'm not getting tattooed. So I had a tongue piercing. You got a tongue piercing? I don't have it anymore. No, you had one. I had one just to fit in. And then I started and then the same like size, I think it was like a 14 gauge.

I got both my ears pierced at the time. So I'm like walking around and my dad just like, what is going on? The tattoo owners don't know I'm 17. They think I'm 18. They never asked for an idea. These very nice Arabs. And I was working to graveyard shift because it was 24-7, not 24-7. It went up to 4 a.m.

And then it closed at 4 a.m. And it would reopen again at 8 a.m. So there was like that little four hours of closure. But I was there from I think it was 8 to 4 or 7 to 4, something like that during the night with like all the crackheads, all. the drug dealers. I mean, that's that night, too, when the celebrities go out to get tattoos. So Chris Brown comes into one tattoo shop, which was ours, and Rihanna went next door. Same night, right? This is like, I'm like a kid. So these guys are like roaming within the environment. It was just like a random, like, sensation. So that was my very first gig. I priced out a tattoo for Chris Brown.

So that was my very first job. And then I moved on to getting a job as an apprentice as in the stock exchange, aka I was a coffee bitch. So I did that for like, I want to be nine months, almost a year. And then I turned that into a job. I actually got jobs after that in an export and import company called K2 International. Then I went to another company called Lodick, Inc. There's a very funny story there. So I quit K2. to international because I didn't want to do the job anymore. Put out my resume. I got a job at Lodick.

So funny enough, they were both in the same building on 32nd Street between Broadway and 5th and Manhattan. And one's on the ninth floor, the other one's on the 6th floor. And I'm just like, God, I really hope I don't bump into those assholes, right? Like on my way up, whatever. So I get the job at Lodick, Inc. and like three months into the job, I'm sitting there, and my old boss walks in. Turns out the owner of K2 International and Laudecank were brothers.

So I'm sitting there like, what is going on? So that's kind of like the beginning right after high school for me. I think I, this was like I covered up until like probably 23, 24 years old. So that was kind of it. And then after that, I did, oh my God, what I'm like, this is like a work history. like check. This is your resume. It's like my resume, my real one at least. So after that, I did oh, I did Dish Network. So I went to do customer service at Dish Network, bilingual, because they needed people who spoke Portuguese. I speak Portuguese fluently. Matter of fact, Portuguese was

my first language at home with my, both my parents are Brazilian, which Blue Birdie told me you dated Brazilian girl. Yeah, she's Brazilian. Yeah. You might meet her. She might be here by the time you were done. There you go. So, um, so I went to DISH. I worked at DISH Network for six months. I got to tell you, no shit, no shade at all out there to customer service agents. God bless you guys, but I will say this. I don't know what Charlie Ergen was on, the CEO of DISH, but it is not normal that a customer service agent makes like eight grand biweekly because that's what I was pulling in because it was so sales incentive, incentivized. I'm a great salesman. I'm a great salesman. I will sell you shit you don't need.

And I was selling, like, month one on the job, I was the employee of the month for the whole company. Not just a call center for the whole fucking company selling like a lunatic. People would literally got to a point that they would audit every call of my thinking I was just adding shit there without permission. And they were shocked if I know that I was just that good. So I started training people and like giving them like one-offs. I'm like, this is how you do it. You just got to work your magic, you know? It's like, I'll give you a sale because you.

you're so loyal, but here, you know what? Since you're getting the sale, why don't you get this? Now it's only going to be $2 a month and you get HBO for six months for two bucks a month. That's nothing. Oh, yeah, that sounds like a great deal. Sign me up. Like, that was me. Like, literally, people forget to cancel that shit.

Don't you like forget to cancel subscriptions? So that was kind of like, yeah, that's the point. I was just on to it just many years ago. So that was me at DISH network. And then after that, I started my real career, which I went to work for Met Global, It's a big tech hospitality company out of Istanbul. They worked there for a couple of years. Actually moved from New York to Orlando briefly in 2016 to do, to start up their new office there.

Like I was part of the team where they built this massive office in Orlando in Lake Mary. And then from there, I was recruited to go work for Linkbridge investors. And I became their vice president. They were startup. That was a big PE fundraising slash. conference host company. I did that for a couple of years. Then a client recruited me out of there. I worked for the client Harbor City Capital, which was a private equity firm for about two and a half years. And then they went defunct as a Ponzi scheme. And I was just like shocked.

I didn't even know it was a Ponzi. Nobody knew. The fact that the owner, J.P. Maroney was just like robbered Peter to pay Paul for the longest. And then who else? And then after that, it was I started my own company, DeVolder Corporation. And, you know, I did very well for myself. And then I ran for Congress and won. If you're a last minute shopper like me, you already know the pain. Shelves are empty. Ideas are terrible.

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I really wanted to make a difference. And turns out that I chose every wrong way to do it. Like, think about, I had such a compelling story, like the rags to riches story that everybody loves. And I don't know why, like, it's one thing led to another that led to another. And I'm like, a little lie here becomes a bigger lie there. And it's just like, it's a rat string. And just like, whoops. But I went to politics because I really wanted to do something. And you know what I learned in politics?

You can't do shit. Nothing can be achieved in politics. I mean, we're at a point. in our country where politics and political rhetoric is so divisive. It's dangerous. And quite frankly, just not worth my time. You couldn't pay me to go back to politics. When you ran, did you think you were going to win? Yes. You just knew like you had the feeling? I did. I just knew I was going to win. I don't half-ass anything. It's like I just don't. And it sounds arrogant and I'm not trying to be arrogant. I'm just trying to, I'm giving you an honest reaction.

I knew I was going to win six months before election day. It was a feeling. Like, the connection with the people was so amazing. I would walk into places. People would line up to come say hi to me. I couldn't have dinner. Like, it was like wild. And that's when I said, no, people see me as their representative already.

And I get goosebumps saying that because it was such a wild reaction. And it's the American dream, right? Like, that's your living it at that point. But it was wild. I just knew it. I'd lie to you if I said, no, I don't know. You know, I was nervous. No, I just knew it from the get-go.

What do you think was the key to your success? Was it capitalizing on social media and the news, kind of doing what others were doing at that time period? Being young. I was 34. And it was more about being young. It was more about being dynamic. I'm very charismatic, or so they say.

And I'm a workhorse. I mean, I'd be up from six to like two every day. I was out there. Well, I, I worked every aspect of my campaign from door knocking to canvas to going out at night to putting out lawn signs. You know, like when you see the lawn signs on the roads, I was out there with the crew with the volunteers. And that also gave me respect because they respected me so much more for that because they're like, holy crap, this dude is like here. He's with us. He's not just asking us to do this.

He's doing it with us, right? he's not just asking us to door knock. He's door knocking with us, right? So, um, I just involved, I mean, dude, there was like, if we were going to do like anything, like let's just say ribbons, right? And little, you know, those little pin ribbons for whatever cause. I was sitting there at the staff cutting little fucking ribbons and putting safety pins on them. Like, I, I'm just involved, you know, I, every aspect of the campaign to the designs of everything we would post. And I just wanted to be a part of it. And, and I was very entrenched. I didn't just go like, oh, here's a check, go run the campaign for me and just sit back and just show up. No, I showed up.

I did my part. Do you think a lot of politicians lose sight of that once they stay years in office? Funny, I was just talking to a friend of mine in Congress. She's in Congress. I'm not going to say her name, just for the sakes of privacy. And I asked her so, like, how's it? She's like, you know what? It's okay. But I don't want to stay here much longer because I don't want to lose sight of why I came here. And this is a person who's great resolve, right? Very strong, independent conservative woman in Congress. And she said to me, like, I will stay here, but not more than, you know, four terms, five maybe. I don't want to lose sight of who I am or why I came here.

And listening to that is so humbling because, you know, you have a Republican fellow who I like, we call him Judge Carter out of Texas. I mean, he's 80-something years old. He's been in Congress already for 22 years. He's running for re-election. While all the older members seem to now be retiring like Pelosi after 36 years and all these other, Steny Hoyer, after 42 years. Like, you know, we have a guy in New Jersey called Chris Smith. He's been in Congress for 45 years.

By the end of this term, he'll be 46. Like, dude, we're elected with Reagan. Like, fuck off. Like, and I mean this, like, respectfully, like, make way for somebody younger. And I mean this bipartisanly, too. Like, thank God, Jerry Nadler's retiring. Like, oh, my goodness. It's like, you lose sight.

They lose sight. They have no clue. I was just telling Matt while I was driving here, dude, I hate driving. Do you know why I hate driving? Very simple. Because I had a driver for five years. Between campaigning and being a politician, I had a driver, driving me everywhere. I didn't have to drive.

Now I hate driving. And I have to drive. And when I have to drive, I'm pissed. I'm like, I need a driver, but I can't afford one. It's just like, fuck. How does one even cope with that? You know, it's like very frustrating. So these are things that do make you lose touch.

And I didn't even realize I was losing touch with like, we all have to drive. Like, here I am complaining. I'm like, I don't like driving. I want a driver. Like that's just an example of how much and how quick you lose sight of like, you know, reality. What does your role do for people that don't know what you were elected for? So as a United States congressman, you represent your district, right, your constituency of up to 750,000 people in the federal government, right? And this is where the power of the purse strings are in government.

