Today, Explained - The many lies of George Santos

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

George Santos is supposed to become a member of Congress this week. We still have no idea who he is. This episode was produced by Amanda Lewellyn, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Serena Solin, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The question recurs upon the election of a speaker. Representative Kevin McCarthy continued his bid to be Speaker of the House today. He still hasn't gotten the 218 Republican votes that he needs. Sure, it looks messy, but democracy is messy. Democracy is messy by design. It's an embarrassment for the Republican Party. This is the first time such a thing has happened in a hundred years.

And it has overshadowed another, arguably, historic embarrassment. Do you feel like you're qualified to serve in this Congress right now? That of congressman-elect George Santos of New York. What can you say to reassure your constituents? A man who lied about his education, work history,

religion, real estate holdings, charitable giving, Hawaiian vacation, and about his mom. What the election of a fabulist tells us about America in 2023. Coming up on Today Explained. This NFL season, get in on all the hard-hitting action with FanDuel, North America's number one sportsbook. You can bet on anything from money lines to spreads and player props, or combine your bets in a same-game parlay for a shot at an even bigger payout. Plus, with super-simple live betting, lightning-fast bet settlement, and instant withdrawals, FanDuel makes betting on the NFL easier than ever before.

So make the most of this football season and download FanDuel today. 19-plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. Brian Mann is a correspondent at NPR where he covers, among other things, politics in New York State. Brian's been following the story of 34-year-old George Santos, who incidentally did vote for Kevin McCarthy for speaker. But his vote was much overshadowed by everything that preceded it, namely the revelation over the past few days that George Santos has lied about a lot of things. You know, I've covered politics for 30 years, and I've never seen

a character like George Santos. He is someone who didn't just lie about one thing. There's not a scandal that sort of focuses on one part of his biography. It really turns out he invented almost everything. He seems to be kind of a serial fabulist or fantasist who, you know, whenever anyone would ask him about some point in history, whether it was 9-11 or the Holocaust or the Pulse nightclub shooting, he would somehow attach his own history and his biography to that event. And it just, it turns out much of that is untrue. According to George Santos's resume, who is George Santos? What has he done? Yeah, so right up to the election, people thought of this as a guy who had gone to Baruch College, graduated, and then gone to a really

successful career on Wall Street, working for Citigroup, working for Goldman Sachs, someone who owned valuable real estate property. I'm a private sector guy who was born and raised in abject poverty in this country, and only in this country does somebody who comes from a basement apartment in Jackson Heights, like I did, is able to rise to become a successful business person to then run for United States Congress. He had this really passionate and compassionate backstory

where four of his employees had died in the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016. He spoke about that with, you know, real heartfelt, kind of almost PTSD-level connection to that event. I just want to weed out the hate out of our country and our society. There is no place for hate in the United States of America. He talked about his mother having been someone whose death was somehow linked to the 9-11 terror attacks in New York City.

He's a guy who talked about having Ukrainian heritage and ancestors who escaped the Holocaust in Eastern Europe ahead of World War II. I'm very proud of my Jewish heritage. I'm very proud of my grandparents' story. My grandfather fleeing Ukraine, fleeing Stalin's persecution, going to Belgium, finding refuge there. Mary, my grandmother, then fleeing Hitler, going to Brazil. That's a story of perseverance. And I'm so proud.

And so really an almost Zelig-like character who connected with history in all of these different and mostly successful ways. And that's the portrait of the man who got elected in November. And what does the portrait look like in real life? How much of that is true? Almost nothing. I mean, it's really astonishing, Noelle. I mean, again, I've never seen anything like it. His family did not escape the Holocaust. It's really questionable whether he actually has Jewish heritage at all. I've always joked with friends and circles, even with in the campaign, I'd say, guys, I'm Jewish. Remember, I was raised Catholic. campaigned very openly and very proudly as a Republican who was also openly gay.

