Diva Up Energy: George Santos

We've come to expect corruption and lies in Washington, but there are times when it just goes too far. Witness George Santos, a guy who is seemingly allergic to the truth (but not Hermès). He proves that there's money to be made in the outrage machine, whether we like it or not.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Zaren Hey, I wasn't.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
How are you today?

Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm very well refreshed.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
Are you awake?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Yeah, totally look at me awake. Yeah, my eyes are awake.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
I'm not listen pow, but listen, old bean. It's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Oh girl, do I it's a little navel gaisy, but
I gotta say, yeah, I can't read apparently. Oh really, yeah,
that's ridiculous either. It's really late in my life to
learn that I can't read. But I can't read because
last week I was telling you about those baseball players
look exactly alike, okay, right, and the red Gingers and

(00:42):
their name, last name was Figel. I got that part right.
First name not Brad. What is Brady? Apparently? I read
enough letters like brad Borough whatever, you know, it doesn't matter.
I call him Brah so he is. I apologize to
both the Brady Figles.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Okay, and they're notwhere, not all of them.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
There's a couple of bigod exemptions. You know who you are,
you know what you did.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
They're days.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, so there you go. And then also one of
our listeners, cat named Richard Moore, wrote in and said,
uh that you know when Sara tells Elizabeth a bunch
of ridiculous in this episode about that one. Did those
two minor league ballplayers ever get their respective parents together
just for fun?

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Oh, not that way. I think like to have them
like sorted out, like where were you on that night?

Speaker 3 (01:32):
You know? But genetically they're not the same, right they said,
what if it's like but yeah, get the parents together
and find out if it's like some sort of government.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Experiences are I was like the idea that God only
has so many faces and just like I got here,
you go, you get the there you go.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Ridiculous. That is ridiculous. Do you want to know what
else is ridiculous? Yes? Please filming cameos?

Speaker 2 (02:00):
What what.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
This is?

Speaker 3 (02:21):
Ridiculous? Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous caper's hes
and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free. And
you know what ridiculous?

Speaker 2 (02:32):
I know you heard that you did?

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Sweet baby hotcakes? Have I got one for you? Today's
are really my goodness, especially sweet ones. Con artists scammer. Yeah.
I love con artists. Yes, And part of the thing
about them is that they're always they're shameless. Yes, they
will say absolutely whatever it takes to get what they want.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
To move forward.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yes, right, here is a case study in just that.
Really like saying what people want to hear, knowing an
audience and working it and then being super audacious in
how you take and use the scammed money and power.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Huh So this is like a Mount Rushmore level scammer.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yes, I should not, but I love this guy.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Ooh conflict.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
He's terrible and I deeply, deeply disagree with him about
pretty much everything.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
That's what I feel about Pablo Escobar, right. See, I
have a begrudging respect for him. He's horrible, horrendous. I
would never say and stand by anything he's ever done.
I would apologize anything to anyone who's ever hurt, but
I will still sit there and go I love the Yeah,
that's an idea.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
He he's so entertaining and he's so messy, and his
wings have been clipped, so he's not the danger that
he once was.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Okay, Saren, I want.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
To tell you all about disgraced former congress person George Sam.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Oh my god. We're going there. We're going there. We're
going to the mountaint. You're taking to the.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Mountain, Santos baby, I want to.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Tell you I was already getting rare.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Okay. He was born George Anthony Devald Santos July twenty second,
nineteen eighty eight.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Divald. So he really is Brazilian. Got one of them
German names. Slid in there, sneaky in Queen's.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
He was born in Queens.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Oh, that's his family is spider Man's from there, Peterborough.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
His family's from Brazil. As you said, they're all immigrants
who came to this country looking for a better life.
They took hard jobs. His mom was a housekeeper, cook, nanny.
His dad was one of your people, a house painter.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Oh yes, good people, salt to.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
The earth folks. Right. His childhood was rough. They were
super super poor.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
The cowboys of construction.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Right. They lived in terrible conditions in Jackson Heights, Queen's.
But his mom did everything that she could to still
get George, Like the little things that would make him
feel like a regular kid.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Oh so, like.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
Toys and stuff when they had absolutely nothing. She would
scrape together make sure he had like nice Yeah. Yeah,
his dad took off, but his mom just kept plugging away,
like doing the best for her two kids. He has
a sister. So this hard scrabble life put George in
positions of having to make choices like to be truthful

(05:21):
or to tell a lie.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Ah, those types of choices to crime.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
Or not to cryme ah. Yes, yeah, and he didn't
always make the right choices, No, our Georgie, our little Georgie.
In my research, it became apparent that George told the
world lies, created falsehoods that were just the life that
he wanted to live.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Oh so he's a fabulous of his own telling. He's
not trying to impress you, He's trying to almost impress
himself exactly.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
And it seems it seems like he almost couldn't control himself,
like he lied about everything, and he uses and use
and uses his lies to manipulate situations and get ahead,
like he's always hustling.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Okay, he has no relationship to truth? Is that none
unless forced upon.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Him, right, and even then then he's like, no, that's
not get behind me safe.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Like he did.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
He didn't graduate from high school. He got a ged,
but he told everyone that he went to this really
prestigious and expensive New York school horuce Man, Okay, and
he did not.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
It seems like it's small enough and be hard to
like get by if anybody's ever been there, be like, man,
you aren't a man.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
Well, and then the thing is, though, is it like
even when faced with all this evidence, when people are like,
we went through one hundred and twenty eight years of
their yearbooks, like they searched their database, they went through records. No, no, no,
Divulder like, yeah, you're not a time traveler. No iterations
of your name. He's like, well, then I went there.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
What's the problem? Talk to them about theeper.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
So he would tell tales about his mom being this
major Republican donor, like like canvassing for Rudy Giuliani.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Actually a major Democratic donor.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
No, she she just was like not politically. She had
like shaky immigration status.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Oh right right, and he's not going to be out
there going knocking on doors.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
He said that she was like this high powered financier
in an office in the World Trade Center. I mean
she was surrounded by wealth in her job because she
was a housekeeper to all these like fortune five hundred families.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Wow. So she was close enough for him to observe
it so he could speak knowledgeably about it.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
That's exactly it he said. He graduated from Baruk College
with a degree in economics and finance, and then he
also had an MBA from NYU and Nope on both
super he was like flamboyant guy. He is a flamboyant guy.
He married as a young young man. He married a
really beautiful Brazilian woman and people were like, huh, I