So Congress decides where we spend money on what community projects and environmental projects and safety, public safety. all of that runs through Congress through the appropriations process, right? So my role was really to advocate for things that were beneficial to my district. Because remember, there's 435 of us in the House and then 100 senators. And that's excluding all the delegates from the territories, right? We're all fighting one another to figure out within the budget. I like saying within the budget, like as if we've really respected a budget in this country. But within the confines of spending that we –

gargantiously do to bring something back home. You know, when you look at your paycheck, you see those federal tax deductions. That goes to the Treasury, and then we decide what to fund and how to spend it. So it is my obligation to bring a lot of that money back to you, you know, to make sure that the people of the 3rd District of New York on Queens and Nassau County are getting some of their money backs them and it's not going to Kentucky, you know, which we hyper subsidized states like Kentucky, Pennsylvania, you know, these are states that pay much less in taxes and receive over dollar for dollar versus New York who pays, you know, I think, if I'm mistaken, the third

largest contributor of taxes to the country. It's California, New York, and I believe Massachusetts, I could be a little rusty on that, or Illinois, either or. But we're not getting dollar for dollar back. We're lucky. Like, I'll say this about Chuck Schumer, which I don't like, the United States Senator of New York. I'll give him praise that he managed for the first time in a long time to get dollar for dollar back for New York in 2022.

I had to like, there you go, Chuckie. You did something. You know, even though I didn't fund anything I agreed on, I thought it was impressive. He managed to bring back dollar for dollar. Everything we gave came back. Historically, it was like 90 cents, 85 cents on the dollar. So that's what. what a U.S. representative does in a nutshell. And then there's all the little meandering things that we do.

Like, oh, if your passport's delayed, I can get you an expedited passport. Trust me, we did tons of those. You know, you have immigration issues with your spouses, your petitioning. We can help. You're stranded abroad during the Israel October 7th crisis. I was on the phone with the State Department. Forget it. It's nuts. I had a total of 33 constituents, a big Jewish constituency in my district. So I was on the phone, like, until 2 o'clock in the morning, talking to State Department rep that was assigned to me, like, quite literally asking her, like, do you sleep? Because I call you at 8 in the morning, call you at 2 in the morning. You're up always. Like, when do you sleep?

Like, well, sleep's been optional, sir. I'm like, well, thank you. And I believe her name was Vanessa, if I'm not mistaken. And that was kind of the energy we had going on. So, you know, those are things we do with. Pool days call for cookouts and lots of laundry. This Memorial Day at Lowe's, save $80 on a Charbroil Performance Series 4-burner gas grill. Now just $199.

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No. If you actually go on social media and do a poll, I think every poll that's ever been done in the last two years about who has been the most successful member of Congress, it's always been me. When I was in Congress, I would do Twitter spaces, now X-spaces. I would be on Instagram lives. I'm not saying other people don't do it. The difference is when Congressman Matt Gates filed the motion to vacate the chair and we fired Speaker McCarthy and we went. and to close doors to elect a new speaker outside of the view of the country, I was actually the only one who had the gall and hoodspot to actually get on social media and live debrief the American

people to like millions and millions of views, articles upon articles being written about how I was breaking decorum of how I was betraying the confidence of my conference on how, you know, And then obviously the sensational stories start. Oh, unnamed source, unnamed high GOP sources and with a non-immunity tell me that they're considering expelling him from the conference because they can't trust him. Well, that never happened. They just kicked me all out of Congress all my one. But my point is, I've always been accessible because I never forgot where I came from as far as like I was that angry person that wanted answers and hated seeing the closed doors. I'll be damned if I'll, like, if it's not classified, I'll tell you it.

If it's classified, I'll just be like, I don't want to go back to prison. I think you would appreciate that. How does life change from, you know, when you're a normal person one day and then election day happens and then you're elected? Does anything significant happen? That's a very funny question. We come home from election night in 2022, November 8th of 2022. I'm sitting like in my bedroom.

So we have a very nice bedroom and we have like a seating area. My husband's amazing. He's like, aren't you going to sleep? It's four o'clock in the morning almost. I'm like, well, I have to do a Fox News, Fox and Friends first hit at five. I'm like, I'm not going to go to sleep and wake up because I'll be completely foggy. He's like, okay, fair. And then I'm sitting there and he's like, do you feel different?

I'm like, that's when I was seer pondering. I don't. That was his question. He was like, do you feel different? I'm like, I actually don't. Like, I don't understand what just happened. Like, I know this big significant thing happened in my life, but it's, again, it didn't feel different. It's like, I'm like, yeah, just me.

I thought it was going to make a really corny reference, but like I thought it was like a Pokemon with an evolution stone. Like, I'm different. I'm congressman now. I'm like, nothing happened. Now, something that's a hot topic on social media right now is how these congressmen go into office with these very small salaries and come out multi-millionaires. Oh, I'd love to tackle this. Okay, let's talk about this. And we're specifically talking about Marjorie Taylor Green, aren't way?

Because that's what's the hot topic. Well, her, but I also saw like AOC's pay. Like she used to campaign on how she was only making X amount. And then it came out recently about how she's worth millions now. Okay. Congressional disclosures are some of the most fucked things out there that need updating. I'm not running cover for politicians here. Okay.

I'm just going to clear the air. I don't know AOC to be corrupt. I don't know Marjorie to be corrupt. Marjorie's my friend. AOC is not my friend. AOC is not my friend, but I had a cordial working relationship with her despite her voting to expel me, but that's neither here or there. We did work with kids on the hill.

Like, you know, I hosted children from my district. She came. I asked her, come on, let's do a yin and yang thing. Like, I don't want them just to be subject to, like a conservative view. Let's bring you. And then she's like, of course. So, like, lovely, you know. Alexandra's a human being.

Alexandria, the politician and policies, not my cup of tea. but again, to each their own. So the way the disclosures are done, they're just so bad because they're so obsolete. They range and the ranges are wild. It's like from, I think it's from $1 to $500,000. And then it's from $501,000 to $1 million. And those are big freaking gaps. And then it gets even larger as the numbers become bigger.

I guess at one point it gets from like. Like from $10 million to $20 million. They're like, there's a whole $10 million in between. And let's just say, for example, you file you have a net worth, you have a net worth of $11 million. You're going to put the range of $10 to $20. How people were going to report on it is like worth up to $20 million, not knowing that you're actually worth $11 and there's a whole $9 million that's nonexistent. Now, follow my thought here. We make $174,000.

Our benefits package are very simple. You accrue, if I'm not mistaken, 5% of your salary after five years, you start get, after five years in Congress, you'll get 5% of your salary as your pension. And then every year after you get 2% a year. For you to get the maximum 80%, you need to serve a whopping 60 years in Congress in order for you to get to that number. I'm sorry, 40 years, pardon me, 40 years in Congress. So that's just number one. Let's, let's square that away. Number two, the pension of a member who serves five years, like in the case of Marjorie Taylor Green, when she retires, if she retires at 62, she'll get a check

for $750 a month. Okay? I mean, stop. That's not enriched at all. Number two, as far as as the net worth goes, a lot of these members are wealthy. A lot of them go in and do have stock portfolios, but they're not allowed to do the trades. The trades are done by their individual stock brokers. Now, is there some foul play? Do I believe? Yes, I do believe members of Congress should not be trading stocks. I am all for banning stock trade for members of Congress, their immediate family, spouses. I think it's just, it's abhorrent. I mean, why do they get to trade with privileged information in the American people? people doesn't. You know what I mean? So make the privilege information public at this point.

I know this because when I was there, and I don't want to get too off topic, but on the topic of wealth, I could have done one of the best trades in history. And I chose not to, but I know some people who did. I even gave a member of Congress a nickname for that. Signature bank was going to fold, and they notified Congress that they would not be opening their doors on Monday. This was on a Friday. And they would be absorbing, being absorbed by NYCB, New York Community Bank at the time, which doesn't even exist anymore. Now they're Flagster. So if I'm not mistaken, NYCB was trading at that point for about $25, $26 a share. We all knew this on a Friday. This was happening Monday morning. They weren't opening their branches

anywhere and we're announcing publicly. So many members of Congress ran and bought NYCV, but no one did it as blatantly as a member from New York called Nicole Malia Takas, which then I went ahead later on and nicknamed her Nicole Malio's stock tips. And the stock on Monday, when the market opened and the banks didn't open and, you know, the notices were on the windows and employees were not, employees, no, they weren't, they didn't have a job anymore, you know. The stock jumped, I believe, was like $120,000. 120. It's like a 300% jump or 400% jump. I mean, let's just say you put a lucky million dollars there. That's $4 million in gains. Fellows, listen, you already know when I bring Blue Chew to the table, it's because they're

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And we thank Blu for sponsoring the podcast. How is that not insider trading? It is. But it's not because nobody's ever been, nobody's ever done good on it, you know. But yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's literally what happened. So there is that sense of privileged insider trading, esk, I guess, situation. So a lot of members do have net worths that do go up. But I do caution people to be careful with some of these numbers because of the way the reporting is, especially when you get into the double digit millions. Like I said, once you hit that

10 to 20 mark, I think it's just so easy to inflate somebody's net worth. But nonetheless, it is mathematically improbable and unacceptable that anybody making $174,000 a year, like AOC, for instance, who has been in office since 2019, she got elected in 18, which is only six years, has a net worth of millions of dollars at this point. If you turn around and said, oh, AOC has 400K, I'm like, great, you know, that's normal. Because our 401K, which is the trifty savings plan that federal employees have, is very competitive. I served 11 months, dude. In 11 months, I was putting 5% of my salary. Actually, I was doing 10, and the government was matching that. And I left Congress, I think it was like $40,000 in 11 months.

