In 2020, George Santos ran for the United States House of Representatives as a Republican candidate for New York’s 3rd district. Although he had a tendency to exaggerate about how his campaign was doing, he seemed mostly normal.
The candidate situation in the 3rd district of New York at the time was heavily affected by COVID-19, and it turned out to be that there wouldn’t be very much competition against Tom Suozzi, the incumbent Democrat representative. Santos was the only one to run against him.
He ended up losing, but not by as much as people thought he would. Santos, encouraged by the positive response among voters and enraged that he had lost, decided to run again in 2022. This time, there was no Suozzi to run against since he had resigned.
Santos put a lot of work into his campaign, and the effort paid off; he won the election by a margin of 8 percent.
So all is good, right? Hopefully now he can go on to become a respectable representative of the United States…
Well, as it turns out, George Santos is a compulsive liar.
It would be quite the chore to compile a list of all his fabrications. Here are a few of them so you can try and understand.
The Goofy Lies
- He lied about being a college volleyball star
- He lied about attending a prestigious high school (Horace Mann High School in NY)
- His campaign said he founded a charity for animals called Friends of Pets Untied, but this was also a lie
- He falsely claimed that he was an actor in a movie called The Invasion
- He has an alias by the name of Anthony Devolder (his two middle names), and on Anthony’s Wikipedia page, it says that he played a part in Hannah Montana, which he did not
- He claimed to own 13 properties, but no evidence was found to support this
The Serious Lies
- He dishonestly spent some of his campaign money on Botox
- He may or may not have committed identity theft using the names of his family members
- Many inaccuracies were present on his House FD Statements (Financial Disclosure Reports) that he presented to Congress
- He lied about working at companies in Wall Street like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup
- He used more of his campaign money for rent
The list goes on and on, but these are the most notable of his dishonesties and lies.
All of this deception was mostly unknown by those who voted for him, but by the time the extent of Santos’s facade came to light, he had already won the race. More was learned even after he took office. Santos put in an astounding amount of effort to create a whole new person out of himself. He made someone up under his alternate name who had lived a different life, all to look more appealing to the public.
If there is one character in literature that comes to mind when thinking about a ‘false identity’ invented in order to win someone over, who is it? Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby!
Gatsby reinvented himself as a wealthy man because he wanted to win over the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan. He created distance from his old life in poverty by manufacturing a new personality and backstory. In the end, he is discovered and his whole image falls apart.
Santos is just a less extreme version of this, although not too far behind. His version of ‘Daisy’ is money and the spotlight.
These claims about Santos and Gatsby’s likeness aren’t merely presumptuous either. It’s a well known fact that he wants money, as he stole from his campaign to fund his personal expenses. Thankfully, his actions did not go unnoticed by authorities, and there are impending consequences. The first of these is his removal from the House.
On the second attempt, it was voted that George Santos would be removed from the House of Representatives. Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, read regarding the votes to expel Santos from office, “On this vote, the ‘yea’s are 311 and the ‘nay’s are 114, with 2 recorded as present.”
Because Santos is not a typical politician, he didn’t react in the conventional way. When being questioned by reporters as he made his way out of the Capitol Building he said, “You know what? As unofficially already no longer a member of Congress, I no longer have to answer a single question from you guys.” He seemed spiteful toward the House for ousting him, and like he was ready to move on.
The House also appointed a committee to investigate Santos’s alleged lies, so criminal prosecution isn’t out of the question.
So what now for Santos? Will he simply go away, never to be seen in another news headline ever again?
Of course not; he’s George Santos.
Very shortly after the removal, Santos started making Cameo videos. Cameo is a website where actors, musicians, and a whole bunch of other famous people are paid to make personalized video messages for customers. For example, if someone wanted Chuck Norris to wish them a happy birthday, all they have to do is send him $350 and he’ll do exactly that. If this sounds unbelievable, here’s the link.
Santos, aware of his fame and wanting to take advantage of it, opened himself up to video requests through the website, all starting at the low price of $200. The requests started rolling in and Santos began to make some serious money.
As it turns out, people find it pretty funny that a former member of Congress is willing to sing Taylor Swift songs to them just for a few bucks, so the request pile is getting bigger and bigger. This newfound fame has caused Santos to raise his prices to $500 as of December 11th.
Reportedly, Santos has made about the same amount of his entire $174,000 congressional salary within the first few days of mass producing videos.
Even though Santos will eventually have to stand trial for his felonies in September of 2024, he doesn’t seem to be too down on himself. For now, he’s basking in his newfound Cameo fame, but this is likely temporary. No matter how long it lasts, he is sure to capitalize upon it for as long as possible.
George Santos is a success and a failure all at the same time; a modern day Gatsby.