(07:47):
didn't think the women didn't think that what was interested.
A lot of people thought maybe it was like a
beard because he had such a conservative family. The relationship
didn't last long. It was like pretty much concluded to
be a citizenship thing for her, for her to get
her a green card.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
So it worked out for both of them. Yeah, glationship
and so like he.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Wasn't out per se, he just wasn't telling. But he
like he wouldn't talk about the whole marriage.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
It wasn't actual. There was no romance. He's not like, okay, no.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
But so he went back and forth to Brazil to
see his family, and a lot of times when he
was there he would go by the name Anthony Divolder.
He told people he met there that his dad was
like this super rich guy in New York. One of
the times he was there, two thousand and five, he
participated in this absolutely raucous Pride celebration in drag And

(08:42):
there's this book called The Fabuloust, which is interesting. You
should you know, describe him as such by Mark Chuisano.
It's all about George sure, and in it the author
tells the story of George at this Pride parade and
how he got interviewed by a TV crew. Quote the interviewee,
who is indeed Santos, according to friends and ex friends

(09:05):
of the future Congressman, has the confidence of youth he's
not yet twenty, the breathlessness of a party, of nighttime,
of being one among many and not alone. He is
far from Queen's He is unfettered by familial authority, figures
and restrictions. He revels in this permissive, affirming culture, just
a nice change in general, from the same old, same

(09:26):
old atmosphere back home. He nonchalantly grabs a pair of
sunglasses off a less than fully clad man next to him,
dawns them the sunglasses with the explanation that they're required
since he fudged his makeup. He lights up when a
microphone enters the frame. True to current form, Santos also
gets in some self promotion about his presentations or performances

(09:47):
at the big rio drag clubs of the era, like
Cascadura or even La Bois. Then the interview ends with
Santos's hand skimming smoothly across the semi bare chest of
the formerly sunglassed man us for a TV ready accessory.
It's a beautiful night in Knitroy. It is a beautiful
time to be uninhibited, to be alive. So you have

(10:09):
this young guy living it up best life. This will
come back to haunt him later, but in that moment,
he's living it up. No responsibilities, just dreams. But so
many contradictions. Like he was doing drag quite a bit then,
and it's something that he later denied.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Was he really at boy in those big drag places.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
That I don't know if that was, but I know
that there are people in Brazil who confirm, Oh yeah,
he brought like expensive materials from New York down to
Brazil that people couldn't get to make costumes. Now, he,
you know, posts on social media about how there are
only two genders and is very gender traditionalists.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Pretty far in the needle fliph.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
But the thing is his whole family were big Bolscenaro
fans in Brazil.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
I could see that Latin American politicis he was, even
though Bolsonnaro total homophobe.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
But it's the kind of contradiction we'll see a lot
of with George.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, their idea of conservative politics hasn't quite a line
with ours, you know. I mean, it may seem like it,
but it's a different but like the you know, No,
I'm not trying to not excusing Bolsonaro or saying that
he's not I'm saying, but I mean that the people
who choose the people that they're voting for, they're not
thinking the I'm a Democrat or a Republican the way
that we might think of those categories.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
I just think that if someone was so just violently homophobic,
like you would think he would.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Say, you would think yeah. But That's what I'm trying
to say, is that they look at the material politics different, right.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
Right, So Georgia, there's stuff in Brazil. He stole a
check book and committed check fraud. That was in two
thousand and eight. He confessed to the crime, but then
he fled the country and he was actually a fugitive
for that until twenty twenty three from Brazil and George, yeah,
back in New York though.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
So now I can't go home or ye back exactly,
and so.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
He's back in New York. He keeps plugging along. He
had a gig at the Dish Network call center, okay,
and he lied to all these people there about how
he came from this wealthy Brazilian family and they're like, well,
then why are you working in this call center?

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Either way, does your family not like it?

Speaker 3 (12:14):
He got another job working for a company called Hotels
Pro not really sure what that is, some sort of
booking technology thing. He actually moved to Florida for a
little bit and worked for them there. Then he went
back to New York and he got a gig at
link Bridge Investors, some investment fund firm. He would later
say that he was a vice president there, but he

(12:35):
was not. He was a freelancer who worked on the mission.
In January of twenty twenty, he got a job with
Harbor City Capital and that's a Florida based investment firm.
He was their New York regional director and he told
people that he was managing one and a half billion
dollars in funds for Harbor City and with a fixed

(12:57):
yield of twelve percent and an internal rate of return
of twenty six percent. Wow, does that sound shady?

Speaker 2 (13:04):
No, Elizabeth, that sounds completely above board.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
Thereon, it was shady, this is but it wasn't all
George on that one. The SEC would go on later
to file a civil suit against Harbor City the whole
company for running a seventeen million dollars ponzi scheme.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Oh so they're all George Santa. He got a job
with a Yeah, it's I know, real, recognized, real, exactly,
fake recognized, fake, want to put it.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
Luckily they let him go from the from the company
before the chips hit the fan on that one.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
Oh so, but it was he left.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
They got rid of him because he was involved in
something else, something that was taking up more of his time.
Was that politics, baby?

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Oh right, we had to get to that.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
So so George had announced in November of twenty nineteen
that he was running for New York's third congressional district
as the Republican candidate. This is like Long Island, Northeastern Queens.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
It's a pretty Democrat, yeah, exactly, district.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
Affluence su Bourbon voters.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
But they're like, why run for that district.