That's great. That's amazing, you know, because it's an aggressive matrix on the TSP, which you see reference a lot. But that's a very aggressive retirement package savings fund, which I'm all for. But the crazy thing is, is that how inflated these things get. And I do believe there's some foul play with all the way these members do make money. Behind closed doors leading up to your election, was there any rumblings of any wrongdoing in your campaign or anything? Look, I knew I did wrongdoing. Okay.

I straw donated $55,000. But I didn't think I was going to get in trouble. First of all, I didn't think it was a crime. I thought it was like a civil issue that, God forbid, in case I had to deal with it, I would. I regretted it. The day I did it, I regretted it because I felt like at that. point I tainted my campaign, right? But I needed to do it because I was trying to build confidence. I could have easily just written, I could have written to check myself for 55K, which I had

already done hundreds of thousands dollars more, but they needed to see it in individual donations, not as self-funding. So like that, that was what everybody wanted to see from candidates. Self-funding candidates were kind of being looked down upon almost in 2022. So I was just like, fuck. So I was just like, you know what, whatever. And I, I, teamed up with my treasurer and I did it. Totally did it. She came up with the idea. I said, let's do it.

I went down and did it. Then I don't know how in court it got turned out that I seduced her, but sure, I seduced the 30-year veteran. I didn't even know I could do that. She suggested it to me. What exactly is it? What does that mean? It means I took $55,000 worth of cash out of my bank account, put it in my campaign,

and then attributed those donations to people without their knowledge. So let's, for instance, say, I essentially stole your identity and I said Ian donated, you know, five grand to George Santos for Congress. And I didn't tell you, but it's there now reflected. I put the money from my own bank account, but it shows like you gave that $5,000. And then I did that with a number of people from my family. Did you think you were going to get caught? It's a coin toss, but it's one of those moments where you think high risk, high reward. And I just really wanted to look like the perfect candidate and perfect.

got in the way of good. And here we are. So who raises the red flag? Who kind of tosses you in? You know, I had some people who I had parted ways with in my campaign earlier, who then just turned their aim at attacking me. And they took an entire dossier, which is called a vulnerability study, and handed it over to the New York Times.

Right? So the reporter who even did the story on me, who calls herself an investigative reporter. Grace Ashford and Michael Gold, both of them, they're frauds. They didn't investigate shit. They were handed an entire book and said, like, here, have fun. So, you know, the rest is history. So those things are actually real that you could do a vulnerability test on someone.

I was just watching this on a show last night. Yeah, you can. You want me to do one on you? That would actually be pretty cool. It would be fought. I mean, not like you have anything to hide. You've been to prison around. You know, my stuff.

My dirty long news out there. So you see what I mean? Can I tell you something of superpower that I've learned people like us have? are shit's out there. Like, I keep thinking, like, you know, I don't want to go back to politics, but don't tempt me. You know what? I'll go cut a bitch's throat if I have to and jump into a district and be like, oh, you want to play stupid and talk shit about me.

I'm primarying you. What are you going to say about me? Nothing you can say about me hasn't already been said. But I have everything to say about you. And guess what? Because I'm in the mix and the equation of this race, it would bring national attention. I would ruin a person's life if I primaried them. I just don't want to.

Yeah, you have to be able to own it. Yeah, you have to. Me putting everything out there was the best thing that could ever happen. The best thing I could do was just own up to it and just accept that I made poor choices. I don't even call them mistakes. I just call them poor choices because mistakes are unintended. It's like when you do things with intention, they're poor choices. And I made plenty of poor choices in my life.

Tell us about the day it all comes undone. What's going through your mind? What's happening? Jesus. Christmas week. It's the, I believe, the 19th of December of 2022. I had barely had a month since I've gotten elected. I wasn't even sworn in. I'm up in the polka nose with my family, just like chilling for Christmas. And then this New York story, New York Times story drops like an anvil on my head. I'm like, who is she? Like, how dare she? Like, who F does she think she is?

And then I'm like, instead of reading the story, which, by the way, I have never read the story. I read the headline. It was enough for me to know that I was fucked. And the comments online told me everything I needed to know. I'm like Googling. Like, who is this little dyke? That's what I said. I was like so angry.

Not that she is. I'm just like, that's me telling you my lingo. I'm like, oh, the audacity, they put a lesbian and a homo to come after me. The New York Times says, no. Oh, my God. I see what they did. I was angry. You know, I was angry.

And in anger, I said so many dumb things and had such, some of the behavior I displayed. I look back and I'm embarrassed. Like, dude, what were you doing? Like, and it's all out there forever because it's on national television. When that drops, who calls you first? That's high ranking. It was like the very first call. The chairman of my party in Nassau County, like this looks like a takedown piece. What are you going to do? I'm like, I'm working on it. He's like, okay. I'm off you skating, obviously. Then Lee Zeldon, who was congressman and had just run a very impressive race. for governor. He also calls me. He's like, George, this is a takedown piece. You got to get on top of this. Don't let them get away with it. And it's so disheartening because these are all people I cared

for. I like. These are people who put their stock behind me. And I disappointed. I really disappointed. And I got a lot of calling the speaker, soon-to-be speaker. Kevin McCarthy called me. Marjorie Taylor Green called me. Tim Burchett. These are all Congress people. They're calling me like, what is this? We got to get. I'm like, at one point I just, that like there's nothing I can do at this point. It's just, it is what it is. And did you actually think that you were going to be able to continue to serve? I know every politician says that.

They're like, I'm going to stay in office. Let me tell you this. Don't judge me by, you know, a moment in time. Judge me as a whole. I'm a whole human being. There's a whole entire 34 years before George Santos chooses to make this very stupid choice during his congressional run. And then there's an entire George.

after he wins and while he's in Congress. Judge me by my actions. And I think that's what saved me a little bit, like with the people. Obviously, it didn't save me politically because politics is about weaponizing scandals, right? So the left is never going to let go. And if the right leans into it or vice versa, right, it just gives it more credence. And because some of my colleagues just never let it go because there was a lot of Republicans from New York who wanted to square away petty grievances.

You got to understand. I am the first openly gay republicans. looking to win a seat in Congress. And that came with a lot of celebrity and a lot of attention and a lot of clicks and a lot of TV and a lot of like, oh, George Santos. And a lot of these politicians don't like that because I could put you in a room with 20 politicians who sit in Congress today. You wouldn't know they were Congress people because they have no media profile.

They're just like a bunch of nobodies. They actually look creepy. You know, you'd probably be skee about like, ew. what are all these creepy old guys in here? You know, like these very, like, it's almost like a school of rejects. And this is dishing it out equally to everybody. They're not just one party. So a lot of these guys who had no celebrity to them already felt like annoyed with me.

And this was a perfect opportunity to like, oh, we'll build our celebrity and crashing yours. And that's what they did. Do you think if you resigned as soon as it came out, then you never would have gone to prison or got arrested? I'd still be in prison today. I would have gone to prison and I'd still be in prison today. So they would have won after you regardless? Yeah, they would. Why do you think that?

I broke the rule. I showed New York that in the middle of New York City in Queens, a gay Republican can win a congressional seat that was held by Democrats for 23 years. You're not supposed to do shit like that. You're not supposed to, you can't buck the simulation. It needs to run smooth. If you throw a kink into the gears and it changes the narrative, it's not good. So they need to do something about it. And they need to villainize you and destroy you so that they can hone in their point.

Yeah, he might have been gay, but he was an awful human being. Republicans hate the gays. You know, like that's kind of like the intensity that politics runs in. Why did they say you were lying about your past and where you're from and all of that? I mean, look, a lot of sensationalism. took place into my entire, the story is so sensational. Like, they took certain embellishments and lies that I told and then created their own lies in the media just to make it sexier.

I mean, dude, I had an entire call girl, like a straight hooker posing as a reporter called Jackson & Sweet, which then I later found. I don't know if we can say certain things here. You could say whatever, yeah. Oh, great. Get ready for this one. I had a call girl from nude pussy.net literally cosplaying as a reporter and outlets, like credible outlets like political mother Jones were letting her write bylines and wild light. She wrote a story that I stole somebody's scarf.

She wrote a story that I had a hoarding situation full of roommates. Not true. She wrote stories about me killing some dude's dog. That's not true. It's like so many different stories that she just sensationalized. Right. And then to top it off, she went and had an affair with my operations director, Vish Burrah. She was fucking him trying to get stories out of him for me. And then that was her undoing because then, you know, she got so close to the sun. She burned herself like Icarus because I discovered her nude pussy.net link. I discovered her only fans page, La Dolce Vita. And I just blew it out there. I mean, like, literally I was posting porn out of my account at one point to show people. Like this chick is like sitting there like east west. Like, ah! I'm like, yeah. Okay. Okay. you want to fuck with me. Let's, let's, so this is like kind of what happened in my time in Congress. So it's like, what is true? What isn't true? I did not go to college. I lied about that,

which was a stupidest, most self-destructive thing I did. You know why? Because if I just told you my resume, I held executive physicians with my employers knowing I didn't go to college, I'm competent. I'm self-taught in the industry and in the art of private equity and venture capitalism, venture capital and a hedge fund. I understand the intricacies of institutional investing. So working with high net worth individuals, family offices, so multi-family offices, endowments foundation. So I had a great breadth and scope of knowledge. I didn't need a lie.

