Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Zaren Hey, I wasn't.
Speaker 3: How are you today?
Speaker 2: I'm very well refreshed.
Speaker 3: Are you awake?
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally look at me awake. Yeah, my eyes are awake.
Speaker 3: I'm not listen pow, but listen, old bean. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Oh girl, do I it's a little navel gaisy, but
Speaker 2: I gotta say, yeah, I can't read apparently. Oh really, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's ridiculous either. It's really late in my life to
Speaker 2: learn that I can't read. But I can't read because
Speaker 2: last week I was telling you about those baseball players
Speaker 2: look exactly alike, okay, right, and the red Gingers and
Speaker 2: their name, last name was Figel. I got that part right.
Speaker 2: First name not Brad. What is Brady? Apparently? I read
Speaker 2: enough letters like brad Borough whatever, you know, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: I call him Brah so he is. I apologize to
Speaker 2: both the Brady Figles.
Speaker 3: Okay, and they're notwhere, not all of them.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of bigod exemptions. You know who you are,
Speaker 2: you know what you did.
Speaker 3: They're days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there you go. And then also one of
Speaker 2: our listeners, cat named Richard Moore, wrote in and said,
Speaker 2: uh that you know when Sara tells Elizabeth a bunch
Speaker 2: of ridiculous in this episode about that one. Did those
Speaker 2: two minor league ballplayers ever get their respective parents together
Speaker 2: just for fun?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Oh, not that way. I think like to have them
Speaker 2: like sorted out, like where were you on that night?
Speaker 3: You know? But genetically they're not the same, right they said,
Speaker 3: what if it's like but yeah, get the parents together
Speaker 3: and find out if it's like some sort of government.
Speaker 2: Experiences are I was like the idea that God only
Speaker 2: has so many faces and just like I got here,
Speaker 2: you go, you get the there you go.
Speaker 3: Ridiculous. That is ridiculous. Do you want to know what
Speaker 3: else is ridiculous? Yes? Please filming cameos?
Speaker 2: What what.
Speaker 4: This is?
Speaker 3: Ridiculous? Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous caper's hes
Speaker 3: and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free. And
Speaker 3: you know what ridiculous?
Speaker 2: I know you heard that you did?
Speaker 3: Sweet baby hotcakes? Have I got one for you? Today's
Speaker 3: are really my goodness, especially sweet ones. Con artists scammer. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love con artists. Yes, And part of the thing
Speaker 3: about them is that they're always they're shameless. Yes, they
Speaker 3: will say absolutely whatever it takes to get what they want.
Speaker 2: To move forward.
Speaker 3: Yes, right, here is a case study in just that.
Speaker 3: Really like saying what people want to hear, knowing an
Speaker 3: audience and working it and then being super audacious in
Speaker 3: how you take and use the scammed money and power.
Speaker 2: Huh So this is like a Mount Rushmore level scammer.
Speaker 3: Yes, I should not, but I love this guy.
Speaker 2: Ooh conflict.
Speaker 3: He's terrible and I deeply, deeply disagree with him about
Speaker 3: pretty much everything.
Speaker 2: That's what I feel about Pablo Escobar, right. See, I
Speaker 2: have a begrudging respect for him. He's horrible, horrendous. I
Speaker 2: would never say and stand by anything he's ever done.
Speaker 2: I would apologize anything to anyone who's ever hurt, but
Speaker 2: I will still sit there and go I love the Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's an idea.
Speaker 3: He he's so entertaining and he's so messy, and his
Speaker 3: wings have been clipped, so he's not the danger that
Speaker 3: he once was.
Speaker 2: Okay, Saren, I want.
Speaker 3: To tell you all about disgraced former congress person George Sam.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. We're going there. We're going there. We're
Speaker 2: going to the mountaint. You're taking to the.
Speaker 3: Mountain, Santos baby, I want to.
Speaker 2: Tell you I was already getting rare.
Speaker 3: Okay. He was born George Anthony Devald Santos July twenty second,
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2: Divald. So he really is Brazilian. Got one of them
Speaker 2: German names. Slid in there, sneaky in Queen's.
Speaker 3: He was born in Queens.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's his family is spider Man's from there, Peterborough.
Speaker 3: His family's from Brazil. As you said, they're all immigrants
Speaker 3: who came to this country looking for a better life.
Speaker 3: They took hard jobs. His mom was a housekeeper, cook, nanny.
Speaker 3: His dad was one of your people, a house painter.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, good people, salt to.
Speaker 3: The earth folks. Right. His childhood was rough. They were
Speaker 3: super super poor.
Speaker 2: The cowboys of construction.
Speaker 3: Right. They lived in terrible conditions in Jackson Heights, Queen's.
Speaker 3: But his mom did everything that she could to still
Speaker 3: get George, Like the little things that would make him
Speaker 3: feel like a regular kid.
Speaker 2: Oh so, like.
Speaker 3: Toys and stuff when they had absolutely nothing. She would
Speaker 3: scrape together make sure he had like nice Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 3: his dad took off, but his mom just kept plugging away,
Speaker 3: like doing the best for her two kids. He has
Speaker 3: a sister. So this hard scrabble life put George in
Speaker 3: positions of having to make choices like to be truthful
Speaker 3: or to tell a lie.
Speaker 2: Ah, those types of choices to crime.
Speaker 3: Or not to cryme ah. Yes, yeah, and he didn't
Speaker 3: always make the right choices, No, our Georgie, our little Georgie.
Speaker 3: In my research, it became apparent that George told the
Speaker 3: world lies, created falsehoods that were just the life that
Speaker 3: he wanted to live.
Speaker 2: Oh so he's a fabulous of his own telling. He's
Speaker 2: not trying to impress you, He's trying to almost impress
Speaker 2: himself exactly.
Speaker 3: And it seems it seems like he almost couldn't control himself,
Speaker 3: like he lied about everything, and he uses and use
Speaker 3: and uses his lies to manipulate situations and get ahead,
Speaker 3: like he's always hustling.
Speaker 2: Okay, he has no relationship to truth? Is that none
Speaker 2: unless forced upon.
Speaker 3: Him, right, and even then then he's like, no, that's
Speaker 3: not get behind me safe.
Speaker 2: Like he did.
Speaker 3: He didn't graduate from high school. He got a ged,
Speaker 3: but he told everyone that he went to this really
Speaker 3: prestigious and expensive New York school horuce Man, Okay, and
Speaker 3: he did not.
Speaker 2: It seems like it's small enough and be hard to
Speaker 2: like get by if anybody's ever been there, be like, man,
Speaker 2: you aren't a man.
Speaker 3: Well, and then the thing is, though, is it like
Speaker 3: even when faced with all this evidence, when people are like,
Speaker 3: we went through one hundred and twenty eight years of
Speaker 3: their yearbooks, like they searched their database, they went through records. No, no, no,
Speaker 3: Divulder like, yeah, you're not a time traveler. No iterations
Speaker 3: of your name. He's like, well, then I went there.
Speaker 2: What's the problem? Talk to them about theeper.
Speaker 3: So he would tell tales about his mom being this
Speaker 3: major Republican donor, like like canvassing for Rudy Giuliani.
Speaker 2: Actually a major Democratic donor.
Speaker 3: No, she she just was like not politically. She had
Speaker 3: like shaky immigration status.
Speaker 2: Oh right right, and he's not going to be out
Speaker 2: there going knocking on doors.
Speaker 3: He said that she was like this high powered financier
Speaker 3: in an office in the World Trade Center. I mean
Speaker 3: she was surrounded by wealth in her job because she
Speaker 3: was a housekeeper to all these like fortune five hundred families.
Speaker 2: Wow. So she was close enough for him to observe
Speaker 2: it so he could speak knowledgeably about it.