Speaker 3 (14:02):
Yeah, basically, his opponent, Thomas Swosey, incumbent Democrat, was like
a moderate voice for the Dems running for his third term.
So this is just like this is kamikaze mission.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
So George, somebody had to run.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
Why why not me? So George, he runs on this
conservative Republican platform. He's all about Donald Trump and MAGA,
lower taxes, hardline immigration policies, uh huh, support for Israel,
opposition to abortion, and LGBTQ plus curriculum in schools. And
I don't forget at this point he's totally out as

(14:41):
a gay man. But whatever he had come out of nowhere,
nobody knew, really knew him, and he wasn't deeply entrenched
in local GOP politics. So party officials later said, well,
you know, we're like, no one's interested in running, Like
you said, like no one wants to do it. COVID's
going on, you know, But here there's George. He hands
in this phony resume full of all the information that

(15:03):
they wanted to hear. He told him the story they wanted. Oh,
so he goes hard on the campaign trail. He really
pushed like this amazing background he'd created for himself. He's
not the son of struggling immigrants with shaky legal status.
He's not the guy who struggled and worked in call centers. No,
he's like, look, I have this degree. I you know,
I have an MBA. He added some spice in there too.

(15:26):
He's like, I worked for Goldman Sachson City Group as
a Wall Street executive. He said that he was Jewish
and descended from Holocaust survivors.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
He said that as a finance bro he lost four
employees at the Pulse night club shooting in twenty sixteen.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
Oh wow, if it's a tragedy, he's attaching himself.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
Uh huh. He said that he ran an animal rescue
charity that saved twenty five hundred animals.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
Wow. Did he lose both of his parents and two
step parents in the nine to eleven fell?

Speaker 3 (15:55):
Well? Is there? So he said all these things. No
one bats an eyelash. They just said wow. Cool. He
said like, look, I don't make a whole lot of
money fifty five grand a year, and it's based on
like commission based work.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
He was not going hard federal election.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Uh huh. Oh wow, not going hard on all his
big baller Wall Street claims. At this point, his campaign
raised about three hundred thousand dollars, which is like a
pretty small amount for a New York district that's competitive.
Election night, November third, twenty twenty, votes are tallied, he
loses by twelve percentage points. That's actually closer than everyone.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, totally. I would have thought it's been like twenty
So the Republicans.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
Are like, wait, we may have a fighting chance for
a rematch in two years, twenty twenty two. But George
wasn't looking to twenty twenty two. He was living full
on twenty twenty because he refused to accept his loss.
He said that the vote totals had been manipulated, and
he started pushing for a recount. She night cost money,
and he figured he would be like, you know, half

(16:55):
of the Democratic ballots are bogus, and the National Republicans
are like, we're not going to fund this, but we
like the cut of your jim, the energy. I love this.
Did you did you know that he went to Trump's
Save America rally at the in DC on January sixth.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
I'm just going to go ahead and say no, I
did not.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah, now you know I told you I disagree with
him to my core. Yeah, he's quoted in all these
places as saying that, like Trump was energized, gave a
great speech, was quote at his full awesomeness. And we
know what happened after that quote great speech, right, this
is violent mob. It was just tourists, Darren insurrectionist mob

(17:32):
attacked the capital, disrupt the counting of the electoral votes
to formalize Trump's loss, called for the death of the
vice president, took dumps on desks, the bad pizza party,
very bad pizza party, like the worst you could go
to pretty much. So later George told people that he
was only at the speech and not the building, and
he called January sixth a quote sad and dark day.

(17:54):
And then he's like, yeah, you know, Biden, Biden won Georgia.
So I told the local press, like they they barely
investigated George's background, our personal claims.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, he's not going to win.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
The Democrats did no OPO.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
Research on again, why I waste my money safe?

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, so his secrets never came out at this and
then come to find out, redistricting slightly changed New York's
third congressional district and it made it more favorable to
the GOP, and George used this momentum and his connections
from his twenty twenty run to launch a second campaign
in twenty twenty two, and between twenty twenty and twenty

(18:33):
twenty two, he drastically inflated his resume, his income, his
personal narrative, Like he doubled down on every light I
ever told and was just like, look, they didn't check,
then they're not going to check. Now, let's take a
break and we come back from these ads. I'm going
to tell you about this twenty twenty two race, Zarin.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
Dude, I was reading some about George Santos on the break.
I did not know that he invented the Corvette Lasagna
and also mondays he did. Yeah, yeah, it's really amazing.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
It's amazing, George Santos. George Santos. He lost, like we said,
the New York third Congressional District race in twenty twenty.
Do you remember how he'd been working for Harbor City
and that he left to work on the campaign. Around
that time, he founded a company called Devaulter Organization.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
The Devauter Group.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yes, and although he was living in New York, the
company was registered in Florida, and on financial disclosure forms.
He called it a quote capital introduction consulting firm. What
does that even mean?

Speaker 2 (19:56):
Introduction consulting.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
Show me the money firm.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
I'll introduce the money. This is money money, say holo.

Speaker 3 (20:02):
Hello. When he was eyeballing the new run in twenty
twenty two because the incumbent wasn't going to run again,
all of a sudden, his reported personal income changed. None
of his fifty grand a year stuff anymore. He said
that he earned between three and a half to eleven
and a half million dollars from the Devauld organization.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
It's quite a spread.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
That's a come up. Yeah, from fifty grand to that.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Look at him.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
He said he was the sole owner and managing member
of the company and that they managed eighty million dollars
in assets. It's a big organization.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
I get a job, George.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
How many employees? How many employees do you think? He had?

Speaker 2 (20:38):
Seven named George Santos.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
That's right, zero, yeah, yeah. Fun fact. The company's mailing
address was an apartment owned by Harbor City's chief technology officer.
Oh's cozy, so here we are. Twenty twenty two, George
announced his candidacy for New York's third, he is running
unopposed for the Republican primary, and he secured that nomination

(21:02):
no problem. Remember the district was redrawn and the playing
field to change. So also, the Devaulter organization lent his
campaign more than seven hundred thousand.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Dollars, Oh his own.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
Whe Where did it come from?

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, who's see what money lined?

Speaker 4 (21:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (21:18):
Shady. So with his campaign strategy.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Like that money was real, the seven hundred thousand dollars,
that wasn't an account that was like people saw it,
there's scrow.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
Paid, it's it's I don't think it was real. I
think it was just all shells moving around, okay, like
juice it. So everyone else wants to give him money.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, I wonder if if you wanted to go buy
some diet cokes with this, I.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
Don't think you can. I don't think you could buy
Maybe you could buy one, okay. Yeah. So he his
his strategy was like I'm a successful businessman and I
have a compelling personal story.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
Who doesn't Who doesn't?