I went to college. But some folks advised me that if I didn't build a resume to impress the chairman, he would never give me the endorsement. So I went with it. But that was supposed to be for one person, a controlled little situation and just became bigger than it was. Do you think the traditional press is pro-government, the way they're able to just light defendants up?

And especially in your shoes where you go from, you know, being on the congressional side to being a defendant. You know, it's funny. I'm going to say this. It's even worse. They're not just pro. They're in bed with them, quite literally. Right now, three different members of Congress are engaged to reporters, mainstream

reporters on TV, you know, or how about the fact that there's members of Congress who their siblings have shows on TV. So, and I'm going to go bipartisan here. Okay. I'm not, I'm not a partisan hack. If you look at Mario's Diaz Ballard, the congressman in South Florida, his brother's on MSNBC, whatever Ballard, Diaz-Balart, he's a talking head on MSNBC. If you look at Robert Menendez Jr., who's a congressman, New Jersey, son of former Senator Menendez, His sister is on MSNBC. These people are like so, the media and government is so incestuous. It's so intertwined and in bed that your head would explode.

It's insane. And even then it's like kind of like insider press releases in a way. Like they get the news before it even becomes public. And it works against say the defendant. I had my set group of reporters that I would give stuff to like, hey, this is coming out within the next 30 minutes. Get your write-ups ready. That's how it works. You build those relationships for goodwill because if you don't build goodwill with the press

in D.C., you know what ends up happening? They get angry at you and then they come after you. So it's a working relationship. So you give them scoops. You give them heads up. Like, hey, get a pre-write on this. This is a very big term is called embargoed, meaning I'm giving you all the goods, but you can only write and publish after I announce.

I'm announcing at 9 o'clock in the morning, you can publish at 901. That's why sometimes people have scoops. You know, that's, that's the orientation predominantly of the press in D.C. Do you think the Department of Justice was weaponized against you at the time? 100%. It was get George and fine crimes. They took a bunch of civil liabilities. They ignored a Supreme Court decision on identity theft, which is a Dobbs decision.

They just trampled over all these things. because they needed to do this. They needed to get me because they needed the seat. Merrick Garland was by far the most dangerous attorney general to ever serve as attorney general of the United States. He eroded the confidence of the DOJ by 50% with the American people. The American people's opinion of the DOJ and the weaponization of it against Donald Trump, bipartisanly showed that they lost 50% credibility during the years 2021 and 2024. Yeah, I think it's crazy.

what went on, everything, just like all of it. And what's coming out now about the weapon is Arctic Frost is just going to go down in history like one of the most

scandalous operations of espionage on elected officials by the Department of Justice and the FBI. Merrick Arlen is a bad man. I have said this before and I hold this to be true. I hope that

Attorney General Pambani writes us wrong, investigates, and imprisons Merrick Arlen. I know he committed crimes. There's no one. way. Him and his entire senior staff should be under the microscope right now. Do you think there's other politicians that were in your shoes that made a mistake and

never got caught for it? I know plenty of politicians who've done the same thing I did or worse. The worst that they got was a civil penalty from the FEC, which is what I thought I was getting. And then I got criminally indicted. You know what's crazy? After I got out of prison, the scams people tried on me on the outside were honestly worse than the stuff guys pulled on the inside. I had to do. I had to someone message me pretending to be a brand I work with asking for verification fees, another one tried to get me with a fake invoice, and you start realizing you don't need to be in the streets to get caught slipping. The scams find you. So when I use cash app, the biggest thing I appreciate

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disclosures. Do you think people with money in the criminal justice system get away with a lot more? No. You think it's equal? Sandbank for and freeze in prison for 25 years. That's true, but he also pissed off a lot of. high-ranking people that were in his circle. Not really. He donated $130 million to Democrats, and they still put him in prison. Well, not government officials, the people that lost money, celebrities. Nobody lost money.

They got it all back. I'm not making it, by the way, not making a case for SBF here. I don't like him. He can go pound sand for all I care. I don't think he deserves 25 years, but he can go pound sand. That's excessive sentence for a white collar crime. No, the FTX, uh, the FTX, uh, bankruptcy like estate has paid every investor back to X.

But they keep saying the losses they equate are, um, what, how do they call it? I'm sorry, projected gains. Buddy, if you put in a million dollars and you got back to, you made money. Like, and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,x bankruptcy estate recovered 118%. They went over 100% of assets. They made money. The estate recently on a public filing gave itself a bonus. Like, they don't even know what to do with all this money right now because they've paid everybody two times over at this point.

So it's like they didn't really steal technically. I mean, the fact that him and Ryan Salam and the questionable looking girlfriend from Alameda, I forget her name. Questionable looking girls. They're all in prison is wild to me. Ryan is a friend of mine. I say this with no reservation. Ryan, his co-CEO for another side of FTX. He's in prison in Cumberland.

He's a friend of mine. He's a good guy. He did absolutely nothing wrong. He was found not guilty of any corruption of SBF's doing. They went after him on a technicality. And the other day in federal court, the prosecutor who went after him, the famous Danielle Sassoon, who quit abruptly because of the Adams' retrieval. of the indictment. Remember her? Oh, that was the same one? Same prosecutor. She in court literally said verbatim, almost, and I'm quoting as best as I can,

well, we didn't go after him because of the FTX corruption. We went after him because of his voluminous amounts or something along those lines of Republican donations. And then she waited a few seconds. Oh, and Democrats too. But here's a problem. Ryan Salam, between the years of 2020 and 2020 did not make a single contribution, I'm sorry, 2020 and 2020, did not make a single

contribution to a Democrat. So that on face value is perjury. And girlfriend does not have prosecutorial immunity anymore. So I want to understand if that's even going to be bought up to question because it's a false statement.

I went on the FEC. I'm like, Ryan Salaam, my name comes up like a gazillion times. And I'm just like, let's see, I want to see him

donating to a single Democrat and it just didn't exist. Tell us about the day you got indicted. worst day of my life, probably, because I, CNN found out before I did. It's funny how these things happen. CNN literally called my turn and said, like, hey, so what are you doing about this indictment? He's like, what indictment?

Oh, you haven't been notified yet? George's indicted. And he's like, what? And then my lawyer goes in contact the DOJ. We're like, what's going on? And they're like, and then the DOJ tells my attorney, like, oh, yeah, we just unsealed. we just got a grand jury indictment on George Santos. You need to come on Thursday to court.

I'm sorry, on a Wednesday to court. And then my attorney says he can't go on Wednesday. He has votes. Can we do this either Thursday afternoon or Friday when he doesn't have votes? We're asking for a day and a half. No, it has to be Wednesday. And that day happened to be the same day that James Comer, the chairman of the Oversight Committee was doing the entire expose of the checks for the

Bidens, it was the same day. So I obfuscated and completely took away all the attention from the Biden rollout. Yeah, because your arrest was everywhere. It was the biggest story in the country, you know. So now it completely eclipses the Biden checks, which were hard evidence, you know. So, I mean, that's just the beginning because you can't push back. They accommodate everybody's fucking arraignment. They would not accommodate mine. They precluded me from voting as a duly elected member of Congress, which is an actual conflict of interest and not contract of interest. It is a constitutional crisis because it's a separations of power issue. I'm from the legislative

branch. The DOJ is not under the judiciary. They're under the executive because of the DOJ. And they're telling me what to do, which is kind of the other way around how this works. So it was like, I could have raised the issue, but I chose to just like, you know what, I'm already getting indicted. Let me not push my luck here before these guys come here and handcuff me. So I just kind of, I went and I missed two days of voting because of that. Now, when you arrive, do they handcuff you at all? Or is it? So I arrived at a parking lot nearby to do like a very clean transfer. So I go in my staff and my attorney, drop me off to this FBI little tyrant. Men's like five, nothing.

Big attitude, though. And then he had this partner of his. She's very sweet, very eloquent young woman. Gave me a great recipe for crispy porkskin, by the way. On the day of my arraignment. She gave me this amazing tip. And it was just like a phenomenal. I'm doing it for Thanksgiving.

Krispy Purneal. So anyway, so I go into their car. They handcuffed me to the front. It's the first time ever in my life I've been handcuffed. I sit in the car, go into the, to the, you know, to the courthouse undetected with like hundreds upon hundreds of reporters out there. We just drive to do do do do do go through the back. Now, the funny thing is I'm sitting in this back room in pre-trial services. which is slash probation, in the handcuffs.

And then, like, he's keeping me in handcuffs as this. I'm like some violent, dangerous guy. To him, to this FBI agent, it was like the peak of his life handcuffing a member of Congress. And I just was unfazed by him completely. So this pretrial services attending, I was like, oh, he don't need to keep him handcuffed. You sure, you should? That's fine. Take off the handcuffs off of me.

