US Rep. George Santos waits for President Joe Biden's State of the Union address during a joint meeting of Congress in the House Chamber of the US Capitol on 7 February 2023 in Washington, DC. Photo: WIN MCNAMEE / AFP / GETTY
By Madeline Halpert for the BBC
Politicians from both parties lined up this week to make jokes at the expense of George Santos, the newly elected Republican Congressman plagued by an increasingly bizarre mix of scandals. Voters in his New York district are not amused.
Michael Glickman, a 45-year-old independent voter from Long Island, did not mince his words when asked to deliver his verdict on Santos.
"The community has never been in the spotlight for the idiocy of people who represent us," Glickman said. "It's a national embarrassment."
The embarrassment began almost two months ago when a New York Times investigation into Santos revealed that the narrative of his life provided to voters was largely made up.
That included lies about his faith, college degrees, and work experience.
Since then, there has been a flood of further allegations: the 34-year-old has been accused of sexual misconduct by a former member of his staff; of falsely claiming his mother perished in the attacks of 11 September 2001; of stealing money he fundraised for a dying dog; and of lying about his Jewish heritage. The list grows longer every few days.
Santos has admitted "embellishing" his biography, but denied other claims including the sexual misconduct and theft allegations. In some instances, he has failed to provide clear answers at all.
"Here's the reality. I'm human and I've made mistakes," Santos said in an interview with the right-wing Newsmax outlet this week. "I've made peace with those mistakes, and I've come clean on those mistakes."
Not everyone is convinced by that - or ready to simply move on.
At Tuesday's State of the Union in the House of Representatives, Santos was confronted by his fellow Republican Mitt Romney. The US Senator reportedly called his colleague a "sick puppy" and told him he did not belong in Congress.
That was a sentiment shared by more than a dozen voters - Republican, Democratic and Independent - who the BBC spoke to in New York's Third Congressional District at the end of another difficult week for a politician who was only sworn into office in January.
Some called for his imprisonment, while many argued that he should resign or be expelled from the House of Representatives.
"Whatever he says, whatever he does, is not trustworthy," said Johanna Hurwitz, who has lived in the Long Island village of Great Neck for 48 years.
"We cannot have liars running Congress," said Luann Pizzo of Bayside, a town in the New York borough of Queens. "He does not belong in Congress. He does not belong in politics."
A personal scandal that just keeps growing
George Santos originally made a splash by delivering a political upset during November's midterm elections. A relative newcomer to US politics, he beat his Democratic opponent Robert Zimmerman with nearly 54 percent of the vote, flipping the district to Republican control.
He now represents some 740,000 people in a district that covers north-eastern Queens and northern Long Island, just over an hour by train from Manhattan. It is the wealthiest district in New York state.
There, he faces an investigation launched by Republican Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly as well as growing frustrations from constituents.
"We don't even know his real name," said Louis Ann, who lives in the waterside neighbourhood of Bayside, referring to how Santos previously introduced himself publicly as Anthony Devolder.
"He said his mother was in the World Trade Center when it came down," said Bayside resident Maureen Hahn. "She wasn't even in the country. Everything out of his mouth is a lie."
Amid the mounting scandals, the Republican congressman said last week that he would step down from two House committee assignments to stop being a "distraction" until his name was cleared.
That wasn't enough for some of Santos's constituents, including dozens who travelled to Washington, DC, to protest outside his office and call on him to resign.
US Representative-elect George Santos. Photo: WADE VANDERVORT / AFP
His colleagues in the nation's capital took aim at him as well, including Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace who delivered a string of one-liners at his expense at a glitzy dinner with reporters on Thursday night.
"I know George Santos hoped to deliver tonight's keynote," she said. "But organisers wanted someone who could tell a joke, but not actually be one".
Fellow New Yorker and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer piled on. "I'm not just Jew-ish," Schumer said, in a reference to Santos back-pedalling on previous claims that he had Jewish heritage. "I'm the real thing, baby!"
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, however, has so far resisted calls to do more to punish Santos - and the congressman himself insists he has no intention of resigning.
That frustrates some of his constituents. "The democracy we have nowadays is not like years ago, where when you did something wrong, you were out," said Pizzo in Queens.
But not everyone here wants him out.
Mary McGovern, a 55-year-old Queens resident, voted for Santos after switching from the Democratic Party to vote for former President Donald Trump.
She said political scandals happened on both sides of the aisle - and she was less concerned about Santos as an individual and more focused on supporting Republican values.
"I'd rather have 10 of him than one Democrat," she said.
David Paxton, a Queens resident who works in Great Neck, said he felt differently. "I'm a conservative man, and he gives conservatives a bad name."
Paxton said people in Great Neck - a village on the North Shore of Long Island, home to around 11,000 people - had grown tired of the Democratic Party in recent years, and Santos seized that opportunity.
Glickman, the independent voter, said Santos was a "no one" in the Great Neck area before he emerged as a political candidate.
"He never ingratiated himself in Great Neck and never got to know the community," he said, adding that Santos had now completely disappeared from the place he only recently relied on for donations and votes.
But at the very least, Glickman said, the district was now coalescing around their rejection of the congressman.
"This community is never in lockstep on anything," he said. "And yet, I have yet to find a person here who wants to see him stay in office."
- BBC