Speaker 3 (21:51):
You know, he's still he stuck with I went to
Baruch College. He said, he worked at Goldman Sachson City
Group had that successful company, the Divaulter Organization that just
in two years time Shazam.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
Saving all the animals, twenty five hundred animals.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
It'd like to be a successful, solid candidate in twenty
twenties America as a Republican. You gotta bend the maganee. Yeah,
and he was all about it. He did fundraisers at
mar A Lago and it's like his dream scenario. It's
tacky as hell. It's filled with rich folks, everyone lying
their asses off. It's perfect.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
How do you I don't imagine you do? But like,
how does that work? Do you? Like give them a
ten percent of the cut and they let you come
in and run with.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
It's got to be where like part of it goes
to the National Committee, and yeah, I think they take
a take a cut of it. He went hard on
a few issues, despite masking up and getting vaccinated himself.
He was anti mask and anti VAC. He called abortion
barbaric and compared it to slavery. Okay, He was against

(22:55):
any LGBTQ plus content in schools. He called that grooming.
Really yeah, He said police brutality was a quote made
up concept. He was anti Black Lives Matter, calling it Marxists,
and for the love of God, I wish that each
person who uses the term Marxist be required to actually

(23:16):
read Marx because it's so off the mark and infuriating anyway.
So he's like playing the Maga Greatest Hits for his constituents,
and they're eating it up, they're loving it. And he
looked around at fellow politicians and he saw that lying
didn't matter anymore.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
It's just what you did.

Speaker 3 (23:33):
This is from the book The Fabulous Quote. In the
Trump era, not only was there little penalty for conspiracy
mongering or outright lying, it could actually be a draw election.
Misinformation was just part of showing your colors, as Santos
had done quite publicly at the pre January sixth rally
in Freedom Plaza when he shouted to the crowd about

(23:54):
his election getting stolen. It became one of his favorite canards.
This habitual liar, there were many flavors. He could be
flippant about supposedly almost winning, or he might be very dire,
as when he claimed that he beat his twenty twenty
opponent on election night for fourteen days until the ballots
never stopped coming in. He said it on podcasts and

(24:14):
in public. He even touched on it to people posing
as Republicans, as when he told an undercover Democratic tracker
that yes, he quote wrote a nice check for a
law firm to help out some of the January sixth patriots.
Was it real? Who cares? Democrats clutch their pearls? But
the right wing loved it. The crazier he talked, the
more he aligned himself with Magaworld, and there were supporters

(24:38):
to be found there. It's just you know, it's it's.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
It was just like all like it's not just transactional
but just straight up not in the monetary senti usury,
but usury in the sense of like, oh I can
do this is good for me. So even the crowd
that Magapara's doing like yeah, we'll take this gay Brazilian
dude becase he says hateful stuff against the people, say
hateful stuff, No, raise more money. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
And so, as with most campaigns, George his campaign commissioned
a vulnerability study and he was all about it, but like.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
His own vulnerabilities. Yeah, but as it.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
Was going on, he tried to cancel the contract. Like
they started up like Okay, we're going to work on it.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
He's like, oh wait, hold on, hold on, you're finding
too much stuff.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
Yeah, and it was for good reason because like, who buddy,
it was not good.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
None of this is true.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
Some of the staff was like, you got to drop
out of the race. It was that bad. So we
had like the fraudulent Academy.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
We're going to tell you.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
We're going to tell the involvement in a company running
a Ponzi scheme. He had multiple evictions, he had a
suspended driver's license, he was openly gay but married to
a woman in a possibly fraudulent green card marriage. His
team they called this emergency conference to like discuss the

(25:50):
results of the study, and they told George you have
a choice. You can step down from the race and
maintain your dignity. He's like, what dignity? Or you can
keep running. Give the Democrats the chance to put you
on blast and ruin you. And he was like, listen,
I'll get you all the diplomas that never happened, by
the way, and I'll think about what you've said here today.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
I'm really going to think about it, sit.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
On it for a bit. So then a couple days
later he comes back to the group and he's like,
you know what, I'm gonna stick with it. It's not
that bad, don't worry about it. And then most of
them quit on the spot. They're like, I want no
stink on me for name. Yeah. So like are swirling,
but his campaign just keeps chugging along, according to the

(26:36):
New York Times quote, Around that time, mister Santos began
attracting the suspicion of a pair of friends and potential
donors active in New York Republican circles. Mister Santos claimed
to one of them, Kristin Bianco, to have secured the
endorsement of former President Donald J. Trump when he had not.
That prompted her to express concerns about mister Santos to

(26:57):
plugged in Republicans, including a allociates of representative at least
Stephonic of New York, one of mister Santos's biggest early backers,
whose top political aid was assisting his campaign. Later, miss
Bianco and her friend became suspicious that they could not
verify his work history were just so tired of being duped.
Miss Bianco texted mister Santos in early twenty twenty two

(27:20):
after he refused her request to produce his resume. Mister
Santos wrote back that he found the request quote a
bit invasive, as it's something very personal. You're running for office,
and you're like, that's per I can't tell you my resume.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
You put yourself here, sir, No one asked.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
You the soon, like the Rays starts becoming more high
profile thanks to the redistricting, Oh right now, it was
too late for the Republican doubters to swap in someone solid,
and the Democrats they didn't have the time or the
money or the people power to do a deep dive
on George at least that's their excuse. So their opposition

(27:59):
research up a bunch of red flags, but they were
never chased down. And when they went to the press
with some of the red flags, they too said they
were short on time and resources to chase down the story.
Like that's great, but you know what, we got a
lot of other stuff or sorry, I have no one
in Ai hasn't come all the way into the newsroom yet,
So we have like one dude at a computer in

(28:21):
interviews and meetings, like he stuck to the lies from
the fore.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
You have to that's the move.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
Oh yeah, and again he said that his grandparents had
fled Jewish persecution during World War Two and he was
a proud American Jew. He claimed that he founded and
operated a tax exempt annimal rescue organization that just also
happened to not exist. He started talking about how he
owned multiple properties, but like records later show, he didn't