I'm just, like, doing this to my wrist. like trying to like be nonchalant. And I just waltzed right out of the room to go sit with the girl and, you know, the rest is history. But yeah, that was kind of very interesting day. Now, I will say this, my court sketch from that day, I don't know if you can pull it up and throw it on the screen later, but it looks like a Disney villain cartoon. I was like, who drew this? Were you surprised by how many charges they hit you with? I was surprised and I understood what they were doing.

They were burying me with add-on charges that were not really even criminal. They're all civil, but they can turn pretty much anything. I mean, this is a big debate we're having now about the federal and the feds criminalizing federally pretty much everything these days. We need to roll them back a little bit and rein them in. But I think you can relate to that. So they just love federalizing stuff. So they federalize things that are civil disputes or administrative clerical errors or things that are adjudicated during tax season even. Like, oh, you owe us actually this much more because you overgot this benefit or whatever the case is.

You know, so yeah, it's a little, it's a little frustrating. But it is what it is. How long did you last in Congress for after you got indicted? I was 11 months total in Congress. I got elected. I got sworn in on January 7, not the third, because there was. a little delay there with getting speaker McCarthy squared away. But I was indicted in May and I was expelled December 1st.

So you had a kind of a good run after indictment? Oh, that's when I said, you know what? Fuck it. It's like at that point, that's what I actually started living. But at the same time, in a very destructive way. You know, I had too much fun. And I wasn't being responsible, I guess, with some of the of things I would say. I still believe in everything, my political positions. It's just the way I

conducted myself was a little, I would say even infantile. I was just derived from grief, anger, a mix of both, you know. I wanted to be vindictive at all costs. Like, I'm going to drag all of you assholes with me kind of situation. But yeah, no, I had an insane run after that. I mean, do you remember, were you following? Yeah, I followed. My mental breakdown during the October 7th situation where I just like went out. This guy came after me in the halls. And then I just like, it was not good for him because I got him arrested. And I was like, that man is a terrorist.

I was like, oh, that's bad. You know what's funny too is that the way you came about things like the way you portrayed yourself would kind of give like Ann Adelvie vibes. I know you guys are friends. That's funny. Just like that the way you like, because she had that big viral court sketch of how she presented herself. So it just reminded me of that a little bit in some cases. I could never be as glamorous and she than Anna. I could never seriously.

But your press conference before prison was pretty iconic. I think all my press conferences have been very iconic. I will say this about my press. My last press conference before expulsion was very fun. You know what I did? I hosted what is dubbed the largest press conference period outside of the Capitol. I don't know if that's true or not, but a lot of people say it is. A lot of reporters, I've been here 20 years. I've never seen something like this. Hundreds of reporters, like a sea of reporters.

Let's just say I'm not too lovey-dovey with the press. I scheduled it for 8 a.m., which means they had to arrive at 7 on a cold December morning. Sit there. I did that on purpose. And sit there waiting for me to show up to address them. And it was quite humbling to watch it. It was hilarious. It was fun. I had fun. I'm not going to lie, but it was also one of those things.

It was just like, did I really need to do that? So it took a couple of years for the legal proceedings to play out. What was going on behind closed doors? Did they offer you a good deal in the beginning and you turned it down? Or what did that look like? Who are you talking to? Who were you talking to before this? Yes, they did offer me a good deal event. At first, the deal was a lot better. And because of my stubbornness, I didn't want to take a deal. I wanted to go to trial. I, you know, quite unceremoniously said fuck off. And no, you know. And that's what led up to a superseding and another superseding.

And I feel like they would still be superseding me if Kamala had become president. Oh, you'd be still be in prison right now. 100%. A lot of people would still be in prison. 100%. The Kressleys. Todd. Oh, my God.

You got to get Todd on the podcast. Help a brother out over here. Oh my God. Todd, you got to come on Ian. Ian is great. To help a brother out, man. We're starting to get bigger names. This last month has been good. That's great.

I mean, it's not even about bigger names. I just say it's different stories. And, you know, I'm going to say this. I was watching the episode with the young lady that you just posted yesterday and how she spoke. And I'm sorry for dating, filming here. I'm sorry. But, you know, I'm great at.

I'm great at fucking up. She was so casually talking about how she worked out a bang. And she's like, I take a couple of things. I can have a cat. I'm like, girl, you're too comfortable talking about crime. But you know what? It gives your perspective, you know, and I think that's very important. And, you know, I say this a lot.

If they can do what they did to me in prison, I'm privileged. I have access to wealth. I have access to the highest office in the country today. I have access to powerful people. And they, I mean, this warden was so emboldened. Oh, my God. Lynn B. Kelly was so emboldened, the dumb bitch. And I kept telling her, you're fucking with the wrong person because I am documenting everything

you're doing. I am going to make your life help. Like, something that I told her was very simple. You might be the queen of this little kingdom here. Because you know, wardens, they think they're monarchs. I am the HBIC out there. And I am, you are going to regret this. Is that a threat?

No, it's a warning. And it's true. I'm making good on it. I'm holding her accountable for what she did to me. And I think having Todd come and talk to people, did you see Todd talking about the expired food? I'm like, dude, I was cooking the expired food. You know that what they would give us, expired McRibs from McDonald's, they offload their food to these prisons. They buy them.

So when they go out of inventory, we were eating like a year old McRibs. I was feeding year and a half old chicken patty sandwiches to people. I was feeding year old Christmas pies. Do you know the holiday pies that McDonald's does? Like, dude, you don't understand. But you got McRibbs, which is kind of fun. That's kind of clutch, actually. I wouldn't mind an expired McRib.

When do you realize that you're going to go to prison? Like, I'm sure there was some hope when you signed the plea deal that the judge is going to go to heart. My judge has this history of being so lenient, right? Oh, she's so fair. She's so this. And I kept telling people like, yeah, like, watch her fuck me. And put an iron rod down my throat. And that's exactly what she did.

She gave me a hundred. She went all the way to the max of the, of the, of the plea. What were your guidelines? My guidelines, if they were fair and real and not spruced up with the identity theft, aggravated identity theft, which is bullshit. It's a clear violation of the Dubin's decision. I should have not been charged for identity theft because it was not the crux of the crime. And to say that identity theft, like stealing your identity is me making a donation and putting your name on it. I mean, it's wrong.

it's not aggravated identity theft. I'm sorry. That's just that's a stretch. But, you know, it's the Merrick Garland, DOJ. Do you know Merrick Garland actually ran a whole gamut on my, on my case? He was like spearheading it. Like everybody that we would talk to as far as prosecutors go would have to turn around and say, we got to check with the AJ.

Like, dude, you guys don't need, you're not even running the show. He's doing it. You're just like reporting back to him. That's how bad it was. But, um, my guidelines were, I believe. 54 to 87. What do you think someone not high profile would have gotten for those same charges?

For the same charges. First of all, they wouldn't have done the ag ID. I believe probation because that's what my treasurer got. She got probation. And you had no criminal history. You didn't re-offend?

I didn't, I have no reason to re-fend. I'm not ready for Congress. I did my would. I wouldn't fucking straw donate. But on pretrial, like, no, oh my God, no. I was scared of my own shadow in pretrial.

I was living my life, but I was scared to my own. shadow. Like I think I once made a wrong exit on the turnpike in Jersey and ended up like in an area where I was like not permitted to and I called pre-ho, I made a mistake. George, it's okay. When you're transiting, she's, she was explaining. Like, look, I know you're going from point A to point B and so many things can happen. You get a flat tire. You're going to need to get gas. That's okay. So long as you're not stopping there and holding camp there tonight and you didn't report it, that's different. But that's the level of like diligence.

that I was following. How did you feel when the judge read that sentence to you? I cried. I sobbed. I wept like a little baby. And reporters were like, he's weeping. Oh, I wept like a bitch. I was like 87, seven years.

Seven years is a long time. Like I was staring down coming out. I don't even know if I'd come out the same person. You know, like I saw a guess if you were saying. Like I went to prison for 25 years and came out a monster. Like I don't think I'd come out a monster. but like I was I was scared of the whole notion of institutionalization that that alone on face value scared there should be G's out of me you know I saw in prison what institutionalization can do to

you right so I didn't know what it looked like going in but before going in I was terrified I actually even offered my husband like do you want to get a divorce for me why would you like stay with me like I'm a drag in your life and he's like what do you talk you got offended at that like thoroughly offended. But that's, that's where my mindset was. It's like I felt like I was holding everybody down. Like, what am I doing? Like, go away from me. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm dead. I'm done. When did you get sentenced? Was it after Trump got elected or before? Oh, yeah. I got sentenced this year. I was sentenced on April 20, April 20th. In the back of your mind, was there hope? Because I know there was articles.

There was hope. I thought, I really hoped that the judge would pierce through the bullshit of the DOJ. but she, local Long Islander, she needed to save face for the cocktail parties. I don't hold it against her. But even beyond that, a pardon specifically. Oh, I had no expectation. There was no appetite for it. There was it. Like, there was no, you probably read the articles.