Speaker 3: That's exactly it he said. He graduated from Baruk College
Speaker 3: with a degree in economics and finance, and then he
Speaker 3: also had an MBA from NYU and Nope on both
Speaker 3: super he was like flamboyant guy. He is a flamboyant guy.
Speaker 3: He married as a young young man. He married a
Speaker 3: really beautiful Brazilian woman and people were like, huh, I
Speaker 3: didn't think the women didn't think that what was interested.
Speaker 3: A lot of people thought maybe it was like a
Speaker 3: beard because he had such a conservative family. The relationship
Speaker 3: didn't last long. It was like pretty much concluded to
Speaker 3: be a citizenship thing for her, for her to get
Speaker 3: her a green card.
Speaker 2: So it worked out for both of them. Yeah, glationship
Speaker 2: and so like he.
Speaker 3: Wasn't out per se, he just wasn't telling. But he
Speaker 3: like he wouldn't talk about the whole marriage.
Speaker 2: It wasn't actual. There was no romance. He's not like, okay, no.
Speaker 3: But so he went back and forth to Brazil to
Speaker 3: see his family, and a lot of times when he
Speaker 3: was there he would go by the name Anthony Divolder.
Speaker 3: He told people he met there that his dad was
Speaker 3: like this super rich guy in New York. One of
Speaker 3: the times he was there, two thousand and five, he
Speaker 3: participated in this absolutely raucous Pride celebration in drag And
Speaker 3: there's this book called The Fabuloust, which is interesting. You
Speaker 3: should you know, describe him as such by Mark Chuisano.
Speaker 3: It's all about George sure, and in it the author
Speaker 3: tells the story of George at this Pride parade and
Speaker 3: how he got interviewed by a TV crew. Quote the interviewee,
Speaker 3: who is indeed Santos, according to friends and ex friends
Speaker 3: of the future Congressman, has the confidence of youth he's
Speaker 3: not yet twenty, the breathlessness of a party, of nighttime,
Speaker 3: of being one among many and not alone. He is
Speaker 3: far from Queen's He is unfettered by familial authority, figures
Speaker 3: and restrictions. He revels in this permissive, affirming culture, just
Speaker 3: a nice change in general, from the same old, same
Speaker 3: old atmosphere back home. He nonchalantly grabs a pair of
Speaker 3: sunglasses off a less than fully clad man next to him,
Speaker 3: dawns them the sunglasses with the explanation that they're required
Speaker 3: since he fudged his makeup. He lights up when a
Speaker 3: microphone enters the frame. True to current form, Santos also
Speaker 3: gets in some self promotion about his presentations or performances
Speaker 3: at the big rio drag clubs of the era, like
Speaker 3: Cascadura or even La Bois. Then the interview ends with
Speaker 3: Santos's hand skimming smoothly across the semi bare chest of
Speaker 3: the formerly sunglassed man us for a TV ready accessory.
Speaker 3: It's a beautiful night in Knitroy. It is a beautiful
Speaker 3: time to be uninhibited, to be alive. So you have
Speaker 3: this young guy living it up best life. This will
Speaker 3: come back to haunt him later, but in that moment,
Speaker 3: he's living it up. No responsibilities, just dreams. But so
Speaker 3: many contradictions. Like he was doing drag quite a bit then,
Speaker 3: and it's something that he later denied.
Speaker 2: Was he really at boy in those big drag places.
Speaker 3: That I don't know if that was, but I know
Speaker 3: that there are people in Brazil who confirm, Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: he brought like expensive materials from New York down to
Speaker 3: Brazil that people couldn't get to make costumes. Now, he,
Speaker 3: you know, posts on social media about how there are
Speaker 3: only two genders and is very gender traditionalists.
Speaker 2: Pretty far in the needle fliph.
Speaker 3: But the thing is his whole family were big Bolscenaro
Speaker 3: fans in Brazil.
Speaker 2: I could see that Latin American politicis he was, even
Speaker 2: though Bolsonnaro total homophobe.
Speaker 3: But it's the kind of contradiction we'll see a lot
Speaker 3: of with George.
Speaker 2: Yeah, their idea of conservative politics hasn't quite a line
Speaker 2: with ours, you know. I mean, it may seem like it,
Speaker 2: but it's a different but like the you know, No,
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to not excusing Bolsonaro or saying that
Speaker 2: he's not I'm saying, but I mean that the people
Speaker 2: who choose the people that they're voting for, they're not
Speaker 2: thinking the I'm a Democrat or a Republican the way
Speaker 2: that we might think of those categories.
Speaker 3: I just think that if someone was so just violently homophobic,
Speaker 3: like you would think he would.
Speaker 2: Say, you would think yeah. But That's what I'm trying
Speaker 2: to say, is that they look at the material politics different, right.
Speaker 3: Right, So Georgia, there's stuff in Brazil. He stole a
Speaker 3: check book and committed check fraud. That was in two
Speaker 3: thousand and eight. He confessed to the crime, but then
Speaker 3: he fled the country and he was actually a fugitive
Speaker 3: for that until twenty twenty three from Brazil and George, yeah,
Speaker 3: back in New York though.
Speaker 2: So now I can't go home or ye back exactly,
Speaker 2: and so.
Speaker 3: He's back in New York. He keeps plugging along. He
Speaker 3: had a gig at the Dish Network call center, okay,
Speaker 3: and he lied to all these people there about how
Speaker 3: he came from this wealthy Brazilian family and they're like, well,
Speaker 3: then why are you working in this call center?
Speaker 2: Either way, does your family not like it?
Speaker 3: He got another job working for a company called Hotels
Speaker 3: Pro not really sure what that is, some sort of
Speaker 3: booking technology thing. He actually moved to Florida for a
Speaker 3: little bit and worked for them there. Then he went
Speaker 3: back to New York and he got a gig at
Speaker 3: link Bridge Investors, some investment fund firm. He would later
Speaker 3: say that he was a vice president there, but he
Speaker 3: was not. He was a freelancer who worked on the mission.
Speaker 3: In January of twenty twenty, he got a job with
Speaker 3: Harbor City Capital and that's a Florida based investment firm.
Speaker 3: He was their New York regional director and he told
Speaker 3: people that he was managing one and a half billion
Speaker 3: dollars in funds for Harbor City and with a fixed
Speaker 3: yield of twelve percent and an internal rate of return
Speaker 3: of twenty six percent. Wow, does that sound shady?
Speaker 2: No, Elizabeth, that sounds completely above board.
Speaker 3: Thereon, it was shady, this is but it wasn't all
Speaker 3: George on that one. The SEC would go on later
Speaker 3: to file a civil suit against Harbor City the whole
Speaker 3: company for running a seventeen million dollars ponzi scheme.
Speaker 2: Oh so they're all George Santa. He got a job
Speaker 2: with a Yeah, it's I know, real, recognized, real, exactly,
Speaker 2: fake recognized, fake, want to put it.
Speaker 3: Luckily they let him go from the from the company
Speaker 3: before the chips hit the fan on that one.
Speaker 2: Oh so, but it was he left.
Speaker 3: They got rid of him because he was involved in
Speaker 3: something else, something that was taking up more of his time.
Speaker 3: Was that politics, baby?
Speaker 2: Oh right, we had to get to that.
Speaker 3: So so George had announced in November of twenty nineteen
Speaker 3: that he was running for New York's third congressional district
Speaker 3: as the Republican candidate. This is like Long Island, Northeastern Queens.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty Democrat, yeah, exactly, district.
Speaker 3: Affluence su Bourbon voters.
Speaker 2: But they're like, why run for that district.
Speaker 3: Yeah, basically, his opponent, Thomas Swosey, incumbent Democrat, was like
Speaker 3: a moderate voice for the Dems running for his third term.
Speaker 3: So this is just like this is kamikaze mission.
Speaker 2: So George, somebody had to run.