(28:47):
own any real estate. September of twenty.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
Two, checked Minecraft, you know what, or like sims a
lot of places. They you got to think broadly.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
September twenty twenty two, just before the election, the North
Shore Leader newspaper started looking into his history and they
reported on his employment and his financials. But it was
a small local paper, which is the backbone of journalism
in this country totally, and so no one paid attention.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
When you said north Star, I'm like, why would the
Hawaiian paper care about it? Was really that's raird for
local news. They're really expansive covering in the New York
third district.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
So like, no one's looking it didn't have legs on
a bigger stage to get it thought. So George, he's
like riding that Republican momentum, loving it. This Republican surge
contributed to increased turnout and then all and that gave
support to down ballot candidates like Santos.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
His voting are and they're like, okay, yeah, right down.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
The ticket exactly. So the general election November eight, twenty
twenty two, Santos won the seat with fifty three point
seventy four percent of the vote. That's a lot, and
he beat this other guy, you know, forty six point
twenty two percent. So after the election, the press finally
picked up on the story that he was a straight

(30:07):
up liar.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Like once he's won after the fact, that's a big
move these days in politics.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
Uh huh. So December nineteenth, twenty twenty two, New York
Times reports on his lies. His lawyer denies everything, but
like the ball's rolling, George hadn't even been sworn in
yet and the press is just all over him. So
then New York Attorney General Letitia James, Oh yeah, she
announced an investigation had been opened due to his suspicious

(30:33):
financial dealings. December twenty sixth, twenty twenty two, he broke
his silence and he told the New York Post quote,
I'm not a fraud. I'm not a criminal who defrauded
the entire country and made up this fictional character and
ran for Congress that's exactly.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
What you said. What you are just we couldn't say it.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
So every day his opposite day with George, Oh my god,
every sounds. So he did tell the Post that he
didn't actually graduate from college. He's like, he got me
there and I didn't work for Goldman Sachs or City Group.
But like that's it.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
Those are the whole those are it?

Speaker 3 (31:07):
Sure? George? Oh, and then like about being Jewish, he
said that during the campaign he was a quote proud
American Jew and also called himself a Latino Jew. But
George then like had to confirm, actually, I'm Catholic.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
I'm a Catholic Jew.

Speaker 3 (31:22):
And they're like, what are you trying to claim Jewish heritage.
He's like, no, no, no, see quote. I believe we are
all Jewish at the end because Jesus Christ is Jewish.
And if you believe in Jesus and we're all brothers
in Christ, I mean it just ends what I need.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
During December argument for where they got more pizza and
like a sleep overnight and because we're all Jewish because
Jesus is Jewish and pizza.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
Because December twenty sixth, twenty twenty two, he gives an interview,
and he said, quote, I never claimed to be Jewish.
I'm the Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had
a Jewish background, I said I was jew Ish. That
is top notch. He's jew Ish. It is so beautiful.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
I think he'd been an old Andy Kindler line. I
think so.

Speaker 3 (32:20):
He would later say that he had a DNA test
that confirmed his Jewish ancestry. But you aren't allowed to
see it. It's personal. Yeah, I can tell you what
you can because I'm you can't see the DNA, but
you know you can see zaren closure out. Yeah, I
want you to picture it.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
I cannot wait.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
It's January third, twenty twenty three. You are tech support
at the US Capitol Building. In fact, you're the director
of Audio Resources, meaning you make sure the microphones work.
The system is pretty good. You keep things tight. All
the wires are color coded and expertly breeded and organized.
You are behind the scenes of the House floor keeping

(33:02):
an eye on the mic system. The House of Representatives
is set to elect a new Speaker of the House.
Kevin McCarthy, the previous Minority leader, should be a shoe
in as soon as he's crowned. Speaker, then they can
start swearing in all the new members. You've heard rumbles
that Matt Gates and Marjorie Taylor Green, whom you refer
to as Beavis and butt Head, much to your staff's delight,

(33:23):
are up to something not surprising whatever. You just watch
the soundboard and adjust some gain dials, volume, reverb, pedal effects.
You'd have a crazy setup back there. So, looking out
over the source of the mumbled conversations with occasional laughs
and coughs punctuating the tense air, you peek out at
the floor and you watch his Gates and Taylor Green

(33:44):
huddle in confab with other representatives. McCarthy works the room,
shaking hands and padding backs, and then you see him
the big news item, George Santos. He looks so out
of place, so uncomfortable. He's tried to cozy up to
Gates and Taylor Green and standing just beyond their orbit.
He looks like a scared, nerdy kid at his first

(34:05):
day at a new high school, trying to befriend the
school bullies. But now he sits alone. You have no
inclination to warn him or feel any sense of pity
or care. See you take Washington and the federal government. Seriously,
this is sacred ground. Your belief is in this great
country of ours, this beautiful experiment. You revere this building

(34:28):
and the history it holds, both good and bad. You
can live in the discomfort of shameful past and political disagreements,
but you can't live in the discomfort of watching people
denigrate what you love. And lying your way into office
is denigrating the institution. It's insulting his voters and his peers,
every citizen. You may only handle the audio here, but

(34:49):
you know you are an important part of a beautiful
and flawed machine, the US federal government. The government isn't
something outside of the people. It is the people. Believe
in the country, respect the country, and you take umbrage
to this rising tide of carnival barkers and crass opportunists.
They have no decorum. You, Zarin, are a dying breed.