There was no appetite for clemency for me until there was. And I think what really did it was the mistreatment that it was suffering in prison. And I think people like Todd Crisley exposing a lot of it helped too. It was like an environment. environmental thing, right? Talking about it and then me writing my letters for the South Shore Press for my weekly column from inside the shoe in solitary confinement. I think it showed people that I was being given this insane unfair treatment. Like this warden, she chose to make my life hell. I don't know why she did, but she chose to. I thought the pre-interview before prison with Tucker Carlson was really powerful. I saw that. It was interesting to get that perspective before prison and then for him to have you on. right after. That was five days before going to prison,

and that was six days after prison. I loved his line where he said, I expected to see you in seven years. Well, he meant that, and I meant it too. I was like, Tucker, I thought we'd do this in seven years. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking,

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big agencies like the chain smokers, Steve Ioki. I owed them money from, you know, the club. We weren't making money. Wow. So someone reported that I was going out of state. Judge revoked my bond and gave me three years in prison. And my plea deal, I went to trial. My plea deal was like four years. They would not, and I was 18 or 19 at the time, they wouldn't give me no jail time.

Oh, wow. They wanted jail time. We went to trial. They overcharged. And then the other thing with like restitution, what they do is I was not guilty on count. They still add that in. They say it's the same time period, even though I was not guilty on it.

I mean, if you look at my restitution, it was ridiculous. I mean, $373,000. I'm supposed to pay $55,000 back to people that I didn't defraud, like my family, who I use their names. But that was my own money. Let's start there. Then I'm supposed to give money to this, to the NRCC, the National Program Congressional Committee, for money that they spent and invested in my race. But I didn't touch it. I didn't see it.

But now I have to give money to them to the RNC. I'm like, good luck. Like that was my mentality at the time. I was so angry. So now people like, here's a big question people ask me. Are you going to give the money back? Like, I don't have the victims people believe I have. Like, it's been interpreted.

But I think that if it's going to make me be able to move on with my life, there's no legal avenue, by the way, to pay restitution once you've been exonerated of it. Right. So the problem is, is how do we find it? Like, the moment I have the means to go ahead and pay it, even if I give it to charity or create a fund or like I don't know like I'm just I'll probably do it just so people don't have that to go pay the people you still like which is dumb because people think I actually went and I stole money from Ian Beck you know it's not how it's not what happened you know but it's a it's a good way I think to rebuild character it is even if you didn't exactly yeah intentionally exactly so so I'm like okay with doing it but my first day in prison Wild.

Just wild. I mean, just getting in there, the whole strip, pop and squat and cough, like, that's so dehumanizing, dude. Come on. It's bad. Like, spread your cheeks and cough. Like, bro, what the fuck? Like, seriously?

So bad. And then you put on this stupid jumpsuit and how you're paraded. And my surrender was doing. different than anything you've probably ever experienced in your life. They shut down the camp. They shut down the prison. They were on lockdown because that was surrendering. It's funny.

Some of the COs were so confused. They thought there was a dignitary visiting instead of a former dignitary surrendering. That's, they shut down. So the moment I walked into the camp, everybody's standing up by their bed for count because they're expecting. So I walk in the whole prison. Like there, you know how routines are. Everybody's routines fucked up. A guy got kicked out of his bed because they wanted me in that specific bed because it was right under the camera for my safety.

It was like a whole deal. And it wasn't good for me, if I'm being completely honest. It was not good for me. And it didn't help me the slightest, but everybody was so kind. The one thing is that I spoke to so many people. or going to prison, don't accept anything from anybody. Don't know anybody favors. And I'm like, okay, I won't owe anybody favors.

I get in there. Everybody starts bringing me shit. Noodles, clothes, sneak. Like one dude, his name was George as well, took off his sneakers. Like, what's your, what size foot do you have? I'm like, 12. He's like, I got you. I'm like, no, no, it's okay.

He's like, I got you. Goes to his bed, takes off his brand new sneakers that he had just bought, put on his foot, takes it off, gives it to me. He's like, it's like, no, no, no. He's like, dude, and he's Greek. And he goes like, Malacca, put it on. I'm like, okay. Terrified.

Like, absolutely terrified. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm not supposed to accept any of this. And I'm like, terrified. I didn't touch anything. I was just like sat there on my bed, hoards of shit. Toothpaste, toothbrush, food. I'm like, oh, my God, this is so bad. That made me cry more.

Because now I think I have debt with us. everybody here. I don't even know who the people are. I wanted to pay back every. It was such an insane thing. What do you think was a misconception you had going into prison that when you got in there, you realized wasn't true? Oh, don't drop the soap. That's not true. There's like, we have our own like shower situation. There's no rope on the soap. Nobody's going to like, don't drop the soap because it's gross, but not because you're at the risk of getting like some dude. Like, yeah, no, that's, that was, that was, that was. That was. That was. That was. That was. was actually my biggest fear was sexual violence in prison. Although it does happen and it did

have, it does currently happen in the camp that I was in. I'm pretty sure if the same people and people are there and the same antics of the stupid warden is taking place. It still happens and it goes by and reported because nobody wants to fill out a pre-a report because then they get put in the shoe. So if you're a victim and you file a peer pre-a report, what's the incentive if the first thing they do is lock you in the shoe. You know, I had to file one against the guard. And you went to the shoe? No, he had actually, because I had two months left, they actually let me stay in because of my history of being in the shoe. They moved him to the medium. But it was a male that tried to get me in the kitchen at 4.30 in the morning while I was working. What did he try to do? He tried to rape me.

You're kidding. He started touching my butt and like my arms and it was weird. It happened twice. And then he got me in the freezer and then I finally reported it. It's no joke what happens. in these prisons. And then it's even on my court DACA. I wrote a letter to the judge. The judge ordered the U.S. attorney to investigate. They said the BOP, because the BOP at the time was not being run by the same BOP now, was everything was good. We trust their investigation. Never heard anything again until a CO when I started the podcast, DM me and said, was it officer so-and-so. He no longer works here. He was a creep. So I knew that I was right. So there were COs that I heard stories of having, you know, affairs.

I mean, my warden is under investigation. The warden is under investigation for sexual misconduct with another inmate. It's crazy. It happens all the people. I've had so weird. It's so weird. I never had a sexual, I cannot sit here and say sexual misconduct from a CO. I had one inmate that in one instance got a little too friendly.

And that was the day I was leaving. Like I was literally walking out the door. He came out of nowhere. and slap my ass. I'm like, bro, what the? Like, I'm like, you know what? I'm leaving. Like, I was literally walking out the door.

And this is a dude that kind of was creepy already. Like, he would come in the room. Like, sometimes I'd be in the library reading by myself and he'd come in the room and say, hey, what's up? I'm like, I got to go. Because I worked in the kitchen. Like, so, like, I run to the kitchen, lock the fucking door and be like, stay the fuck out of here. What prison lingo or habits surprised you the most that?

that like inmates do. Stop what you doing. That was a big one that they do there. And everybody does this thing pause. Like whenever they say something that's a little like off color, they're like pause. I'm like with me, every conversation, there's like, like George, you got to stop talking. Because I would make every sexual innuendo I could just to mess with them because it gets so much into their head. And I turned a superpower.

I turned something into a superpower. A lot of these guys are like, they're like meatheads, you know. Like, the way I disarmed all of them was by making, like, the moment they come like, I'll fucking, I'm like, oh, daddy, don't start me with a good time. They'd, like, creep down. They're like, whoa. And then everybody would laugh. And they're like, dude, only George can get away with that because I just do it to like,

like quite literally fuck off, buddy. Like, I'm not interested, you know. So I would do these weird things to get people to want to be away from me. So I do exactly the opposite that I should. And it worked. And nobody wanted to fight George Santos because they knew it would be like a net negative for them. And I was treated really well. I'm not going to lie.

I had somebody who did my laundry and folded it for me and put it on my bed. Pick it off by my bed and put it back on my bed. I had somebody who, you know, would make extra. Like I was cooking the cook food in the kitchen. There was other cooks. As you know how that works. There was the other cook who would make side dishes, like just for the kitchen staff situation. And I'd be like, oh, can you make this?

Can you make that? So, like, I had that. And then there's just, like, so many perks. Like, I'd be driven up and down to the commissary to pick up the commissary instead of having to hike all the way two miles each way to the other building. So, like, it was, it was like I had perks. People took care of me because of who I was, obviously. But, you know, it was fun. How'd the staff treat you?

Very well. I mean, I had three COs that I would say are absolute pieces of human extrament. and I had no issues with COs. Even CEOs who did like cell toss, like, you know, locker tosses, he's doing his job. I don't care. I'm in prison, bro. That's his fucking job. It's on the job description.

He has to toss lockers. Like, somebody would go and fix it for me anyway. So I didn't care. So I respected the relationship. Like, they're a CEO. They're not my friend. Some. And I would have conversations, right?

Because even though they're not the brightest tool in the box, there's some who are. There are some actually very intelligent guys and gals who work as COs. And then there's some who are like low propensity human beings that this job is as good as it's going to get for them, right? Those I didn't have a lot of dialogue with other than good morning, sir, good afternoon, ma'am, and so on and so forth. But with the more intelligent ones, I'd have actually high level conversations and I love them.