But he was also married to a woman until 2019, something he did not disclose to the public. He never worked for Citigroup. He never worked for these prestigious Wall Street firms, didn't own any of that valuable real estate. His mother's passing in 2016 appears to have had no connection to the 9-11 terror attacks. When he lived in Brazil, George Santos was involved in an alleged crime where he stole someone's checkbook. The Times has come up with documentation on social media where he allegedly admitted to having done something wrong. The Brazilian government has now reopened that case. They essentially put that prosecution on mothballs because he vanished. He came to America and left their jurisdiction. Now that journalists have kind of connected the

dots back to that incident, the Brazilian government says they are looking at this again as a possible crime. It just goes on and on to the point where, you know, what's left is sort of a portrait of a guy who was sort of struggling in life, couldn't pay his bills, left debts behind up until 2020, had very little income. Friends have come forward to say he often didn't pay back money that they loaned to him. Really a struggling life that he sort of in this, again, kind of Gatsby-esque way just sort of shed and then reinvented himself as a political candidate. How did we start to find out that this gentleman who'd been elected to the U.S. Congress was in fact making stuff up? Local press accounts of George Santos raised real questions about his backstory before the election,

but it didn't catch fire. It didn't really get the public's attention that this guy was lying about big chunks of his biography. It was really later, after the election, George Santos went to this controversial gathering of Republicans in Manhattan, where far-right activists and even some alleged white supremacists spoke. The journalists again began kind of looking deeper into his background. Who is this guy? And the New York Times, in talking to people, found more voices at Baruch College, at Citigroup, at Goldman Sachs, who said, we don't know him. He's not who he says he is. And so once that story broke, a lot of other

journalists, including myself, sort of piled in to sort of see what part of his story would hold up. And again, I think to everyone's astonishment, wherever you looked, wherever you sort of lifted up a rock that he had said, you know, this is my story, this is who I am, you would look under that rock and find it just wasn't true. The facts just didn't bear it out. Has George Santos admitted to any wrongdoing? What has he said as it's come out that he's not been telling the truth? He's been remarkably confrontational. This isn't the made-up narrative,

but I feel like nobody really wants to sit down and talk about it. Everybody just wants to push me and call me a liar. Look, I embellish... A lot of what he said is that this is sort of a vendetta against him by the liberal media, an attempt to bring down kind of a new Republican voice. At the same time, he has acknowledged what he describes as embellishments to his resume.

He said, you know, I made some mistakes. Did I embellish my resume? Yes, I did. And I'm sorry. And it shouldn't be done. But I'm still the same guy. I'm not a fraud. I'm not a cartoon character. I'm not some mythical creature that was invented. What he hasn't done, Noel, is bring

forward any facts or documentation or, you know, people to describe his account as being truthful. So while he's, you know, pushed back pretty aggressively and said, yes, I'm going to serve in Congress, I'm going to serve out my first full term. He hasn't done much to actually prove that he is anything like the politician he presented himself as to voters. The politician, but also the person. And this is where it gets very confusing, because I think there's a knee jerk reaction, which is to say, ah, all politicians lie. But what's interesting in this case is it's not that he's lying about his policies. It's not that he's lying about, you know, no new taxes. He's actually lying about who he is. And so at the end of the day, what do we know for certain about who this man is?

I think what's really amazing here is he's lying about things not only about who he is, Noelle, but also about things that are really important to people in New York. You know, 9-11 is sacred ground in New York, of course, all over the country, but in New York in particular. The Holocaust, this is not something in New York City, Long Island, it's not something you toy with or lie about. And so he crossed lines in describing his personal narrative. The Jewish community has reacted with real fury and real disgust at this behavior, as you can imagine. What we're left with when you peel all of that away is, you know, so far, and this is an evolving portrait of a man with a largely unsuccessful career, a man who struggled again and again to develop

some kind of success, according to friends and lovers and others who knew him along the way, a man who fell into the habit in his personal life of deceiving people, of telling invented stories about himself. And that habit appears to have just kind of carried over into his political life. I will say that while a lot of this digging has happened, and we've had a lot of, you know, big revelations about him, there are still some big mysteries. You know, this is a guy who appeared really quite poor until 2020. And then all of a sudden in 2021, he starts describing in federal campaign documents millions in a call center and this was a guy who lived with his family and couldn't pay his rent, suddenly it's like, you know, where the hell did that money come from? And I think that's one of the big mysteries going forward. Who is he

and where did his money come from? Coming up on Today Explained, shunning, scolding, what might the Republican Party do to George Santos? Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies. Tell me lies, tell me, tell me lies. Oh no, no, you can't disguise. You can't disguise. No, you can't disguise. Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.