(35:11):
The vote begins for the next Speaker.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
Of the House.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
Role is called, and alphabetically each representative stands to announce
their vote. McCarthy, Jeffreys, Biggs, We're into the ESS's You
hear it in your headset Santos. You look out and
you see him stand, say McCarthy, and then sit back down.
Dang it, he's too far from a mic. Enough people
heard it, though, But then you see the levels increase

(35:35):
on your board. The Democrats are jeering him. You can't
quite pick up what they're saying. You're MIC's although you
think maybe it's better this way. People don't need to
hear these things. People don't need to witness their elected
officials behaving like this. Crude, hurtful Zaren. You have got
to get out of Washington while you can.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
It's eating my soul, Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
So it took I don't know if you'll remember, it
took fifteen rounds of votes for McCarthy to finally get
a speakership, and only then could George be sworn into office,
which he was, and happened at like one in the
morning a few days later. George Santos now officially a
member of Congress. Let's stop this madness and listen to
some ads. Calm our animal brains. When we return, mister

(36:18):
Santos goes.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
To Washington, Yes, Queen Zarin, Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (36:42):
So it was on January seventh, twenty twenty three, that
George Santos was sworn into the US House of Representatives.
Eight days later, four Republican New York congressman called for
George's resignation.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (36:56):
Eight days eight days the chair of the NASA County
Republican Party called for him to step down. He said
that Georgian quote, disgrace the House of Representatives, and we
do not consider him one of our congress people.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
So they do have a standard they do on paper.
I did not know that.

Speaker 3 (37:13):
George was like, you know what I hear you absolutely not, yes,
not not going anywhere on food floor. In February of
twenty twenty three, the House Ethics Committee initiated an investigation
into his conduct. So like a month in.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
Wow, and you know they were both he was hard
at work though.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
What was he doing that same month February twenty twenty
three legislation he co sponsored a bill, Oh really, to
designate the AR fifteen style rifle the National Gun of
the United States.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
The national gun he sponsored to make.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
Like I'm telling you, I'm like, I love him and
hate him so much, so whatever, it's clown behavior. So
the truth about his lives just kept coming out and
everything gets to like this fever pitch when it was
released in November of that year. What did the ethics
committee eventually find? Let me answer that question for you, zeron.

(38:10):
Here are the categories misuse of campaign funds for personal expenses.
This is like an awards show. He diverted campaign contributions
for personal use, including over four thousand dollars spent at
air Mais.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
Oh you know, yeah, it actually seems kind of light
for MS.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
I don't know, but I think, yeah, he's just crazy.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
A couple of things.

Speaker 3 (38:31):
Yeah, he paid for cosmetic procedures like botox.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
Oh, he got his. Like basically, he's using campaign finance
funds to pay for his botox because he needs to
look good on TV exactly.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
It makes sense it, Yeah, subscriptions to adult content platforms
like OnlyFans.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Harder harder, irrationalized that one.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
You know, it's just like self care.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
Well, give me a second. Wait, So this is he's
trying to understand what his constituents are are being irritated
and annoyed by. It's research.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
It's into the evils that he is fighting.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
You have to know if he's going to fight at Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
I remember I had to look at OnlyFans for that
other story I told you.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Now you're an only fans model.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yeah, I am so. So he went he paid for
travel to like Atlantic City in Vegas, but there were
no campaign related activities there.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
Once again getting to know the sins because he went
to fight literally personal.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Payments for his personal credit card bills and like debts.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
Okay, I think I can get this one. Okay. Is electioneering,
which is you cannot separate the candidate from the campaign.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
Girl, you are like me doing my text right. Okay,
Let's let's go another category. Fraudulent financial disclosures and deceptive practices.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
Penn slipped, I did not file that paperwork.

Speaker 3 (39:48):
And he was twenty months late.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Twenty months late, that's almost two year.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
It's almost two years. It's like how you measure babies,
Like that's a two year old. He reported in that
worth of two point five to eleven point five million range. Yes,
even though and he also had all these other claims
that like, by the way.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
I personally when people ask I say that I have
a net value of a net worth of around negative
seven million dollars to two million dollars positive somewhere in.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
There, you know, ballpark it.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Well, then he also had a big ring.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
He said he had all these other properties that he
didn't have. Why would you claim them if you don't
because you have to Well, no, this is just for
your financial disclosures. Why anyway, he brokeered a nineteen million
dollar yacht sale between two major campaign contributors. What yeah,
and I don't know if he took a cut.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
Whatever is that illegal?

Speaker 3 (40:44):
Let's try category amateur boat swapping, amateur boat program, exploitation
of campaign for personal gain. So the committee concluded that
he sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his house
candidacy for personal financial profit.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
He even took the light bulbs.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
Yeah, they said he put his desire for private gain
above his duty to uphold the Constitution, federal law, and
ethical principles. He was absolutely, as as would be expected,
uncooperative with the committee's in grace, and he like they
would ask him for just straightforward stuff and he'd be like, yeah,
I'll get that to you there.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
Yeah, check it out. Did you check your mailbocks?

Speaker 3 (41:27):
What happens?

Speaker 2 (41:27):
I must have the wrong address. You had the wrong adress.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
So the Committee's like, you know what, We're going to
refer all this other stuff that we have for potential
criminal conduct to the Department of Justice. How do you
like them apples? May twenty twenty three federal grand jury.
So he gets it. January twenty twenty three, he's sworn in.
Now we're in. May twenty twenty three, federal grand jury
in the Eastern District of New York indicted him on

(41:52):
thirteen counts. And that's seven counts of wire fraud, three
counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds,
two counts of making materially false statements to the House
of Representatives. That sounds like a big, big one. And
so the charges alleged that he embezzled campaign contributions, that

(42:12):
he fraudulently obtained unemployment benefits.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (42:16):
So while he's like, oh, I make eleven million a year, ps,
I'm not an appoyment. He lied in financial disclosures to
the House of Reps. After his indictment, House Republican leadership
said they weren't going to force him to resign, they
weren't going to give him the boot. House Democrats introduced
a resolution to kick him out, but it didn't pass,

(42:37):
and they were actually Democrats who voted to keep him because,
like Katie Porter was one of them and her whole
thing very like legal scholars like, well, he hasn't been
convicted yet, so we can't really boot him until he's
been convicted.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
So the whole process, the due process.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
Due process. So a superseding indictment came out in October
twenty twenty three, added ten more charges. So now we're
at twenty three totals. So now your friends order, Yeah,
but listen to some of these. One count of conspiracy
to commit offenses against the United States.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
Oh, that's like just blow.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
Two counts of wire fraud, two counts of making materially
false statements to the Federal Election Commission, two counts of
falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC, two counts of
aggre aggravated identity.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Fat what is that is that when you beat someone
with like it's.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
A violent identity? And one count of access device fraud. Okay,
So these additional charges, it was all about the fundraising reports.
That's where those came.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Yeah, they don't care about the lives. It's the money.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
Unauthorized charges on campaign contributors credit cards.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
Oh, he used their cards.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
You can do your campaign, you know, you can do
your your contribution on this card. And then he's like,
then I'm also going to slip in some you know, OnlyFans.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Just put down their numbers on a trip.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
To like wow, the whole this whole time that this
is going on, George is still in Congress, Yes, the
whole time.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
You know, you know how many indictments are in Congress
that anyone can give in time?