Like, oh my God. I mean, there's three people in that prison that if I were ever to hold any level of government office, I would poach them out of the BOP to come work for me because they're that good. They're good people. I didn't go crazy in the shoe altogether because of three COs. Three COs that did not let me go crazy in the shoe because everyone else was torturing me. Why did they put you in the shoe? Protective custody. So there was this allegation that a very high profile member of the United States government in a sense was going to break into prison and order my assassination. Most ludicrous shit ever, completely uncorroborated. It took 41 days for the FBI

and the BOP and everybody to do what they had to do. And then, you know, the prison was still going to keep me there for two more weeks in the shoe. And it happened to be the day of my legal phone call. And I told my lawyer, look, the FBI is done. These assholes now want to keep me another two weeks. Do something. He made some phone calls. And after they had told me, it was going to be at least another two weeks. That same day, I was back in the camp. And then seven days later, I was home. What was solitary like? As someone that's, you know, a former lawmaker that's never experienced that. Inhumane should be abolished. Should should be a practice that we rid out of the system. It does not help in rehabilitation. It is something that should be used for extreme cases such as murder

or people who inflict severe, you know, damage on another. So my neighbor was a pencil murderer. if you go on to Google and Google pencil assassination at FCI Farraton, that inmate who killed another inmate with a pencil by stabbing it in the end of the inmate's eye was next to me. And the other one next to me was stab 17 times. Those are my neighbors. Those are the people they put in the shoe, right? I was there because some uncorroborated, unfounded threat was made against me.

And instead of putting me in protective custody, which means enhancing security of the perimeter, of the camp, but because that costs money, they put me in the shoe because it's the easy, lazy thing to do. So bitches like Warden Kelly choose the easy way out. Tell us about the food. What was your favorite meal? What did you hate the most?

Chicken leg day. Thursdays. Thursdays. That's it. It's still Thursdays. I don't know what it was for you. Thursdays. It's the only day that's decent.

Like, I only ate three meals. And other than that, I would survive off of apples, peaches, and bananas. I only ate three meals, which was the chicken patty, even though it was expired or half-ass decent, the chicken leg, and fish. Fish Fridays? Yeah, fish Fridays. Everything else I would not eat. I could not eat.

I hate chili. I don't, I mean, the amount of Mexican food, I mean, chicken tacos, beef tacos, chicken salad, chicken taco salad, beef taco salad, chicken fajita, beef fajita. Dude, I felt like I was in, like, Guantanamo in, like, a fucking Mexican prison or something like that. Like, what the hell? Like, why? Like, the amount of beans, I can't look at a.

bean, and I'm Brazilian, and I used to like beans. Rice and beans is like my thing. I can't even look at beans right now. I can't. It's like, it skeaves me. The thought of beans. You were never interested in commissary cooking? Never got into it.

I saw it. I thought it was kind of gross. I mean, like, putting it in a bag, in a water bucket with a stinger. I was just like, this isn't for me. I can't eat the shit. I'm a germaphobe buddy. Like, I can't. And they were clean.

Oh, gloves. What the surface air is it? Oh, everything. Yeah, they're using their hands. Stop. No. No, no. Were you surprised by the contraband in these prisons?

Extremely. Extremely appalled, actually, with the contraband. I mean, in the camp, there isn't a lot of contraband. Like, the contraband you'll find is, like, chocolate. You know, from visitation, a family of him. He's a piece of candy, you know, pictures. Like, if you go to the media, Dude, they were smoking K2.

There's this whole range of the shoe that the officers couldn't even go into do count sometimes because it was a smoke. Suboxin, K2, weed, everything making it. And not only to the medium, but then making it to the shoe. And who do you think does that? COs. There's just, there's COs on the take, right? And why?

Because they're underpaid. They're underappreciated and put to work like dogs. They're like prisoners just like us. The only difference is they get to go home every day. You know, God only knows what the home situation is for most of them. But you know what I mean? So I was shocked. And Warden Kelly is so, so, so incompetent.

The amount of drugs in her prison, she should go to prison for aiding and abiding. Like, I mean that. Like, she should be in prison for the stuff that take place in her prison. I, it's dereliction of duty 101. Wait, since you were a germophobe, did you put the sock on the phone when you made a phone call? No, I actually, I got a hookup when I got there. Somebody gave me like a foam hand sanitizer, one of the orderlies, like the sanitation orderly, because I said I'm a germaphone, I'm struggling. And it was an actual trans inmate. And we had a whole, like, confused young man in our thing that

thought he was a woman. He was also the favorite pass around bottom for a lot of the guys in there who are straight. And he hooked me up with like a foamer. So I was constantly like hand sanitizing. So I'd spray it all down the phone. Because the sock thing I felt kind of. I don't think it works. I think it's dirty too personally.

So I would just hand sanitize it. How was your first visit with your husband? Awful. And we cried for six hours. We sat there from 6.10 a.m. to 2 p.m. We cried. cried, cried, cried, cried, cry, cried. Couldn't stop. It was just tough. Did he ever smuggle you in anything?

La Mare. Just Lemaire. That's literally the only thing. Literally Lemaire. Just a little sample thing of Lemaire so I can do under my eyes. You know, it's just like not not anything crazy, you know. I'm not Todd Crisley who was getting Chick-fil-A ordered for him and Chinese food, okay? I got a little sample-sized lamare. That's a little. literally what I got. Were a lot of inmates coming up to you for like political favors? Yes. What did?

I did zero. How do you respectfully say? I said, dude, I'm a convict, not a congressman. Like, look at where we are. Like, go away. Oh, Congress. I'm like, convict. That's what I would say.

Oh, you're a convict. I would have to repeat it all the time. You know, it's tough. You know, it was the biggest surprise for me. I pull up to prison day one and I go in. And I go into prison. Do you know who was there? One of my co-dees, my former employee, Sam Milly, he's in the prison with me.

Now, this is a kid who I absolutely adore, by the way, and is only in prison because he would not snitch on me or corroborate the insanities of the FBI. Like, they're just like, they pressed him like, you know, did you know? No. Look, you have to have no. Like, think about it. He's like, no. Like, he refused to cooperate.

and therefore they threw him in prison for a year and a day. So he's still sitting there and I'm very publicly, openly saying that I think he should be home. My treasurer who deceived all the schemes got probation. I went to prison for seven years and Sam got a year and a day for not turning on me. It's absolute bullshit. They got him on a bunch of technicalities. He didn't even break laws. But, you know, this episode is brought to you by Beneful.

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No one goes to Hank's for spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately, though, the shop's been quiet, so Hank decides to bring back the $1 slice. He asks Copilot in Microsoft Excel to look at his sales and costs to help him see if he can afford it. Co-pilot shows Hank where the money's going and which little extras make the dollar slice work. Now, Hank says, line out the door. Hank makes the pizza. Co-Pilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more at M365 copilot.com slash work. People are full of surprises, especially when you try to do that.

travel together. Thankfully, Verbo is not. When you book a Verbo, you get Verbo care and 24-7 live support. So your house doesn't surprise you like your friends might. If something's not as described or doesn't work, Verbo's there. Real people. Real support. Anytime. Book today on the Verbo app. If you know, you Verbo. Terms apply. Seeverbo.com slash trust for details. He's there and I'm working and hoping I can bring him home for the holidays for his mom and dad. When do you start getting rumblings that you could potentially go home? There was no rumblings. I found out through the TV just like everyone else.

You were sitting in the TV. I was doing, I'll tell you this. I was doing commissary. I was filling out my commissary sheet because I had just come back from the shoe seven days earlier. You know when you go to the shoe, all your shit gets stolen. I had to rebate. Right.

So I was borrowing on someone else's commissary who had like so much money left over and they were going to revalidate a few days later. So I said, this is totally not allowed, so I'm not going to say who. So I'm like, do you mind if I do $200 on yours since you're going to revalid it? You didn't spend it. I'll just have my family put it on your books or send it to your family. He's like, yeah, sure. So I was filling out my commissary sheet that was Max out and his.

And all of a sudden, screaming starts and people start. I'm like, you're on TV. I'm like, okay, whatever. I don't care about being on TV because I'm on TV all the time. Then all of a sudden, like, all I hear is like, where's that SOB? He's holding out on us. he knew. That's why he's so chill after he came out the shoe.

I'm like, wait, what's going on? So they barged in the door of the computer room, which was adjacent to the cafeteria, oh, sorry, aka Chow Hall, which I refuse to call it that. And I go out there and I'm like, what's going on? They're like, look, you're going home. You were parted.

Despite the fact that it said, representative George disgraced former representative of George Santos soon to be released after President Trump issues commutation but they're still saying I was parking that's just prison for you in a nutshell and I sit there like I'm like though this has to be an error like nobody's told me anything like where's this coming from and it's funny because earlier that day I had received a subpoena from Congress to go testify in the oversight committee about the conditions of my incarceration and I had signed it and I was so happy for that and I felt good. And I was on a good, I was feeling good the last two days I was there because I went to

church on Thursday with a visiting priest confessed to communion and it just felt good. I felt like I squared away my quarrels religiously and it just felt really good. And I was on a high and all of a sudden this happens. And I'm just like, no way. It's just like, don't tell me there's coincidences because I square away my, my, you know, standing with God. I get this, this, this, this, this, this, this, subpoena to go testify in Congress. And now on top of that, I'm going home. I was like, God is good. You know, like, that was, that's how I found out.

I didn't know. I call my husband. I'm like, oh, babe, what's going on? He's like, oh, I'm on the other line with President Trump. He told me to answer you, but it's over. You're going home. Like, go talk to President Trump. And I hung up on him.