Speaker 3: Why why not me? So George, he runs on this
Speaker 3: conservative Republican platform. He's all about Donald Trump and MAGA,
Speaker 3: lower taxes, hardline immigration policies, uh huh, support for Israel,
Speaker 3: opposition to abortion, and LGBTQ plus curriculum in schools. And
Speaker 3: I don't forget at this point he's totally out as
Speaker 3: a gay man. But whatever he had come out of nowhere,
Speaker 3: nobody knew, really knew him, and he wasn't deeply entrenched
Speaker 3: in local GOP politics. So party officials later said, well,
Speaker 3: you know, we're like, no one's interested in running, Like
Speaker 3: you said, like no one wants to do it. COVID's
Speaker 3: going on, you know, But here there's George. He hands
Speaker 3: in this phony resume full of all the information that
Speaker 3: they wanted to hear. He told him the story they wanted. Oh,
Speaker 3: so he goes hard on the campaign trail. He really
Speaker 3: pushed like this amazing background he'd created for himself. He's
Speaker 3: not the son of struggling immigrants with shaky legal status.
Speaker 3: He's not the guy who struggled and worked in call centers. No,
Speaker 3: he's like, look, I have this degree. I you know,
Speaker 3: I have an MBA. He added some spice in there too.
Speaker 3: He's like, I worked for Goldman Sachson City Group as
Speaker 3: a Wall Street executive. He said that he was Jewish
Speaker 3: and descended from Holocaust survivors.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: He said that as a finance bro he lost four
Speaker 3: employees at the Pulse night club shooting in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, if it's a tragedy, he's attaching himself.
Speaker 3: Uh huh. He said that he ran an animal rescue
Speaker 3: charity that saved twenty five hundred animals.
Speaker 2: Wow. Did he lose both of his parents and two
Speaker 2: step parents in the nine to eleven fell?
Speaker 3: Well? Is there? So he said all these things. No
Speaker 3: one bats an eyelash. They just said wow. Cool. He
Speaker 3: said like, look, I don't make a whole lot of
Speaker 3: money fifty five grand a year, and it's based on
Speaker 3: like commission based work.
Speaker 2: He was not going hard federal election.
Speaker 3: Uh huh. Oh wow, not going hard on all his
Speaker 3: big baller Wall Street claims. At this point, his campaign
Speaker 3: raised about three hundred thousand dollars, which is like a
Speaker 3: pretty small amount for a New York district that's competitive.
Speaker 3: Election night, November third, twenty twenty, votes are tallied, he
Speaker 3: loses by twelve percentage points. That's actually closer than everyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I would have thought it's been like twenty
Speaker 2: So the Republicans.
Speaker 3: Are like, wait, we may have a fighting chance for
Speaker 3: a rematch in two years, twenty twenty two. But George
Speaker 3: wasn't looking to twenty twenty two. He was living full
Speaker 3: on twenty twenty because he refused to accept his loss.
Speaker 3: He said that the vote totals had been manipulated, and
Speaker 3: he started pushing for a recount. She night cost money,
Speaker 3: and he figured he would be like, you know, half
Speaker 3: of the Democratic ballots are bogus, and the National Republicans
Speaker 3: are like, we're not going to fund this, but we
Speaker 3: like the cut of your jim, the energy. I love this.
Speaker 3: Did you did you know that he went to Trump's
Speaker 3: Save America rally at the in DC on January sixth.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to go ahead and say no, I
Speaker 2: did not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now you know I told you I disagree with
Speaker 3: him to my core. Yeah, he's quoted in all these
Speaker 3: places as saying that, like Trump was energized, gave a
Speaker 3: great speech, was quote at his full awesomeness. And we
Speaker 3: know what happened after that quote great speech, right, this
Speaker 3: is violent mob. It was just tourists, Darren insurrectionist mob
Speaker 3: attacked the capital, disrupt the counting of the electoral votes
Speaker 3: to formalize Trump's loss, called for the death of the
Speaker 3: vice president, took dumps on desks, the bad pizza party,
Speaker 3: very bad pizza party, like the worst you could go
Speaker 3: to pretty much. So later George told people that he
Speaker 3: was only at the speech and not the building, and
Speaker 3: he called January sixth a quote sad and dark day.
Speaker 3: And then he's like, yeah, you know, Biden, Biden won Georgia.
Speaker 3: So I told the local press, like they they barely
Speaker 3: investigated George's background, our personal claims.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's not going to win.
Speaker 3: The Democrats did no OPO.
Speaker 2: Research on again, why I waste my money safe?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so his secrets never came out at this and
Speaker 3: then come to find out, redistricting slightly changed New York's
Speaker 3: third congressional district and it made it more favorable to
Speaker 3: the GOP, and George used this momentum and his connections
Speaker 3: from his twenty twenty run to launch a second campaign
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two, and between twenty twenty and twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two, he drastically inflated his resume, his income, his
Speaker 3: personal narrative, Like he doubled down on every light I
Speaker 3: ever told and was just like, look, they didn't check,
Speaker 3: then they're not going to check. Now, let's take a
Speaker 3: break and we come back from these ads. I'm going
Speaker 3: to tell you about this twenty twenty two race, Zarin.
Speaker 2: Dude, I was reading some about George Santos on the break.
Speaker 2: I did not know that he invented the Corvette Lasagna
Speaker 2: and also mondays he did. Yeah, yeah, it's really amazing.
Speaker 3: It's amazing, George Santos. George Santos. He lost, like we said,
Speaker 3: the New York third Congressional District race in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Do you remember how he'd been working for Harbor City
Speaker 3: and that he left to work on the campaign. Around
Speaker 3: that time, he founded a company called Devaulter Organization.
Speaker 2: The Devauter Group.
Speaker 3: Yes, and although he was living in New York, the
Speaker 3: company was registered in Florida, and on financial disclosure forms.
Speaker 3: He called it a quote capital introduction consulting firm. What
Speaker 3: does that even mean?
Speaker 2: Introduction consulting.
Speaker 3: Show me the money firm.
Speaker 2: I'll introduce the money. This is money money, say holo.
Speaker 3: Hello. When he was eyeballing the new run in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two because the incumbent wasn't going to run again,
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, his reported personal income changed. None
Speaker 3: of his fifty grand a year stuff anymore. He said
Speaker 3: that he earned between three and a half to eleven
Speaker 3: and a half million dollars from the Devauld organization.
Speaker 2: It's quite a spread.
Speaker 3: That's a come up. Yeah, from fifty grand to that.
Speaker 2: Look at him.
Speaker 3: He said he was the sole owner and managing member
Speaker 3: of the company and that they managed eighty million dollars
Speaker 3: in assets. It's a big organization.
Speaker 2: I get a job, George.
Speaker 3: How many employees? How many employees do you think? He had?
Speaker 2: Seven named George Santos.
Speaker 3: That's right, zero, yeah, yeah. Fun fact. The company's mailing
Speaker 3: address was an apartment owned by Harbor City's chief technology officer.
Speaker 3: Oh's cozy, so here we are. Twenty twenty two, George
Speaker 3: announced his candidacy for New York's third, he is running
Speaker 3: unopposed for the Republican primary, and he secured that nomination
Speaker 3: no problem. Remember the district was redrawn and the playing
Speaker 3: field to change. So also, the Devaulter organization lent his
Speaker 3: campaign more than seven hundred thousand.
Speaker 2: Dollars, Oh his own.
Speaker 3: Whe Where did it come from?
Speaker 2: Yeah, who's see what money lined?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Shady. So with his campaign strategy.
Speaker 2: Like that money was real, the seven hundred thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: that wasn't an account that was like people saw it,
Speaker 2: there's scrow.