Speaker 3 (44:16):
They and that's on both sides.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, this is a Republican Democrats.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
It's just it's way more than the general population.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
Yeah, the House Republicans and House Democrats both have a
lot of House to clean up.

Speaker 3 (44:28):
Yeah, they do. Yeah, so George, he's there right in
the thick of it. The Democrats tried and failed a
bunch of times to get him kicked out, but then
the Ethics report came out in November of twenty twenty three.
Over the Thanksgiving break, George got on Twitter and said
that like, look, I think I'm about to get the
boot from Congress when we all get back from break. Yeah,

(44:49):
and he said that he would wear it quote like
a badge of honor that I don't you know. He
said that the head of the Ethics Committee Michael Guest
was a quote pussy and said that no one and
said that no one from Mississippi was going to push
a New Yorker out of Congress.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
So he's pulling Yankee moves.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
I guess. George said that it was hypocritical of the
House to expel him. He's not wrong there, and then
that like that kicks off this threat of his to
expose the misdeeds of his colleagues that continues to this day,
like he's still threatening to air dirty laundry.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
And I stay charged to it.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
What have you got left to lose? On December first,
all of.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
His tomorrows, that's what he's got left to lose.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
The House voted to expel him three hundred and eleven
to one hundred and fourteen December first. He is the
sixth member of the House of Representatives to be expelled,
and the only Republican and the only member expelled without
first being convicted of a federal crime or having supported
the Confederacy. That's what all the other ones got. It

(45:58):
so groundbreaking.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
Back in the day, people shot each other on the
House of Yah on the floors of the House, so
this is true.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
December eighteenth, twenty twenty three, he appeared on ze Way's
show Oh right, and if you haven't seen it, please
check it out. Ze Way's amazing. She's the most brutal interviewer.
If she asked me to appear on her show, I
would immediately decline.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Way more scared of her than Isaac Chottma.

Speaker 3 (46:22):
Oh, she's terrifying. She would obliterate me and she'd show
the world what a fool I am. But George walked
right into it. Oh yeah, He's like, let's do this.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
He's like introduced me to the chappa.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
He pushed some of the same lies, he tried out
new ones. He asked her to get paid to do it.
Panders to all sorts of audiences. It's like a command performance. Yes,
it's so. It's so embarrassing and so.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
Beautiful, unhinged. It's like the Yeah I.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
Watched George Santos on Zeaway. After he got kicked out
of Congress, he needed to make money, so he turned
to the cameo platform to generate income. You know what
cameo is, right, You pay a celebrity to record a
personalized video for you. Yes, and they're generally like priced
according to level of fame. So George originally priced his

(47:08):
personalized video messages at seventy five dollars, but then like
the demand was huge, so he quickly upped the rate
to five hundred bucks a pop. Oh wow, and he
claimed he said that he sold over twelve hundred videos.
And then he started telling people that he'd earned more
than four hundred thousand dollars from the platform. And at
one point he said he was making over eighty thousand

(47:31):
dollars a day from cameo. Yeah, a day a day,
which is more way more than the annual congressional salary
of one hundred and seventy four thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Oh, and that's like Wilt Chamberlain math, like, I'm so
busy every day. Just yeah, exactly, I'm doing cameo, cameo.

Speaker 3 (47:47):
Consider the source.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
I know, I don't.

Speaker 3 (47:49):
So. So, despite his legal troubles, his cameo endeavors were
deemed legal and ethically permissible because he was no longer
subject to how ethics rules.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
That makes sense.

Speaker 3 (48:02):
Yeah, And then experts noted that, unlike his previous fraudulent activities,
his cameo earnings were actually transparent transactions with willing participants.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
That's true. Everybody knew what they were paying for getting.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
Credit card numbers personally platform. On August nineteenth, twenty twenty four,
George Santos pleaded guilty in federal court to wire fraud
and aggravated identity.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Felt got it down to two charges.

Speaker 3 (48:29):
Yeah, because the plea like that way he does this
plea deal a trial they're going to throw.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
On wire fraud because they love that lot just.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
Is so good.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
It's so juicy and has real, real charges.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
Got legs. In his guilty plea, he admitted to filing
fraudulent FEC reports to misrepresent his campaign's financial status. He
admitted to embezzling funds from campaign donors for personal use,
charging donors credit cards without authorization, stealing identities to facilitate
fraudulent activities, obtaining unemployment benefits through false claims. I hope

(49:05):
how great would it be if he was on unemployment
well in Congress? Yeah, anyway, lying in reports submitted to
the House of Reps. He acknowledged that his ambition is
what led him to make unethical decisions. He told the
court quote, I accept full responsibility for my actions, but
his social media post told a different story and so,

(49:28):
US attorney John Durham said that he called the social
media post unrepentant and proved that he deserved quote a
significant carceral sentence. Oh yeah, yeah, so George, He replied
to someone on Twitter who asked if he really used
campaign funds to quote buy air miz No, Santos responded,

(49:50):
that's a false statement. That's impassed on his truth. But like,
that's not what he just said in court. So there
are a ton more examples like that where he contradict
did what he said in court and just basically, you know,
painted himself as the victim for all this. The man
cannot stop lying. On April twenty fifth, twenty twenty five,
George Santos was sentenced to eighty seven months that's more

(50:13):
than seven years federal prison lot. In addition to the
prison term, he has to pay three hundred seventy three thousand,
seven hundred forty nine and ninety seven cents in restitution,
and he has to forfeit more than two hundred and
five thousand dollars. During the sentencing, he did express remorse.
He said he regretted defrauding the voters who supported his

(50:36):
congressional run. However, the judge was like, I don't think
you are for real in that he said. The judge
called him a quote arrogant fraudster. Oh so the judge
is like, I can't believe a word you say. She
highlighted all the social media activity how he had tried
to monetize his notoriety as evidence that he's just again unrepentant.