It's just like so bizarre. It was just like so insane. I cried. I cried for like a solid hour. Like, I was sobbing. Like, I couldn't believe it. Like, it was all over. And it's funny because the CEO that was holding the shift, like, he doesn't know what's going on.

He sees all this commotion, screaming and talking. And then I go up to him in his room, like, sorry, sort of bother her. I just got commuted. He's like, what is that mean? I said, I'm going home. He's like, well, nobody's told me nothing. I'm like, no, I'm just letting you know because somebody's probably going to come. He's like, all right, when they come, we'll do whatever you're going to do.

And he's like, who are you? I'm like, I'm George. He's like, yeah. I know, but like, why are you getting commuted? I'm like, I'm former congressman from me. He was like, ah, you're a politician. He had no clue who I was. Completely oblivious to it.

And I'm like, yeah. He's like, all right, cool, good for you. And then I just like walked out of the room. And a few minutes later, a caseworker was there to sign out the paperwork. And then he's like, it's going to be a couple of hours, whatever. But I got commuted at 6 p.m. it was announced. I rolled out of prison at 1130. Did you feel guilty at all?

Maybe some other people there. I felt guilty leaving and Sam Miley staying. I did. I didn't care about everyone else. I mean, I'm not saying I don't care about them. I'm just saying to each their own. But I did feel guilty walking out of that building without Samuel. It felt wrong. He's my guy. He's there because he didn't turn on me. He could have easily stitched on me and said whatever they wanted him to say and not be there. He chose to be there in a sense. What do you think about the powerful people getting pardons? It's not just powerful people getting pardoned. I mean, if you look at our pardons are that's Alice and Marie John. And she wasn't nowhere near powerful, right? So there's this narrative that they say powerful people are getting pardoned. But in reality, it's not just powerful people. There's a lot of good people getting power pardoned and people who were wronged. I believe the Christie's were wrong.

I believe I was wrong. I believe there's a lot of people. Like, now, here's people that I would be a little shocked if they got pardoned. SBF, I'd be a little shocked. I'd be shocked if Did he got pardoned? Did he said some pretty awful things about President Trump? Why should he extend him clemency? And plus, we saw it on video, how awful.

he was to like these women, you know, so that's different, right? And look, if we're going to talk about power, powerful people getting pardoned, there's a lot of powerful people in prison right now that are not coming out. Like Senator Menendez is in prison. I don't think he's coming out. Gilles-Maxel is in prison. She's known the president for years. It doesn't look like she's coming out, you know? So there's a lot of powerful people in prison. It's not just powerful people, but that's how the media wants it to work. I think there's an admission of weaponized justice in my case, and it's evident the prosecutors were weaponized to take a seat, and I think the president did good on it, and I'm humbled for it. And I'm very grateful. I'm okay being a felon because I'm still a felon, and I'm okay with that.

So how is it that the restitution, you're not obligated to pay that, but you're still a felon? It's just how it works. You can commute a person's probation, restitution, and financial obligations, but in order to take away the felony, you just need to do a full-blown pardon, which I don't think was the appetite. You know, that was pushing the envelope. So is a commutation all those things you just listed all at once, or is it only one specific if they choose? They're all gone.

Okay. There's two types of commutation, a full commutation or just a release from prison and then continue to do everything else, and I just got a full commutation. What was your mindset coming out? Was it different from one before you went in? 100%. I came out. in touch with who I used to be before politics, and it feels good.

It feels good to be able to go back to, like, factory settings, default settings, before all the ambition of power and the greed and the, like, that was a very toxic, you know, albatross in my life, and I'm glad it's gone. What do you think is the public's biggest misconception about you still to this day? That I was scamming grandmas. That's very annoying. I'm sorry, annoying. It's not true. It's just frustrating, you know. But, you know, or that I'm a right-wing extremist or that I'm a liar, that I lie about everything, that everything I say is a lie. Those are

very frustrating. But you know what? I'm not going to change people's minds. I gave them, if you think about it, Ian, I gave people the right to feel that way. So for me, it's like, I just got to deal with the, you know, consequences of my own ass. actions and just work on proving them wrong. And eventually, hopefully, you know, we get to back to normal to where my life used to be. Do you see yourself getting involved in the criminal justice system to fix it at all? Right now, I'm probably one of the biggest prison reform and criminal justice advocates on Friday. This past Friday on what was Friday? So the 21st, there was this massive release of the BOP on new policies to which a lot of them were part

of the things that I had a meeting with on October 31st with the director and deputy director of the BOP at Maine Justice in Washington. And that speaks volumes to me. Like the fact that they listened and the fact that they're acting on a lot of these things and accountability from wardens and facilities are actually happening.

God bless these guys. I'll say this from former inmate to former inmate. If there was ever a just team to actually go do change that are going to help people really rehabilitate, this is the team. What do you think present day, George, would say to your teenage self? Listen to me. Everything I'm about to tell you is imperative for you to not go to prison. Yeah, because I would be terrified of the thought of prison as a teenager as I was up until

the day I went to prison. So that was always a big fear, losing my freedom. I'm ADD, on five hands. Can you imagine? And they took me off I-vance in prison. Medical care. How was your experience with medical care in prison? Terrible.

I remember the first time I got the flu because it was around like Christmas time. I went there. First, it takes like a week or something. Yeah, you're a cop out. Sick call. I put that in. You have to go at the crack of dawn. And they said, do you have money in your account?

I said, yes. Go get Tile and the law of commissary. Then my glasses, because I got the glasses slapped off my face because they were trying to extort me at Fort Dix because they thought I was a sex offender. They broke. It takes almost a year. to get a pair of glasses. The only reason why I got a new pair of glasses is because when I went to the camp, they had an eyeglass exchange program that the campers were doing with, like, people that would

donate glasses. And one of the inmates found my prescription, like some I found it. So I got this pair of blue glasses that I still have. I keep for a memento. I kept no momentals other than my jumpsuit that I smuggled out. I got my ID. You see, I'm so mad. I left my ID in the pocket of the coat and I took the coat on my way out and put it on the hangar. I feel like Titanic here. I put the locket in the coat and I put the coat on her. I'm like, damn it, the ID. I would sell that shit on eBay. Yeah. What are you going to do with the jumpsuit? I don't know yet. You should sell it. You know, I want to embroidered my inmate number, 58-474-510 on it, autograph it and probably sell it. I think that would be hilarious. But I want to wear, I want to do

something with it. So what did you think of the medical? It was garbage. I mean, you tell them, you tell them you're on Vivance. Like, oh, we don't do that here. Only non-conscripts. I'm like, so you don't treat ADD? Nope. I'm like, I've been on it for XYZ.

Too bad. I have an emergency inhaler for asthma. Well, we only fill those every three months. I'm like, well, there's black mold in your ceiling and my breathing has been really bad. And I can see the black mold. That's just roof discoloration. It's not black mold. I'm like, oh, my lungs say otherwise.

Well, if you go through this inhaler, the best I can do is give you a steroid one that's going to make you inflate like a balloon. I'm like, oh, lovely. So it's like, it's, these people suck. Have you stayed in touch with any of the inmates since you've gotten out? I plead the fifth.

Okay, fair. They're still inmates. Well, they can call you on the wall phone. They're still inmates. I'm a felon still. They're not supposed to talk to felons. Oh, yeah, you're still a felon. That is very true.

I think the tide's turning, though, with like probation. officers. Oh, probation officers so easy. And pre-trial, my pretrial officer, if it wouldn't be something that was, I guess, unethical, I think she'd be a bestie for me. Yeah, mine wasn't.

Mine was out to get me. Your pre-trial off? Oh, I'm sorry. I had a great one. Human-wise. I'm not saying she gave me favoritism or anything. She was just like a good person. Like a good human being. Somebody that would love to go get a drink with, you know, even though I don't drink like that. But, you know, I'd love to go get, like, I don't know, dinner.

You know, it's like, just fun person. prison hooch for you? No, I didn't break the rules. I never touched the phone when I was in prison despite having availability at one point. I passed. I didn't do prison hooch. Some guys would get drunk. I'm like, no, I'm good. I didn't do any of that. I didn't, I couldn't break the rules. I was too scared. I scared of my own shadow. What lesson do you want people to take away from your story? I think that there's so many lessons, but the main lesson is that I'm going to fight for something that I used to ignore. Every time I would hear prison reform, like, who cares? They're a bunch of criminals. It's not true. Prison's supposed to be for rehabilitation. And I want people to see from my story

that I'm going to fight for rehabilitation for people because I managed to do it. And I would call it on a fast track. I guess that's what 41 days in the shoe does for you. But I just want people to look at say that you can fall to the bottom of the well and still climb out. You don't need to become Samara and start calling people and giving them seven days to live. That's like a funny reference to the ring, but you didn't get it, whatever. I'd never watch that. Fuck you. You just made me feel old. But I hope that your viewers will get it. You can fall to the bottom of the well and still do well, you know. And I think that that's what people should look. There's always hope at the end of the tunnel and the light at the end of the tunnel. So, well,

George, I appreciate you coming out here today. Thank you for having me. This is really fun. This was a lot of fun. Hopefully it was something different than what you're used to. Yeah, no, it was fun. Thank you. Thank you.