The erstwhile New York Republican congressman expelled by his colleagues on Dec. 1 told the "Trump Tuesday" X-Space, hosted by Mark Naughton, that he is already contemplating a comeback and is working on a book exposing the dirty deals he witnessed under the Capitol dome.
“I'm 35 years old. If I find the fortitude to do this again, I might just do it again down the line,” said George Santos, whose former district, New York-3, sits on the northeast coast of Long Island, beginning with the easternmost neighborhoods of Queens, and including the Gold Coast environs of Great Neck, home of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby, and Oyster Bay, home of President Theodore Roosevelt.
“Right now, I want to focus on myself and my family, but most importantly, in 2024 and getting Trump back into the White House,” he said.
— Mark Naughton (@MarkNaughton9) December 27, 2023
Santos said he has always supported President Donald J. Trump.
“Whether it was calling donors for him, whether door knocking for him, whether it was in Congress, passing legislation he tried to pass when he was president of the United States, voting MAGA, being as MAGA as possible,” he said.
“That’s been my M.O., I’m Trump through and through,” he said.
“I want to continue to lend my conservative voice and opinion to our movement to see that we reelect Donald Trump back into the White House, where he should be right now.”
The former congressman said he dialed into the X-Space at the direction of Ginger Gaetz, wife of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R.-Fla.), a friend and ally of Long Island businessman. “I was doing something, and Ginger doesn't ask me anything I don't say yes to.”
Santos said he is also keeping his eye on the Republican members of the New York House delegation, who led the fight to throw him out of Congress.
“There’s just a lot that I want to keep working on, and I'm not going to go away,” he said.
“It’s part of the cycle circle of life, and if you let yourself get beat up too much by it, then you lose sight of what is important,” he said.
“I call all this stuff the little things, and I just like to focus on the big things in life, which is family, friends, and health,” he said.
“I feel like the guys from New York who all worked hard to expel me only to get shafted in the end by redistricting,” he said. “Karma works in very mysterious ways, and it's a very wide two-way street.”
Santos said he believes 100 percent that some of the attacks on him were attacks on Rep. Elise Stefanik (R.-N.Y.) because Stefanik, who replaced former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney chairing the House Republican Conference, was close to him, and her rise was a challenge to other Republicans.
“They took my proximity to the congresswoman and the fact that she did help get me elected and tried to hurt her,” he said. “But, she is not the only one. They try to hurt. They try to hurt a lot of people, and at the end of the day, they hurt me a great deal, too.”
Santos’ Book to Expose Capitol Hill Corruption
Santos said he was aware of the statements by Rep. Tim Burchette (R.-Tenn.), where the Tennessean said House conservatives betray their voters because they are blackmailed with sexual misconduct.
“I can't talk too much,” he said.
“I do have a book coming up. I am starting to write with the ghostwriter who's helping me because if anyone knows me, my grammar is not good enough for writing an entire book,” he said.
“I'll say this,” Santos said. “I've seen personally in my time in Congress, which was 11 months, I've seen conservative members vote for C.R. out of abject fear that they would be primaried and resources would be cut.”
The New Yorker said he witnessed a primary threat in person.
“I saw the threat be made from the horse's mouth straight to the member: ‘Hey, you got that state senator there. He calls me every day, man, he really wants your seat,’” he said.
“I've seen conservative members just flop,” he said. “It's all money. The threats come from money. I can't give you names—not now--I'm sorry, Neil, too soon—but I'll say it's pretty sad.”
The son of two Brazilian parents said he finished working on a video project that will tell his side of the story.
“No. 2, I just did a major tell-all documentary rebuking a lot of the allegations, bringing evidence and proof and stuff,” he said.
“When I say allegations, I'm talking about all the ‘George Santos stole my scarf' B.S., 'George Santos killed my dog' B.S.—all the nonsensical stuff that people were out there with,” he said.
He said the documentary stays clear of his legal proceedings with the Justice Department.
“Obviously, I didn't get into any of the DOJ stuff because it's disrespectful to the process,” he said. “I need to be mindful of doing the right thing here and going through that process separately. There's no point in litigating it in the press.”
Santos Broke With McCarthy Over the Debt Ceiling Deal
Santos said he was pressured over the debt ceiling deal Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R.-Calif.) negotiated with President Joe Biden, which was released Memorial Day weekend.
“The first bill that I bucked leadership on was the debt ceiling limit,” he said.
Up until the debt deal, the Long Island congressman had been a reliable leadership vote, including his voting for McCarthy for all 15 rounds of voting during the speaker election, and he said the threats to whip him back in line were real. “I voted against it. I still have the text messages and everything.”
Santos said during the fight over the debt deal bill, leadership scheduled a procedural vote, a routine practice to keep everyone in place.
“They always do that to keep people around so they can twist their arms,” he said.
“That was the first vote I missed ever because I refused to go and stay on the floor,” he said. “I went in, voted no on the debt ceiling and left, went home.”
He said that McCarthy's team tried to track him down to change his vote.
“I didn't go to my office.--there were members of the speaker staff in my office. There were members of the speaker’s staff calling me,” Santos said.
“There were all sorts of members throughout leadership from Bryan Steil from Wisconsin, all the way down trying to call me,” he said. Steil is the former staffer to Speaker Paul Ryan (R.-Wis.), who succeeded his one-time boss when Ryan retired from Congress in 2019. Steil is now chairman of the House Administration Committee.
Then, the top man called, he said. “The speaker himself, Kevin McCarthy, was calling me to go back and change my vote, and I just didn't answer him.”
Santos said he did not mean to disrespect leadership or McCarthy, whom he liked and supported; he just had to own his vote. "It wasn't for sale, and they were all trying to sell me how this was necessary, and I disagree, and things were said, and pressures were put.”
In the end, the beginning of the end of his House tenure came with a message he received from a leadership staffer who told him that leadership was lifting its veil of protection, he said.
“This came from staff: ‘Why go to bat for you if you're not going to go to bat for us?’”
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