(50:59):
Hepped as the sentence was read. But the judge was like,
and he asked for protective custody. The judges like, no,
really for you, Jen Pop for you. So he has
to report to prison by July twenty fifth, twenty twenty five. Now,
I'd read that he was trying to sell as many
cameo videos as possible before July when he ships off

(51:20):
to prison. And when I looked at the cameo website,
I saw that he was having a sale. Oh no, yeah,
one hundred dollars for a video he does like birthdays
and special occasion messages. You can request a pep talk.
I didn't have a cameo account, but I saw that
you could get thirty percent off your first video. Oh
my goodness, And I had sixty dollars burning a hole

(51:42):
in my back, so I asked for a pep talk
video from George Santos, and I told him, I'm overwhelmed
by the world. I'm super busy with my podcast. I
just need some encouragement from the ultimate resilient diva, George Santos.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
Basically, his profile has a one hour guarantee, so you
get the video within the hour.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
Are you kidding?

Speaker 3 (52:04):
I'm not kidding, Like that's like he it has like
a little like clock icon, like, hey, he'll do it.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
He's desperate and so possible.

Speaker 3 (52:12):
Thirty or so minutes later, I had this message from George,
filmed as he sat in his car.

Speaker 5 (52:23):
He Elizabeth, it's George Sancho's And I know life can
get really stressful sometimes. Believe me, I would know a
thing or two about strass But I want you to know,
don't get overwhelmed with being busy. Don't have panicky attacks
because of your podcast. Your podcast is supposed to be

(52:44):
part of your life and of you building yourself up
through work. And it's a positive, not a negative. Don't
feel like all the work is overwhelming or or anything
like that. Use it as a positive. That's how I
use my podcast as a positive. So I know you
can do it. I know you can and you will.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
So Elizabeth, Diva up energy and.

Speaker 5 (53:06):
Always be resilient, be strong, and remember you're a queen
and you can do whatever you want.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
Bye.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
Yes, Diva up Energy, Diva Up.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
He even called you a queen. Yes.

Speaker 3 (53:21):
Yes. So every person I've showed this to has remarked
on how he seems like such a nice person, and
I mean, lying narcissts have a way of coming across
like that. But I do have compassion for the guy,
and even I even kind of like him, even though
the political stuff he says gives me an aneurysm. But

(53:41):
he's such an interesting character. And now I tell myself,
Diva up Energy when everythings get crazy, that George George
wants me to be resilient like he is and he's
gonna He's gonna survive. This is Aaron, what's your ridiculous takeaway?

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Thank you for asking, Elizabeth so rarely do my It
would be I'm going to take away from this Diva
Cup energy. So I'm gonna be there for you as
a Diva cup while you Diva up. Oh God, no,
am I getting is now? I just heard that it
is just I know people use it. I know.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
Yeah, it's for divas only.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
Okay, Well anyway, Diva up, that's mine. What's yours, Elizabeth?

Speaker 3 (54:28):
Oh my goodness, you know it's People are complex. Yes,
they are very, very complex.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
It's best not to paint them or to see them
through just one of their many identities.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
Well, and I have to this. I think was a
good exercise for me to think about compassion and that
like the anger that I feel and the like I
don't want to succumb to that kind of thing. And
every single person is human, even though I don't think
maybe they are.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
The nuns would be very proud of you.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
They would be so proud of me right now.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
For real, they would they He's so bummed that.

Speaker 3 (55:00):
They wasted sixty bucks.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
That's charity. It's like.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
I want him to have at least a couple of
packs of Ramens in his commissary.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
He's not good with money.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
I like how he's lecturing me on work.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
Build with real stuff, Dave.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
I think we need to talk back.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
Yeah, let me rescue us. All. Oh my god, I cheat.

Speaker 4 (55:37):
Hi, this is Carol.

Speaker 3 (55:39):
I love your show.

Speaker 4 (55:41):
I bought the merchandise so I have the move sweatshirt
that says who knows who cares and on the back
advertises the podcast. But I just you all make me
smile and laugh, and that's so important in these current times.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
And I just love it. My dogs love hearing you laugh.

Speaker 4 (56:05):
Archie and Georgia.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
Wait, Archie and Georgia. I love this. This whole thing
is perfect. First of all, let's talk merch. Amazing. I
love the merch. Oh you're wonderful and I adore you,
and thank you. That was a good one. Yeah, we
all need to like keep laughing, even though I think
I just made a lot of people mad. That's okay.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
I'm just trying to point out that that you were
not in any way advocating anything about the politics, but
the person. So for focusing on the person, I think
that he has an interesting character.

Speaker 3 (56:37):
Well, and we've said it before too, that like anytime
we talk about someone on here, we're talking about the
things they do, not the actual individual, you know, like
we're laughing at that. And everyone is also just a
few bad decisions away.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
From political candidate in the New York Sturt history.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
That is like the worst decision. Oh that's it for today.
You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com
or the merch Lies. We can also be found on
blue Sky and Instagram. You can email us at ridiculous
Crime at gmail dot com. You can check out YouTube,
like and subscribe as the kids say to Ridiculous Crime

(57:20):
pod see how I Cut Myself off and then please
download the iHeart app. Leave a talkback like that sweet one.
Whatever you do, reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by
Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Drewish

(57:40):
Princess Dave Kusten, starring Amils rutger Is Judith. Research is
by Smalltown muckbreaker Marissa Brown. The theme song is by
mar Alago busboys Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe
is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup
by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are representative from
New York's one hundred and thirty fourth District, Van Bollin

(58:02):
and House Ethics Watchdog Noel Brown. Ridicous Crime Say It
One More Time Piquious Crime.

Speaker 1 (58:16):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
my Heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.