August 19, 2024 • 37 mins
George Santos takes office. His communications director, Naysa Woomer, walks us through her five months with Congressman Santos as she tries to manage the chaos and sort fact from fiction. Author Mark Chiusano unpacks some of the most complicated allegations surrounding Santos’ personal narrative.
For more on Mark’s reporting on George Santos, check out his book: The Fabulist - The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing and Very American Legend of George Santos.
For more on how 9/11 has impacted first responders, and those who lived around Ground Zero, listen to Amy Gaines McQuade’s Frontline Dispatch episode: “The Weight of Dust.”
Note: George Santos is now expected to plead guilty, as first reported by Talking Points Memo.
This is a developing story. We will update listeners as more information becomes available.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
So, Jake, let me take you back to January twenty
twenty three. It's a couple weeks after George Santos has
been exposed, and he shows up in Washington, DC.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
That was the first day I saw him in person.
I remember we were walking through the Cannon House office
building and you could hear a pin drop because people
were like, that's George Santos. Did you see that was
George Santos. This is Masa Wumer. She was George Santos's
communications director. You heard from her in our first episode.
(00:52):
She was actually hired back in December of twenty twenty two,
and her first day and the first day she would
actually meet Santos in person, came in January. The amount
of reporters and cameras that were outside of our office,
it reminded me of something that you would see like
back in the nineties, like with when Princess Diana would
(01:13):
show up somewhere.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Wow, this was Nace's first day on the job as
the communications director whatever, But it was also George Santos's
basically first day. I mean, the scandal's happening, but he
hasn't even started his tenures of congressman, or he's just starting.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, their first day is the same first day, and
the press are also camped outside the office on that
first day, and they remain outside the office even as
the week's dragon. They're not really losing interest in the
George Sandos story.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
I've had multiple meetings with individual reporters and they're all
saying the same thing. We can't leave until he speaks
to the press, until we get a sound bite. We
have to stay. And they said, well, we're going to
fix this.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
So she realizes, Okay, well this is not dying down.
We're going to book him on some big name show.
He's going to do a long sit down interview with
a respected journalist, and we're going to prep him for that,
and we're going to spend this time before we have
the interview even set up, We're going to spend time prepping.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
The hard part was getting him to sit down and prep.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
He was very just all over the place, and so
I put out like this little list of like the
fifteen lies that I've already heard in the news, because,
as I said, at this time, it was just you know,
obviously his background from you know, work, family, religion, and
then the new stuff that was popping up.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
What are the burning questions of the burning issues at
this particular moment that people want to ask him.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
At this point, the press is looking into a bunch
of allegations that have come to light, and one of
those stories is that Santos had faced multiple evictions in
New York while also claiming publicly that he was a landlord.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
So there's an inherent contradiction there.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
That seems like so telling that he's being evicted and
yet he's claiming to be a landlord. This is just
stark contrast.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, there's also new info and new allegations coming out
basically on a daily basis.
Speaker 6 (03:21):
A New Jersey veteran says that the congressman organized a
fundraiser for his dying service dog back in twenty sixteen,
only to pocket the money himself.
Speaker 7 (03:30):
In Brazil, a local performer claims Santos was Katara Ravash
and that he once performed as a drag queen, something
the New York congressman strongly denies.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Hash media reports quote.
Speaker 8 (03:41):
Two former Santos roommates told Patch several items went missing
while they lived with Santos, including phones, expensive dress shirts,
and checks from a check book.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
So it's just basically, every time Lisa turns around, there's
a new story that she has to scramble, figure out
what their statement is going to be, and follow up
with all the journalists that are asking her questions.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
So when Nisa is prepping him for this this interview,
what's her take on it. Does she feel that he
is being like forthright with her? Does she still have
faith in him as someone who is credible or not.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I think Nasa is stepping into this role and saying,
I have been hired to do a job, and I'm
going to do the best job I can do despite
the circumstances. And you know, Nasa told me that Santos
was always maintaining to her in their private conversations that
he had answers for all of these things. And so
(04:43):
when she's in that position where this is her boss,
she wants to believe him, and she wants to have
his back, and she wants to set him up for
success because her boats tied to his.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
You know, oh my god, it's just like it.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Even though I was with him for five months, it
probably felt like five hundred years at that point. And
my joke is always my theme song every day felt
like was the led Zeppelin song when the levee breaks.