Speaker 3: Paid, it's it's I don't think it was real. I
Speaker 3: think it was just all shells moving around, okay, like
Speaker 3: juice it. So everyone else wants to give him money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder if if you wanted to go buy
Speaker 2: some diet cokes with this, I.
Speaker 3: Don't think you can. I don't think you could buy
Speaker 3: Maybe you could buy one, okay. Yeah. So he his
Speaker 3: his strategy was like I'm a successful businessman and I
Speaker 3: have a compelling personal story.
Speaker 2: Who doesn't Who doesn't?
Speaker 3: You know, he's still he stuck with I went to
Speaker 3: Baruch College. He said, he worked at Goldman Sachson City
Speaker 3: Group had that successful company, the Divaulter Organization that just
Speaker 3: in two years time Shazam.
Speaker 2: Saving all the animals, twenty five hundred animals.
Speaker 3: It'd like to be a successful, solid candidate in twenty
Speaker 3: twenties America as a Republican. You gotta bend the maganee. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and he was all about it. He did fundraisers at
Speaker 3: mar A Lago and it's like his dream scenario. It's
Speaker 3: tacky as hell. It's filled with rich folks, everyone lying
Speaker 3: their asses off. It's perfect.
Speaker 2: How do you I don't imagine you do? But like,
Speaker 2: how does that work? Do you? Like give them a
Speaker 2: ten percent of the cut and they let you come
Speaker 2: in and run with.
Speaker 3: It's got to be where like part of it goes
Speaker 3: to the National Committee, and yeah, I think they take
Speaker 3: a take a cut of it. He went hard on
Speaker 3: a few issues, despite masking up and getting vaccinated himself.
Speaker 3: He was anti mask and anti VAC. He called abortion
Speaker 3: barbaric and compared it to slavery. Okay, He was against
Speaker 3: any LGBTQ plus content in schools. He called that grooming.
Speaker 3: Really yeah, He said police brutality was a quote made
Speaker 3: up concept. He was anti Black Lives Matter, calling it Marxists,
Speaker 3: and for the love of God, I wish that each
Speaker 3: person who uses the term Marxist be required to actually
Speaker 3: read Marx because it's so off the mark and infuriating anyway.
Speaker 3: So he's like playing the Maga Greatest Hits for his constituents,
Speaker 3: and they're eating it up, they're loving it. And he
Speaker 3: looked around at fellow politicians and he saw that lying
Speaker 3: didn't matter anymore.
Speaker 2: It's just what you did.
Speaker 3: This is from the book The Fabulous Quote. In the
Speaker 3: Trump era, not only was there little penalty for conspiracy
Speaker 3: mongering or outright lying, it could actually be a draw election.
Speaker 3: Misinformation was just part of showing your colors, as Santos
Speaker 3: had done quite publicly at the pre January sixth rally
Speaker 3: in Freedom Plaza when he shouted to the crowd about
Speaker 3: his election getting stolen. It became one of his favorite canards.
Speaker 3: This habitual liar, there were many flavors. He could be
Speaker 3: flippant about supposedly almost winning, or he might be very dire,
Speaker 3: as when he claimed that he beat his twenty twenty
Speaker 3: opponent on election night for fourteen days until the ballots
Speaker 3: never stopped coming in. He said it on podcasts and
Speaker 3: in public. He even touched on it to people posing
Speaker 3: as Republicans, as when he told an undercover Democratic tracker
Speaker 3: that yes, he quote wrote a nice check for a
Speaker 3: law firm to help out some of the January sixth patriots.
Speaker 3: Was it real? Who cares? Democrats clutch their pearls? But
Speaker 3: the right wing loved it. The crazier he talked, the
Speaker 3: more he aligned himself with Magaworld, and there were supporters
Speaker 3: to be found there. It's just you know, it's it's.
Speaker 2: It was just like all like it's not just transactional
Speaker 2: but just straight up not in the monetary senti usury,
Speaker 2: but usury in the sense of like, oh I can
Speaker 2: do this is good for me. So even the crowd
Speaker 2: that Magapara's doing like yeah, we'll take this gay Brazilian
Speaker 2: dude becase he says hateful stuff against the people, say
Speaker 2: hateful stuff, No, raise more money. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And so, as with most campaigns, George his campaign commissioned
Speaker 3: a vulnerability study and he was all about it, but like.
Speaker 2: His own vulnerabilities. Yeah, but as it.
Speaker 3: Was going on, he tried to cancel the contract. Like
Speaker 3: they started up like Okay, we're going to work on it.
Speaker 2: He's like, oh wait, hold on, hold on, you're finding
Speaker 2: too much stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was for good reason because like, who buddy,
Speaker 3: it was not good.
Speaker 2: None of this is true.
Speaker 3: Some of the staff was like, you got to drop
Speaker 3: out of the race. It was that bad. So we
Speaker 3: had like the fraudulent Academy.
Speaker 2: We're going to tell you.
Speaker 3: We're going to tell the involvement in a company running
Speaker 3: a Ponzi scheme. He had multiple evictions, he had a
Speaker 3: suspended driver's license, he was openly gay but married to
Speaker 3: a woman in a possibly fraudulent green card marriage. His
Speaker 3: team they called this emergency conference to like discuss the
Speaker 3: results of the study, and they told George you have
Speaker 3: a choice. You can step down from the race and
Speaker 3: maintain your dignity. He's like, what dignity? Or you can
Speaker 3: keep running. Give the Democrats the chance to put you
Speaker 3: on blast and ruin you. And he was like, listen,
Speaker 3: I'll get you all the diplomas that never happened, by
Speaker 3: the way, and I'll think about what you've said here today.
Speaker 2: I'm really going to think about it, sit.
Speaker 3: On it for a bit. So then a couple days
Speaker 3: later he comes back to the group and he's like,
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm gonna stick with it. It's not
Speaker 3: that bad, don't worry about it. And then most of
Speaker 3: them quit on the spot. They're like, I want no
Speaker 3: stink on me for name. Yeah. So like are swirling,
Speaker 3: but his campaign just keeps chugging along, according to the
Speaker 3: New York Times quote, Around that time, mister Santos began
Speaker 3: attracting the suspicion of a pair of friends and potential
Speaker 3: donors active in New York Republican circles. Mister Santos claimed
Speaker 3: to one of them, Kristin Bianco, to have secured the
Speaker 3: endorsement of former President Donald J. Trump when he had not.
Speaker 3: That prompted her to express concerns about mister Santos to
Speaker 3: plugged in Republicans, including a allociates of representative at least
Speaker 3: Stephonic of New York, one of mister Santos's biggest early backers,
Speaker 3: whose top political aid was assisting his campaign. Later, miss
Speaker 3: Bianco and her friend became suspicious that they could not
Speaker 3: verify his work history were just so tired of being duped.
Speaker 3: Miss Bianco texted mister Santos in early twenty twenty two
Speaker 3: after he refused her request to produce his resume. Mister
Speaker 3: Santos wrote back that he found the request quote a
Speaker 3: bit invasive, as it's something very personal. You're running for office,
Speaker 3: and you're like, that's per I can't tell you my resume.
Speaker 2: You put yourself here, sir, No one asked.
Speaker 3: You the soon, like the Rays starts becoming more high
Speaker 3: profile thanks to the redistricting, Oh right now, it was
Speaker 3: too late for the Republican doubters to swap in someone solid,
Speaker 3: and the Democrats they didn't have the time or the
Speaker 3: money or the people power to do a deep dive
Speaker 3: on George at least that's their excuse. So their opposition
Speaker 3: research up a bunch of red flags, but they were
Speaker 3: never chased down. And when they went to the press
Speaker 3: with some of the red flags, they too said they
Speaker 3: were short on time and resources to chase down the story.
