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George Santos says he expects he’ll be expelled from Congress
Washington — Embattled Rep. George Santos said he expects to be expelled from Congress in the coming days and will “wear it like a badge of honor.”
“I know I’m going to get expelled when this expulsion resolution goes to the floor,” the New York Republican said Friday on an X Space hosted by conservative media personality Monica Matthews.
“I have done the math over and over,” he said, laughing, “and it doesn’t look really good.”
The Ethics Committee released a 56-page report earlier this month that said there was “substantial evidence” that Santos violated federal law. The report alleged Santos funneled large sums of money through his campaign and businesses to pay for his personal expenses, including on cosmetic procedures such as Botox, at luxury stores Hermès and Ferragamo, on smaller purchases at OnlyFans, a website containing adult content, meals, parking, travel and rent.
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After the report’s release, Rep. Michael Guest, the chairman of the Ethics Committee, introduced a resolution to expel Santos. Guest, a Mississippi Republican, said the findings were “more than sufficient to warrant punishment and the most appropriate punishment is expulsion.”
Calling his colleague an obscenity, Santos dared Guest to introduce his resolution as “privileged,” meaning the House would be required to consider the measure within two legislative days.
“He thought that he was going to bully me out of Congress,” Santos said, adding that he would not resign and calling the report “a political opposition hit piece at best.”
“I want to see them set this precedent,” he said. “Because this precedent sets a new era of due process, which means you are guilty until proven innocent, we will take your accusations and use it to smear, to mangle, to destroy you and remove you from society. That is what they are doing with this.”
Santos declined to address the specific allegations in the report, claiming they were “slanderous.” He said defending himself against the allegations could be used against him in the federal case. Santos has pleaded not guilty to 23 federal charges.
Santos also lashed out at his colleagues, accusing them of adultery, voting hungover and handing out their voting cards like “candy for someone else to vote for them.”
“There’s felons galore,” he said. “There’s people with all sorts of sheisty backgrounds. And all of a sudden, George Santos is the Mary Magdalene of United States Congress.”
During the hourslong discussion, Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California, logged onto the X Space and pressed Santos on why he wouldn’t resign.
“Why not just do the right thing and resign?” Garcia said. “We’re going to vote to expel you, George.”
Santos said he hasn’t been found guilty of anything.
“George, we’re going to expel you,” Garcia repeated.
“And that’s fine,” Santos said. “You’re saying it like I’m scared of it, Robert. I’m not scared of it. … I resign, I admit everything that’s in that report, which most of it is some of the craziest s—t I’ve ever read in my life.”
It was hard to miss the massive American flag towering over the Butler Farm Show ground on July 13 as it waved over the rally site where former President Donald Trump was set to speak, just days before a crucial running mate selection and the Republican National Convention.
On July 13, the two of us, who had been tag-teaming coverage of Trump’s third run for president for over a year, went to what we thought would be a typical Trump rally in an open field in a Pittsburgh suburb, a crucial electoral area in a crucial battleground state. It ended with a gunman trying to take Trump’s life, and the death of a fireman, Corey Comparatore.
We stood front and center in the press area at 6 p.m. and Trump took the stage (an hour late, as can be the case) and knew right away that something wasn’t right when what sounded like firecrackers went off to our left. That’s where shooter Thomas Crooks had climbed up onto an unprotected building just outside of the security perimeter and fired multiple shots.
A hydraulic lift that held up a massive stack of speakers was struck, sending smoke shooting out and the speakers slowly fell towards the ground, and as we took cover (ground twice), all we could think was to pull out our phones and get to work. Olivia recorded the sounds of panicked journalists and attendees alike huddled along the press riser and bicycle racks separating us, the shrieks of scared children, and, realized only upon listening many times since, the sound of those around Corey Comperatore yelling for assistance.
Jake spoke with emergency room Dr. James Sweetland, who ran to help Comperatore, and said that he heard the gunshots and went to assist, finding Comperatore “jammed between the benches” before attempting to save his life.
We both stood in shock as the crowd turned on us in the moments after Trump’s motorcade sped out of Butler, with one man yelling “This is your fault!”
What was to be a typical Trump rally wasn’t so typical anymore.
Eighty-four days later Trump returned, and so did the two of us, taking the same route from downtown Pittsburgh, parking in the same location, and enduring a similar heat with no shade in the press pen alongside fellow reporters who, just like us and the former president, chose to return and confront our trauma.
The stage was set up in the same location, with that same American flag looming over Trump and the crowd behind him on that day.
But for everything that was the same that day, there were striking differences. The building where the gunman had climbed up, crawled across, and ultimately fired fatal shots, was completely obstructed from the view of the crowd by tractor trailers. Several teams of snipers were stationed throughout the rally site. It was perhaps the largest crowd we have seen thus far at a Trump rally.
And we are not the same people. Witnessing the events of July 13 took away our feeling of safety while doing our jobs, and the effects of that continue to impact us. There was a moment of shock at one point, when the speaker on stage paused as the crowd shouted “medic” for a woman who fainted. We were frozen in fear hearing the same words that were shouted in the seconds after Trump’s assassination attempt, as people were shouting for a medic to take care of Comperatore.
But like July 13, we had to go to work. Like those in the crowd of tens of thousands that chose to return, there was a sense of unfinished business on this fairground. We had continued on to Milwaukeee and the Republican National Convention to cover Trump’s first public appearance since Butler, but we knew that we had to come back here, no matter how painful it was to land back in Pittsburgh, head north on Route 79 and pull off at the Butler Farm Show, and finish the job: for the two of us, for CBS News, for the country.
Unlike other speakers on the stage Saturday who championed Trump’s words of “fight, fight, fight,” Sweetland went out of his way to mention he is a former Democrat and pleaded with the crowd to reach out and find five Democrats with whom they could find commonality.
“Democrats are like teenagers,” Sweetland said. “You think they aren’t listening, but they are.”
Eight-four days later, the entire race has changed, and so have we.
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