Speaker 5 (05:12):
It's just waiting for that to happen. So oh wait,
it did.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Keeps this God.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
So in this episode, we're going to get into what
Nisa and others would come to learn about George Santos
while trying to sort fact from fiction stories that he's
told about his family, specifically his mother. And while these
stories are not necessarily related to the charges against him,
I think they reveal something deeper about his character. And
(05:50):
there's one story he told in particular that really struck
an earth. This is deep cover George Santos Episode two,
The Congressman.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
There are a few people in this world you should
not lie. Your lawyer, your doctor, and your communications director.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
By the way, I would ideally include spouse in there
as well.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Just say to say, spoken like a true husband. Yess Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
So how does it go when she tries to prep him?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Just getting him to sit down and prep was always
it was like it's like getting a child to sit
down and do their homework, so very hard.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
But she does get the chance to prep him briefly,
and at a certain point in these conversations, the tone shifts.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
I'd say one of the hardest conversations I had was
the death of his mother.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So in twenty twenty one, George Santos tweeted nine to eleven,
claimed my mother's life. And in the aftermath of the
New York Times reporting, people find that tweet and they
start asking more questions about that, and it was actually
(07:08):
mentioned on Santos's campaign website. It's actually still on his
website to this day. It says, quote, George's mother was
in her office in the South Tower on September eleventh,
two thousand and one, when the horrific events of that
day unfolded, And it goes on to say she survived
the tragic events on September eleventh, but she passed away
(07:31):
a few years later when she lost her battle to cancer.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
And this is.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
One of the allegations against him that this is not true.
People do not find evidence to substantiate the fact that
his mother was there. And NASA knows that this is
something he's going to get asked about, so in her
attempts to prep him, this is something that they talk
about in detail.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Wait, what are the holes that people are poking in
this story? At least initially or are there any.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
So when Santos's tweet comes to like, there's a lot
of questions because when you say nine to eleven claim
my mother's life, that seems to imply that your mother
died on nine eleven.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, that's what I thought when you when you read it.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yeah, And then it quickly becomes clear through reporting and
just public records that his mother died in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
And one of the things we had talked about with
him was just did she because I saw the timeline
of her death and I had thought, well, I remembered
John Stewart was starting to highlight a lot of problems
that like first responders were starting to die as a
result of nine to eleven from exposure to the ash
(08:39):
and dust that came from the World Trade Center.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So Nisa, in that moment understands that maybe it was
just an error in how Santos chose to phrase the tweet,
but that his mother died in twenty sixteen from cancer
which was linked to her time at Ground zero. That
was the claim that Santos was making. OKAYNSA is saying, Okay,
if you're going to be making this claim in public,
(09:05):
then let's break it down. Let's talk through the details
of this because you will be asked about it, right.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And it seems like he can kind of make that
argument some incredibly because on the website it's saying she
passed away a few years later when she lost her
battle to cancer. You know, it seems to me like
he's actually got some cover here.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yes, and she's quickly picking up on what he's saying,
which is that no, no, no, I'm claiming that she
died later as a result of her exposure to ground zero.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Okay, but Nesa wants details.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
And I asked him, I said, did she die as
a result of nine to eleven? And he said yes.
I said, okay, so let's just break it down. Was
she in the north of the South Tower? And he
said the South Tower? I said, all right, so she
was in the South Tower on September eleventh, Okay, like,
do you remember what floors she worked on? And he
just you know, she worked for a cleaning company. So
(10:00):
I did not have the He did not give out
the specific floors. I think he I think he tried
to say it was like the thirty fourth or something,
and I said, okay, Well, so she did work in
the World Trade Center and he said yes. I said,
all right, so she got out of the building. Yes,
she got out of the building. I said, okay, so
she escaped, she's she's safe. And I said, but you know,
(10:25):
was she exposed to the dust and he said yes,
And I thought, okay.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
So finally this is starting to make sense for Nissa.