Speaker 3: Like that's great, but you know what, we got a
Speaker 3: lot of other stuff or sorry, I have no one
Speaker 3: in Ai hasn't come all the way into the newsroom yet,
Speaker 3: So we have like one dude at a computer in
Speaker 3: interviews and meetings, like he stuck to the lies from
Speaker 3: the fore.
Speaker 2: You have to that's the move.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and again he said that his grandparents had
Speaker 3: fled Jewish persecution during World War Two and he was
Speaker 3: a proud American Jew. He claimed that he founded and
Speaker 3: operated a tax exempt annimal rescue organization that just also
Speaker 3: happened to not exist. He started talking about how he
Speaker 3: owned multiple properties, but like records later show, he didn't
Speaker 3: own any real estate. September of twenty.
Speaker 2: Two, checked Minecraft, you know what, or like sims a
Speaker 2: lot of places. They you got to think broadly.
Speaker 3: September twenty twenty two, just before the election, the North
Speaker 3: Shore Leader newspaper started looking into his history and they
Speaker 3: reported on his employment and his financials. But it was
Speaker 3: a small local paper, which is the backbone of journalism
Speaker 3: in this country totally, and so no one paid attention.
Speaker 2: When you said north Star, I'm like, why would the
Speaker 2: Hawaiian paper care about it? Was really that's raird for
Speaker 2: local news. They're really expansive covering in the New York
Speaker 2: third district.
Speaker 3: So like, no one's looking it didn't have legs on
Speaker 3: a bigger stage to get it thought. So George, he's
Speaker 3: like riding that Republican momentum, loving it. This Republican surge
Speaker 3: contributed to increased turnout and then all and that gave
Speaker 3: support to down ballot candidates like Santos.
Speaker 2: His voting are and they're like, okay, yeah, right down.
Speaker 3: The ticket exactly. So the general election November eight, twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two, Santos won the seat with fifty three point
Speaker 3: seventy four percent of the vote. That's a lot, and
Speaker 3: he beat this other guy, you know, forty six point
Speaker 3: twenty two percent. So after the election, the press finally
Speaker 3: picked up on the story that he was a straight
Speaker 3: up liar.
Speaker 2: Like once he's won after the fact, that's a big
Speaker 2: move these days in politics.
Speaker 3: Uh huh. So December nineteenth, twenty twenty two, New York
Speaker 3: Times reports on his lies. His lawyer denies everything, but
Speaker 3: like the ball's rolling, George hadn't even been sworn in
Speaker 3: yet and the press is just all over him. So
Speaker 3: then New York Attorney General Letitia James, Oh yeah, she
Speaker 3: announced an investigation had been opened due to his suspicious
Speaker 3: financial dealings. December twenty sixth, twenty twenty two, he broke
Speaker 3: his silence and he told the New York Post quote,
Speaker 3: I'm not a fraud. I'm not a criminal who defrauded
Speaker 3: the entire country and made up this fictional character and
Speaker 3: ran for Congress that's exactly.
Speaker 2: What you said. What you are just we couldn't say it.
Speaker 3: So every day his opposite day with George, Oh my god,
Speaker 3: every sounds. So he did tell the Post that he
Speaker 3: didn't actually graduate from college. He's like, he got me
Speaker 3: there and I didn't work for Goldman Sachs or City Group.
Speaker 3: But like that's it.
Speaker 2: Those are the whole those are it?
Speaker 3: Sure? George? Oh, and then like about being Jewish, he
Speaker 3: said that during the campaign he was a quote proud
Speaker 3: American Jew and also called himself a Latino Jew. But
Speaker 3: George then like had to confirm, actually, I'm Catholic.
Speaker 2: I'm a Catholic Jew.
Speaker 3: And they're like, what are you trying to claim Jewish heritage.
Speaker 3: He's like, no, no, no, see quote. I believe we are
Speaker 3: all Jewish at the end because Jesus Christ is Jewish.
Speaker 3: And if you believe in Jesus and we're all brothers
Speaker 3: in Christ, I mean it just ends what I need.
Speaker 2: During December argument for where they got more pizza and
Speaker 2: like a sleep overnight and because we're all Jewish because
Speaker 2: Jesus is Jewish and pizza.
Speaker 3: Because December twenty sixth, twenty twenty two, he gives an interview,
Speaker 3: and he said, quote, I never claimed to be Jewish.
Speaker 3: I'm the Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had
Speaker 3: a Jewish background, I said I was jew Ish. That
Speaker 3: is top notch. He's jew Ish. It is so beautiful.
Speaker 2: I think he'd been an old Andy Kindler line. I
Speaker 2: think so.
Speaker 3: He would later say that he had a DNA test
Speaker 3: that confirmed his Jewish ancestry. But you aren't allowed to
Speaker 3: see it. It's personal. Yeah, I can tell you what
Speaker 3: you can because I'm you can't see the DNA, but
Speaker 3: you know you can see zaren closure out. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: want you to picture it.
Speaker 2: I cannot wait.
Speaker 3: It's January third, twenty twenty three. You are tech support
Speaker 3: at the US Capitol Building. In fact, you're the director
Speaker 3: of Audio Resources, meaning you make sure the microphones work.
Speaker 3: The system is pretty good. You keep things tight. All
Speaker 3: the wires are color coded and expertly breeded and organized.
Speaker 3: You are behind the scenes of the House floor keeping
Speaker 3: an eye on the mic system. The House of Representatives
Speaker 3: is set to elect a new Speaker of the House.
Speaker 3: Kevin McCarthy, the previous Minority leader, should be a shoe
Speaker 3: in as soon as he's crowned. Speaker, then they can
Speaker 3: start swearing in all the new members. You've heard rumbles
Speaker 3: that Matt Gates and Marjorie Taylor Green, whom you refer
Speaker 3: to as Beavis and butt Head, much to your staff's delight,
Speaker 3: are up to something not surprising whatever. You just watch
Speaker 3: the soundboard and adjust some gain dials, volume, reverb, pedal effects.
Speaker 3: You'd have a crazy setup back there. So, looking out
Speaker 3: over the source of the mumbled conversations with occasional laughs
Speaker 3: and coughs punctuating the tense air, you peek out at
Speaker 3: the floor and you watch his Gates and Taylor Green
Speaker 3: huddle in confab with other representatives. McCarthy works the room,
Speaker 3: shaking hands and padding backs, and then you see him
Speaker 3: the big news item, George Santos. He looks so out
Speaker 3: of place, so uncomfortable. He's tried to cozy up to
Speaker 3: Gates and Taylor Green and standing just beyond their orbit.
Speaker 3: He looks like a scared, nerdy kid at his first
Speaker 3: day at a new high school, trying to befriend the
Speaker 3: school bullies. But now he sits alone. You have no
Speaker 3: inclination to warn him or feel any sense of pity
Speaker 3: or care. See you take Washington and the federal government. Seriously,
Speaker 3: this is sacred ground. Your belief is in this great
Speaker 3: country of ours, this beautiful experiment. You revere this building
Speaker 3: and the history it holds, both good and bad. You
Speaker 3: can live in the discomfort of shameful past and political disagreements,
Speaker 3: but you can't live in the discomfort of watching people
Speaker 3: denigrate what you love. And lying your way into office
Speaker 3: is denigrating the institution. It's insulting his voters and his peers,
Speaker 3: every citizen. You may only handle the audio here, but
Speaker 3: you know you are an important part of a beautiful
Speaker 3: and flawed machine, the US federal government. The government isn't
Speaker 3: something outside of the people. It is the people. Believe
Speaker 3: in the country, respect the country, and you take umbrage
Speaker 3: to this rising tide of carnival barkers and crass opportunists.
Speaker 3: They have no decorum. You, Zarin, are a dying breed.
Speaker 3: The vote begins for the next Speaker.
Speaker 2: Of the House.