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Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca. Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies. 531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca. It's Today Explained. We're back with NPR's Brian Mann. George Santos won a congressional seat in New York State. What's notable about the district that elected him? Who sent this guy to Congress? George Santos was elected in a Long Island congressional district that you would describe as purple. This is a battleground district, one of the few battleground districts left in New York and left it really in the country. And he was part of a really bright spot for Republicans.

Republican George Santos also flipped New York's third congressional district, defeating Democrat Robert Zimmerman. That was a big race. A lot of people did not see that coming. New York Congressman-elect George Santos joins us right now to talk more about it. Congratulations. Thank you so much. This is a big deal. Zimmerman was... You'll remember in the midterms, this was a tough year for the GOP. They fell way short of their expectations. But in New York State, they did really well. They campaigned largely on crime. Their narrative was that there was this big rise in violent

and dangerous criminal behavior that the Democrats were to blame. And George Santos leaned hard into that narrative, again, with the support of a lot of other Republican operatives and top tier politicians. You don't like the police, don't call them. But over here in Long Island, we love the police and we back the blue. And in the end, he won handily. He turned out to be pretty darn good on the campaign trail. All of this sort of burnished his brand and it led to him being one of those really standout

victories. Of course, that's heavily tarnished at this point, but he was part of a red wave here. New tonight, a newly elected Republican congressman facing a barrage of questions as key parts of his resume, like where he went to college, where he worked, don't appear to be adding up. I think it's shocking to people. You know, we at NPR have spoken to people on Long Island who are baffled. How can this be? I just think it's such crap. Like, teachers have to, like, present so much information in order to, like, get their license.

And this guy is just going to lie and still be able to go into Congress. I think it's stupid. They talk about the fact that, you know, to get a job as a school teacher or as a cop or really almost anything, you have to go through pretty serious vetting and you have to kind of prove you are who you say you are. And the fact that it turns out that very little of that actually happens for someone running for one of the most powerful, prestigious offices in the country, I think that's shocking to everybody. And we've heard a lot of outrage and disappointment. And I think we also are learning again that we kind of live in a new age of American politics

where the parties can't necessarily be trusted to kick the tires on their own candidates. And we don't know anymore that conventions and traditions and I hate to say it, but things like honor and honesty mean very much. You know, there was probably a time in American politics where lying this pervasively would have caused a political party to close ranks against a newly elected official, where something this egregious involving the Holocaust, involving 9-11, it would have triggered a real backlash within a party. And that just hasn't happened with Republicans this

time around. You know, they look very likely to ultimately embrace George Santos, to work with George Santos. We'll see what kind of committee assignments he gets. And so, yeah, it's shocking that he got elected without much tire kicking. And it's shocking that right now, at least, there are not mechanisms that exclude him from holding that power. And that is in part because all of the lies

that George Santos has told to this point might be interesting, might be worth digging in on, but nobody's proved that he's done anything illegal. Is that part of it? Is it that he didn't do anything criminal that we know of? You know, it turns out that the constitutional rules for who gets to serve in Congress are really minimal. It's not even entirely clear to me after speaking with a bunch of experts that criminal behavior would disqualify him from serving in Congress. Congress is a world governed more by politics and tradition than by law. And so obviously it will matter if it does emerge that there's clear evidence of criminal wrongdoing by George Santos. I want to be clear. He says he's done nothing criminally wrong. But as you say, lying is certainly not a disqualifier, even on this scale. One of the things that I think we're all still getting used to in the Trumpian era is waking up to the fact that our democracy worked by convention and tradition rather than by really clear rules

and laws. And so, yeah, it turns out that there just aren't really safeguards to a guy like this other than the voters. You know, they'll obviously, if he runs again, they'll get a crack at this guy in 2024. But in the meantime, you know, unless something dramatic happens, he appears very likely to serve out a full term. You allude to this interesting if, if George Santos did something illegal. He is being investigated. Who is investigating him and what for? So far, NPR has confirmed that there is a U.S. attorney team looking at his financial dealings and his background. There is also a prosecutor,

