Reporters were greeted by a wild scene on Capitol Hill on Friday as Rep. George Santos began screaming and shouting while storming through the halls. Cameras rushed to his position, trying to ascertain what was happening. 

Santos can be heard accusing someone of accosting him while shouting about them being a "terrorist sympathizer." He also mentions that he was holding a baby at the time. 

I just walked out of the elevator to this: pic.twitter.com/2JTPTOT8sW

— Aishah Hasnie (@aishahhasnie) October 13, 2023

It's not clear who the baby belonged to, but it was apparently handed off at some point, as another video appears to show the tail-end of the exchange. In it, Santos is seen arguing with several anti-Israel protesters. 

> @MrSantosNY gets into it with protestors who were accosting him in the hallway about the “ongoing genocide of Palestinians by Israelis.”

Santos was holding a 2 month old baby when they first started accosting him. pic.twitter.com/dLMWMkdkTa

— Reese Gorman (@reesejgorman) October 13, 2023

Here's part of what I could make out.

SANTOS: It is abhorrent that you are in this building stepping up for terrorists. You are a terrorist sympathizer. You are human scum.

According to Reese Gorman of the Washington Examiner, at least one of the protesters was detained and escorted out of the building. Whether they were trespassing or had permission to be inside the Capitol office building (it appears that's where this took place) is not known at this time. 

I know Santos has a lot of personal problems going on right now (including another slate of indictments), but I don't think that's relevant in this situation. If these people were trespassing and accosting him, the proper thing to do was remove them. Knowing what was said before the cameras showed up would be helpful in figuring out exactly what happened. We also need to know how these people got into the building in the first place. 

It is possible that they had a right to be there. While Rep. Nancy Pelosi locked Capitol Hill down like a prison, Republicans have returned things to normal order. That means that constituents can enter the building for certain reasons and walk the same hallways as members of Congress. To that extent, Santos may have gotten a bit too heated after being heckled. Certainly, he projected that more was done than just the exchange of some choice words. 

The fact that the protesters were detained (or possibly arrested) does lend credence to the idea that something more went on here and that they weren't supposed to be there. Perhaps Santos will elaborate soon.