Speaker 3: Role is called, and alphabetically each representative stands to announce
Speaker 3: their vote. McCarthy, Jeffreys, Biggs, We're into the ESS's You
Speaker 3: hear it in your headset Santos. You look out and
Speaker 3: you see him stand, say McCarthy, and then sit back down.
Speaker 3: Dang it, he's too far from a mic. Enough people
Speaker 3: heard it, though, But then you see the levels increase
Speaker 3: on your board. The Democrats are jeering him. You can't
Speaker 3: quite pick up what they're saying. You're MIC's although you
Speaker 3: think maybe it's better this way. People don't need to
Speaker 3: hear these things. People don't need to witness their elected
Speaker 3: officials behaving like this. Crude, hurtful Zaren. You have got
Speaker 3: to get out of Washington while you can.
Speaker 2: It's eating my soul, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: So it took I don't know if you'll remember, it
Speaker 3: took fifteen rounds of votes for McCarthy to finally get
Speaker 3: a speakership, and only then could George be sworn into office,
Speaker 3: which he was, and happened at like one in the
Speaker 3: morning a few days later. George Santos now officially a
Speaker 3: member of Congress. Let's stop this madness and listen to
Speaker 3: some ads. Calm our animal brains. When we return, mister
Speaker 3: Santos goes.
Speaker 2: To Washington, Yes, Queen Zarin, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: So it was on January seventh, twenty twenty three, that
Speaker 3: George Santos was sworn into the US House of Representatives.
Speaker 3: Eight days later, four Republican New York congressman called for
Speaker 3: George's resignation.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Eight days eight days the chair of the NASA County
Speaker 3: Republican Party called for him to step down. He said
Speaker 3: that Georgian quote, disgrace the House of Representatives, and we
Speaker 3: do not consider him one of our congress people.
Speaker 2: So they do have a standard they do on paper.
Speaker 2: I did not know that.
Speaker 3: George was like, you know what I hear you absolutely not, yes,
Speaker 3: not not going anywhere on food floor. In February of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, the House Ethics Committee initiated an investigation
Speaker 3: into his conduct. So like a month in.
Speaker 2: Wow, and you know they were both he was hard
Speaker 2: at work though.
Speaker 3: What was he doing that same month February twenty twenty
Speaker 3: three legislation he co sponsored a bill, Oh really, to
Speaker 3: designate the AR fifteen style rifle the National Gun of
Speaker 3: the United States.
Speaker 2: The national gun he sponsored to make.
Speaker 3: Like I'm telling you, I'm like, I love him and
Speaker 3: hate him so much, so whatever, it's clown behavior. So
Speaker 3: the truth about his lives just kept coming out and
Speaker 3: everything gets to like this fever pitch when it was
Speaker 3: released in November of that year. What did the ethics
Speaker 3: committee eventually find? Let me answer that question for you, zeron.
Speaker 3: Here are the categories misuse of campaign funds for personal expenses.
Speaker 3: This is like an awards show. He diverted campaign contributions
Speaker 3: for personal use, including over four thousand dollars spent at
Speaker 3: air Mais.
Speaker 2: Oh you know, yeah, it actually seems kind of light
Speaker 2: for MS.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I think, yeah, he's just crazy.
Speaker 2: A couple of things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he paid for cosmetic procedures like botox.
Speaker 2: Oh, he got his. Like basically, he's using campaign finance
Speaker 2: funds to pay for his botox because he needs to
Speaker 2: look good on TV exactly.
Speaker 3: It makes sense it, Yeah, subscriptions to adult content platforms
Speaker 3: like OnlyFans.
Speaker 2: Harder harder, irrationalized that one.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just like self care.
Speaker 2: Well, give me a second. Wait, So this is he's
Speaker 2: trying to understand what his constituents are are being irritated
Speaker 2: and annoyed by. It's research.
Speaker 3: It's into the evils that he is fighting.
Speaker 2: You have to know if he's going to fight at Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: I remember I had to look at OnlyFans for that
Speaker 3: other story I told you.
Speaker 2: Now you're an only fans model.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I am so. So he went he paid for
Speaker 3: travel to like Atlantic City in Vegas, but there were
Speaker 3: no campaign related activities there.
Speaker 2: Once again getting to know the sins because he went
Speaker 2: to fight literally personal.
Speaker 3: Payments for his personal credit card bills and like debts.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think I can get this one. Okay. Is electioneering,
Speaker 2: which is you cannot separate the candidate from the campaign.
Speaker 3: Girl, you are like me doing my text right. Okay,
Speaker 3: Let's let's go another category. Fraudulent financial disclosures and deceptive practices.
Speaker 2: Penn slipped, I did not file that paperwork.
Speaker 3: And he was twenty months late.
Speaker 2: Twenty months late, that's almost two year.
Speaker 3: It's almost two years. It's like how you measure babies,
Speaker 3: Like that's a two year old. He reported in that
Speaker 3: worth of two point five to eleven point five million range. Yes,
Speaker 3: even though and he also had all these other claims
Speaker 3: that like, by the way.
Speaker 2: I personally when people ask I say that I have
Speaker 2: a net value of a net worth of around negative
Speaker 2: seven million dollars to two million dollars positive somewhere in.
Speaker 3: There, you know, ballpark it.
Speaker 2: Well, then he also had a big ring.
Speaker 3: He said he had all these other properties that he
Speaker 3: didn't have. Why would you claim them if you don't
Speaker 3: because you have to Well, no, this is just for
Speaker 3: your financial disclosures. Why anyway, he brokeered a nineteen million
Speaker 3: dollar yacht sale between two major campaign contributors. What yeah,
Speaker 3: and I don't know if he took a cut.
Speaker 2: Whatever is that illegal?
Speaker 3: Let's try category amateur boat swapping, amateur boat program, exploitation
Speaker 3: of campaign for personal gain. So the committee concluded that
Speaker 3: he sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his house
Speaker 3: candidacy for personal financial profit.
Speaker 2: He even took the light bulbs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they said he put his desire for private gain
Speaker 3: above his duty to uphold the Constitution, federal law, and
Speaker 3: ethical principles. He was absolutely, as as would be expected,
Speaker 3: uncooperative with the committee's in grace, and he like they
Speaker 3: would ask him for just straightforward stuff and he'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'll get that to you there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, check it out. Did you check your mailbocks?
Speaker 3: What happens?
Speaker 2: I must have the wrong address. You had the wrong adress.
Speaker 3: So the Committee's like, you know what, We're going to
Speaker 3: refer all this other stuff that we have for potential
Speaker 3: criminal conduct to the Department of Justice. How do you
Speaker 3: like them apples? May twenty twenty three federal grand jury.
Speaker 3: So he gets it. January twenty twenty three, he's sworn in.
Speaker 3: Now we're in. May twenty twenty three, federal grand jury
Speaker 3: in the Eastern District of New York indicted him on
Speaker 3: thirteen counts. And that's seven counts of wire fraud, three
Speaker 3: counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds,
Speaker 3: two counts of making materially false statements to the House
Speaker 3: of Representatives. That sounds like a big, big one. And
Speaker 3: so the charges alleged that he embezzled campaign contributions, that
Speaker 3: he fraudulently obtained unemployment benefits.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So while he's like, oh, I make eleven million a year, ps,
Speaker 3: I'm not an appoyment. He lied in financial disclosures to
Speaker 3: the House of Reps. After his indictment, House Republican leadership
Speaker 3: said they weren't going to force him to resign, they
Speaker 3: weren't going to give him the boot. House Democrats introduced
Speaker 3: a resolution to kick him out, but it didn't pass,
Speaker 3: and they were actually Democrats who voted to keep him because,
Speaker 3: like Katie Porter was one of them and her whole
Speaker 3: thing very like legal scholars like, well, he hasn't been
Speaker 3: convicted yet, so we can't really boot him until he's
Speaker 3: been convicted.