and it's noteworthy that it's a Republican prosecutor, a district attorney in Nassau County on Long Island, who's looking into his lies and deceptions. It's likely that if there's evidence of other misdeeds in other jurisdictions that more people will come in. Of course, the Brazilian government has said that they're looking at his past. And it really appears likely that this will focus on the money. A lot of politicians would be in trouble if you couldn't lie about anything. It is more problematic if you lie on a federal campaign form. You know, if you deceive the government about where your money is coming from, those things could be much more problematic. And so not only prosecutors, but also I think a lot of journalists are right now are really on that money trail trying to figure out,

you know, what happened there and did it amount to criminal behavior? I wonder if you have any insight into why the Republican Party isn't pushing for some disciplinary action. What is their calculus? If the people in his district who voted for him are angry, why doesn't the Republican Party nationally say, George, you're going to have to pay for this, man? I think what we're hearing from Republicans is a narrative that George Santos is going to have to rebuild trust as if this were a conventional scandal of some kind. We're a country of second chances. And when people are willing to turn their life

around and own up to this, then do what it takes to earn respect and trust again, you know, we're willing to do that. So I'm hopeful, you know, he chooses the right path. There may well be a House Ethics Committee probe, and we'll see what they decide to do as a punishment. It could be a scolding on the House floor, some kind of wrist slapping. He could be denied committee assignments that he wants. So there are things short of excluding him from office that they could do. At the end of the day, though, Noel, what's really important here is power. And the Republicans hold a razor thin majority in the House. The House leadership is incredibly fragile under the Republicans. And so, you know, as much as George Santos right now is politically damaged goods, he's also valuable goods. He is super crucial to their future. And so their ability to really punish him is very limited if they also hope to use his power. Where has Kevin McCarthy come down in all of this?

One of the things that was really fascinating is that after the election, Kevin McCarthy gave a speech that was circulated online where he trumpeted the fact that the Jewish members of Congress from the Republican Party were more numerous than ever before in history, that they were really proud that they had this big group of Jewish lawmakers on the GOP side of the aisle. And he included George Santos in that list. Now that it turns out that George Santos is not Jewish, he's Roman Catholic, maybe has some Jewish heritage, although again, that's in question. Kevin McCarthy has been silent and other top Republicans who've been instrumental in getting Santos elected,

they've gone silent. You know, Elise Stefanik, this very influential New York State House member, she's a top leader in the GOP now. She really leaned in hard to get Santos elected, helped him raise money, appeared with him. She's gone silent about all of this. And that's been a pattern. You know, a lot of times when Republicans have been confronted by, you know, these really top tier scandals, they've just faded back and they've tried to kind of ride it out. And so we'll see where the House GOP leadership ultimately lands with Santos. But so far, they seem very likely to welcome him into

the ranks. Without asking you to predict too much, what do you think is going to happen next? What are you looking to cover yourself? I think the money is the most fascinating thing here. You know, where did George Santos's money come from? I really think we'll learn a lot more about that in the weeks ahead, and that could be his Achilles heel. I think that there is also going to be an interesting story to play out here about how American democracy adapts to characters like George Santos. In this populist era, we're seeing more people come forward running for incredibly high office who have no history, no policy background, no track record. They are blank slates in terms of policy.

And up until now, I think journalists and even political actors, you know, have been lazy about vetting these people and saying, OK, this is a whole new world. You know, there was a time, you know, I'm 57. And for most of my career, if somebody was running for Congress, you kind of knew who they were. They'd been around, you know, they were known faces and maybe they had some scandals in their past, but they were known scandals. Now, I think we're going to see more and more of these people who pop up out of the Tea Party movement or the MAGA movement or, you know, as the party structures fray. And I think that's one of the things that I'm really going to be doing a lot more of is just basic, you know, who are these people? Did they really

go to school where they say they went to school? Are there businesses that they claim success with? Were they real? And I hate to say that we're entering another stage of cynicism or skepticism, but I think the George Santos story proves that that's necessary and warranted. Today's episode was produced by Amanda Llewellyn. It was edited by Amina El-Sadi, and it was engineered by Paul Robert Mouncey. It was fact-checked by Serena Solon. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. Thank you.