Speaker 2: So the whole process, the due process.
Speaker 3: Due process. So a superseding indictment came out in October
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, added ten more charges. So now we're
Speaker 3: at twenty three totals. So now your friends order, Yeah,
Speaker 3: but listen to some of these. One count of conspiracy
Speaker 3: to commit offenses against the United States.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's like just blow.
Speaker 3: Two counts of wire fraud, two counts of making materially
Speaker 3: false statements to the Federal Election Commission, two counts of
Speaker 3: falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC, two counts of
Speaker 3: aggre aggravated identity.
Speaker 2: Fat what is that is that when you beat someone
Speaker 2: with like it's.
Speaker 3: A violent identity? And one count of access device fraud. Okay,
Speaker 3: So these additional charges, it was all about the fundraising reports.
Speaker 3: That's where those came.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't care about the lives. It's the money.
Speaker 3: Unauthorized charges on campaign contributors credit cards.
Speaker 2: Oh, he used their cards.
Speaker 3: You can do your campaign, you know, you can do
Speaker 3: your your contribution on this card. And then he's like,
Speaker 3: then I'm also going to slip in some you know, OnlyFans.
Speaker 2: Just put down their numbers on a trip.
Speaker 3: To like wow, the whole this whole time that this
Speaker 3: is going on, George is still in Congress, Yes, the
Speaker 3: whole time.
Speaker 2: You know, you know how many indictments are in Congress
Speaker 2: that anyone can give in time?
Speaker 3: They and that's on both sides.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, this is a Republican Democrats.
Speaker 3: It's just it's way more than the general population.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the House Republicans and House Democrats both have a
Speaker 2: lot of House to clean up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they do. Yeah, so George, he's there right in
Speaker 3: the thick of it. The Democrats tried and failed a
Speaker 3: bunch of times to get him kicked out, but then
Speaker 3: the Ethics report came out in November of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: Over the Thanksgiving break, George got on Twitter and said
Speaker 3: that like, look, I think I'm about to get the
Speaker 3: boot from Congress when we all get back from break. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and he said that he would wear it quote like
Speaker 3: a badge of honor that I don't you know. He
Speaker 3: said that the head of the Ethics Committee Michael Guest
Speaker 3: was a quote pussy and said that no one and
Speaker 3: said that no one from Mississippi was going to push
Speaker 3: a New Yorker out of Congress.
Speaker 2: So he's pulling Yankee moves.
Speaker 3: I guess. George said that it was hypocritical of the
Speaker 3: House to expel him. He's not wrong there, and then
Speaker 3: that like that kicks off this threat of his to
Speaker 3: expose the misdeeds of his colleagues that continues to this day,
Speaker 3: like he's still threatening to air dirty laundry.
Speaker 2: And I stay charged to it.
Speaker 3: What have you got left to lose? On December first,
Speaker 3: all of.
Speaker 2: His tomorrows, that's what he's got left to lose.
Speaker 3: The House voted to expel him three hundred and eleven
Speaker 3: to one hundred and fourteen December first. He is the
Speaker 3: sixth member of the House of Representatives to be expelled,
Speaker 3: and the only Republican and the only member expelled without
Speaker 3: first being convicted of a federal crime or having supported
Speaker 3: the Confederacy. That's what all the other ones got. It
Speaker 3: so groundbreaking.
Speaker 2: Back in the day, people shot each other on the
Speaker 2: House of Yah on the floors of the House, so
Speaker 2: this is true.
Speaker 3: December eighteenth, twenty twenty three, he appeared on ze Way's
Speaker 3: show Oh right, and if you haven't seen it, please
Speaker 3: check it out. Ze Way's amazing. She's the most brutal interviewer.
Speaker 3: If she asked me to appear on her show, I
Speaker 3: would immediately decline.
Speaker 2: Way more scared of her than Isaac Chottma.
Speaker 3: Oh, she's terrifying. She would obliterate me and she'd show
Speaker 3: the world what a fool I am. But George walked
Speaker 3: right into it. Oh yeah, He's like, let's do this.
Speaker 2: He's like introduced me to the chappa.
Speaker 3: He pushed some of the same lies, he tried out
Speaker 3: new ones. He asked her to get paid to do it.
Speaker 3: Panders to all sorts of audiences. It's like a command performance. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's so. It's so embarrassing and so.
Speaker 2: Beautiful, unhinged. It's like the Yeah I.
Speaker 3: Watched George Santos on Zeaway. After he got kicked out
Speaker 3: of Congress, he needed to make money, so he turned
Speaker 3: to the cameo platform to generate income. You know what
Speaker 3: cameo is, right, You pay a celebrity to record a
Speaker 3: personalized video for you. Yes, and they're generally like priced
Speaker 3: according to level of fame. So George originally priced his
Speaker 3: personalized video messages at seventy five dollars, but then like
Speaker 3: the demand was huge, so he quickly upped the rate
Speaker 3: to five hundred bucks a pop. Oh wow, and he
Speaker 3: claimed he said that he sold over twelve hundred videos.
Speaker 3: And then he started telling people that he'd earned more
Speaker 3: than four hundred thousand dollars from the platform. And at
Speaker 3: one point he said he was making over eighty thousand
Speaker 3: dollars a day from cameo. Yeah, a day a day,
Speaker 3: which is more way more than the annual congressional salary
Speaker 3: of one hundred and seventy four thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Oh, and that's like Wilt Chamberlain math, like, I'm so
Speaker 2: busy every day. Just yeah, exactly, I'm doing cameo, cameo.
Speaker 3: Consider the source.
Speaker 2: I know, I don't.
Speaker 3: So. So, despite his legal troubles, his cameo endeavors were
Speaker 3: deemed legal and ethically permissible because he was no longer
Speaker 3: subject to how ethics rules.
Speaker 2: That makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then experts noted that, unlike his previous fraudulent activities,
Speaker 3: his cameo earnings were actually transparent transactions with willing participants.
Speaker 2: That's true. Everybody knew what they were paying for getting.
Speaker 3: Credit card numbers personally platform. On August nineteenth, twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: George Santos pleaded guilty in federal court to wire fraud
Speaker 3: and aggravated identity.
Speaker 2: Felt got it down to two charges.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because the plea like that way he does this
Speaker 3: plea deal a trial they're going to throw.
Speaker 2: On wire fraud because they love that lot just.
Speaker 3: Is so good.
Speaker 2: It's so juicy and has real, real charges.
Speaker 3: Got legs. In his guilty plea, he admitted to filing
Speaker 3: fraudulent FEC reports to misrepresent his campaign's financial status. He
Speaker 3: admitted to embezzling funds from campaign donors for personal use,
Speaker 3: charging donors credit cards without authorization, stealing identities to facilitate
Speaker 3: fraudulent activities, obtaining unemployment benefits through false claims. I hope
Speaker 3: how great would it be if he was on unemployment
Speaker 3: well in Congress? Yeah, anyway, lying in reports submitted to
Speaker 3: the House of Reps. He acknowledged that his ambition is
Speaker 3: what led him to make unethical decisions. He told the
Speaker 3: court quote, I accept full responsibility for my actions, but
Speaker 3: his social media post told a different story and so,
Speaker 3: US attorney John Durham said that he called the social
Speaker 3: media post unrepentant and proved that he deserved quote a
Speaker 3: significant carceral sentence. Oh yeah, yeah, so George, He replied
Speaker 3: to someone on Twitter who asked if he really used
Speaker 3: campaign funds to quote buy air miz No, Santos responded,
Speaker 3: that's a false statement. That's impassed on his truth. But like,
Speaker 3: that's not what he just said in court. So there
Speaker 3: are a ton more examples like that where he contradict
Speaker 3: did what he said in court and just basically, you know,
Speaker 3: painted himself as the victim for all this. The man
Speaker 3: cannot stop lying. On April twenty fifth, twenty twenty five,
Speaker 3: George Santos was sentenced to eighty seven months that's more
Speaker 3: than seven years federal prison lot. In addition to the
Speaker 3: prison term, he has to pay three hundred seventy three thousand,
Speaker 3: seven hundred forty nine and ninety seven cents in restitution,
Speaker 3: and he has to forfeit more than two hundred and
Speaker 3: five thousand dollars. During the sentencing, he did express remorse.
Speaker 3: He said he regretted defrauding the voters who supported his
Speaker 3: congressional run. However, the judge was like, I don't think
Speaker 3: you are for real in that he said. The judge
Speaker 3: called him a quote arrogant fraudster. Oh so the judge
Speaker 3: is like, I can't believe a word you say. She
Speaker 3: highlighted all the social media activity how he had tried
Speaker 3: to monetize his notoriety as evidence that he's just again unrepentant.
Speaker 3: Hepped as the sentence was read. But the judge was like,
Speaker 3: and he asked for protective custody. The judges like, no,
Speaker 3: really for you, Jen Pop for you. So he has
Speaker 3: to report to prison by July twenty fifth, twenty twenty five. Now,
Speaker 3: I'd read that he was trying to sell as many
Speaker 3: cameo videos as possible before July when he ships off
Speaker 3: to prison. And when I looked at the cameo website,
Speaker 3: I saw that he was having a sale. Oh no, yeah,
Speaker 3: one hundred dollars for a video he does like birthdays
Speaker 3: and special occasion messages. You can request a pep talk.
Speaker 3: I didn't have a cameo account, but I saw that
Speaker 3: you could get thirty percent off your first video. Oh
Speaker 3: my goodness, And I had sixty dollars burning a hole
Speaker 3: in my back, so I asked for a pep talk
Speaker 3: video from George Santos, and I told him, I'm overwhelmed
Speaker 3: by the world. I'm super busy with my podcast. I
Speaker 3: just need some encouragement from the ultimate resilient diva, George Santos.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Basically, his profile has a one hour guarantee, so you
Speaker 3: get the video within the hour.
Speaker 2: Are you kidding?
Speaker 3: I'm not kidding, Like that's like he it has like
Speaker 3: a little like clock icon, like, hey, he'll do it.
Speaker 2: He's desperate and so possible.
Speaker 3: Thirty or so minutes later, I had this message from George,
Speaker 3: filmed as he sat in his car.
Speaker 5: He Elizabeth, it's George Sancho's And I know life can
Speaker 5: get really stressful sometimes. Believe me, I would know a
Speaker 5: thing or two about strass But I want you to know,
Speaker 5: don't get overwhelmed with being busy. Don't have panicky attacks
Speaker 5: because of your podcast. Your podcast is supposed to be
Speaker 5: part of your life and of you building yourself up
Speaker 5: through work. And it's a positive, not a negative. Don't
Speaker 5: feel like all the work is overwhelming or or anything
Speaker 5: like that. Use it as a positive. That's how I
Speaker 5: use my podcast as a positive. So I know you
Speaker 5: can do it. I know you can and you will.
Speaker 2: So Elizabeth, Diva up energy and.
Speaker 5: Always be resilient, be strong, and remember you're a queen
Speaker 5: and you can do whatever you want.
Speaker 2: Bye.
Speaker 3: Yes, Diva up Energy, Diva Up.
Speaker 2: He even called you a queen. Yes.
Speaker 3: Yes. So every person I've showed this to has remarked
Speaker 3: on how he seems like such a nice person, and
Speaker 3: I mean, lying narcissts have a way of coming across
Speaker 3: like that. But I do have compassion for the guy,
Speaker 3: and even I even kind of like him, even though
Speaker 3: the political stuff he says gives me an aneurysm. But
Speaker 3: he's such an interesting character. And now I tell myself,
Speaker 3: Diva up Energy when everythings get crazy, that George George
Speaker 3: wants me to be resilient like he is and he's
Speaker 3: gonna He's gonna survive. This is Aaron, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 2: Thank you for asking, Elizabeth so rarely do my It
Speaker 2: would be I'm going to take away from this Diva
Speaker 2: Cup energy. So I'm gonna be there for you as
Speaker 2: a Diva cup while you Diva up. Oh God, no,
Speaker 2: am I getting is now? I just heard that it
Speaker 2: is just I know people use it. I know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's for divas only.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well anyway, Diva up, that's mine. What's yours, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, you know it's People are complex. Yes,
Speaker 3: they are very, very complex.
Speaker 2: It's best not to paint them or to see them
Speaker 2: through just one of their many identities.
Speaker 3: Well, and I have to this. I think was a
Speaker 3: good exercise for me to think about compassion and that
Speaker 3: like the anger that I feel and the like I
Speaker 3: don't want to succumb to that kind of thing. And
Speaker 3: every single person is human, even though I don't think
Speaker 3: maybe they are.
Speaker 2: The nuns would be very proud of you.
Speaker 3: They would be so proud of me right now.
Speaker 2: For real, they would they He's so bummed that.
Speaker 3: They wasted sixty bucks.
Speaker 2: That's charity. It's like.
Speaker 3: I want him to have at least a couple of
Speaker 3: packs of Ramens in his commissary.
Speaker 2: He's not good with money.
Speaker 3: I like how he's lecturing me on work.
Speaker 2: Build with real stuff, Dave.
Speaker 3: I think we need to talk back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me rescue us. All. Oh my god, I cheat.
Speaker 4: Hi, this is Carol.
Speaker 3: I love your show.
Speaker 4: I bought the merchandise so I have the move sweatshirt
Speaker 4: that says who knows who cares and on the back
Speaker 4: advertises the podcast. But I just you all make me
Speaker 4: smile and laugh, and that's so important in these current times.
Speaker 3: And I just love it. My dogs love hearing you laugh.
Speaker 4: Archie and Georgia.
Speaker 3: Wait, Archie and Georgia. I love this. This whole thing
Speaker 3: is perfect. First of all, let's talk merch. Amazing. I
Speaker 3: love the merch. Oh you're wonderful and I adore you,
Speaker 3: and thank you. That was a good one. Yeah, we
Speaker 3: all need to like keep laughing, even though I think
Speaker 3: I just made a lot of people mad. That's okay.
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to point out that that you were
Speaker 2: not in any way advocating anything about the politics, but
Speaker 2: the person. So for focusing on the person, I think
Speaker 2: that he has an interesting character.
Speaker 3: Well, and we've said it before too, that like anytime
Speaker 3: we talk about someone on here, we're talking about the
Speaker 3: things they do, not the actual individual, you know, like
Speaker 3: we're laughing at that. And everyone is also just a
Speaker 3: few bad decisions away.
Speaker 2: From political candidate in the New York Sturt history.
Speaker 3: That is like the worst decision. Oh that's it for today.
Speaker 3: You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com
Speaker 3: or the merch Lies. We can also be found on
Speaker 3: blue Sky and Instagram. You can email us at ridiculous
Speaker 3: Crime at gmail dot com. You can check out YouTube,
Speaker 3: like and subscribe as the kids say to Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 3: pod see how I Cut Myself off and then please
Speaker 3: download the iHeart app. Leave a talkback like that sweet one.
Speaker 3: Whatever you do, reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Drewish
Speaker 3: Princess Dave Kusten, starring Amils rutger Is Judith. Research is
Speaker 3: by Smalltown muckbreaker Marissa Brown. The theme song is by
Speaker 3: mar Alago busboys Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe
Speaker 3: is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup
Speaker 3: by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are representative from
Speaker 3: New York's one hundred and thirty fourth District, Van Bollin
Speaker 3: and House Ethics Watchdog Noel Brown. Ridicous Crime Say It
Speaker 3: One More Time Piquious Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
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