She can understand the narrative that Santos has been telling,
and even though he doesn't have all of the details,
NASA is advising him. You know, this is a powerful story.
This is an experience that people can relate to.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
You know, people will want to see a human side
to you like that. And I said, maybe that's just
that's something you should talk about.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
It's interesting because I heard that tape and I hear
her kind of poking a little bit too.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Well, right, she's doing her job. She's saying, I'm trying
to prep you for these interviews. Here's all of the
questions that you may be asked about this, So let's
try to get some specifics down.
Speaker 8 (11:12):
Right, m hm.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
And then a few weeks later, I think the New
York Times or MSNBC had reached out and said they
had found proof that she wasn't in the country, and
I thought, oh my god, this is like, why are
you doing this? It just I thought why, like why?
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I mean, that's the question, right, Does she have any
answer to that question?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I would argue NASA is still looking for her why
And NISA isn't the only one that's trying to make
sense out of all this. The guy that I think
has gone the deepest down the rabbit hole is a
journalist's named Mark Gisano, and what he's found reshaped the
way I think about George Santos. That's coming up next.
(12:12):
I had to call the guy who has done, in
my opinion, the best reporting on Santos's family and his background.
His name is Mark Gisano, and he wrote a book
with a very long title.
Speaker 7 (12:27):
The book is called The Fabulous, the Lying, Hustling, drifting, stealing,
and very American legend of George Santos.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Mark worked for Newsday, basically one of the only major
newspapers left on Long Island, and he's covered Santos since
his first campaign.
Speaker 7 (12:43):
Back then, he sort of had to pick up the
phone because no one was really calling him, and so
he would he would answer me or he would send
a statement or he would have someone call me.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
What was Mark's early take on Santos, like in those
first interactions.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
So Mark told me that Santos seemed somewhat evasive.
Speaker 7 (13:02):
He definitely, you know, kind of would allied details and
sort of tell you stuff that didn't totally make sense.
But it was hard to tell in the beginning. This
is what a lot of first time candidates.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Are like, right, And as time went on, of course,
it would become clear to Mark and everyone right that
Santos was not being transparent about his life on the
campaign trail. It strikes me reading through different stories of
Santo's stories that he's told about himself that a lot
(13:34):
of the stories about him seemed to start with the
story of his mom. So what was the story about
his mother that he was telling?
Speaker 7 (13:42):
Yeah, his mom was pretty central his campaign. You know,
she really loomed large. He called her a Wall Street executive,
you know, one of the first female executives on Wall
Street or something of that effect. He said that she
escaped the South Tower during nine to eleven. He said
that she was a big political actor. He claims that
she had donated over I think he said something like
(14:04):
twenty years donated to Republican politicians. He even said that
she campaigned for Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani, that is, and brought
him along with her, that he had fond memories of this.
So this was his the image that he painted of her.
And the funny thing with Santos is that the truth
and the fiction is sort of intermingled, and sometimes what
starts as a pebble of truth, as one of his
(14:26):
relatives told me, you know, turns into this kind of
large mountain of lies.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Well, there's a bunch to unpack there, but one thing
that jumps out is that when he was talking to
NASA about prepping for that press conference, NASA says that
he described his mother as working for a cleaning company
in the World Trade Center. So that's at odds with
her being a Wall Street executive here.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
No, yes, you've hit on one of the first key
discrepancies that people pick up on. You know. Santos tells
this story about his mother, and because we have the Internet,
everyone can kind of compare notes. He tells the story differently,
so in certain tellings she's a financial executive, in other tellings,
(15:11):
she's working as a cleaner. In the towers, and it's
a bit hard to parse out if any of that
is true. But also, you know, he's projecting a version
of his mom that in many ways mirrors the version
of himself that he was promoting. Mark is very keen
to figure out what parts of the story that Santos
(15:36):
told about his mom, what parts of that can be substantiated,
and he even travels to Brazil to report out, you know,
what the family's history there is.
Speaker 7 (15:44):
Like, so to be careful. I tried to really see
what if any of that story about his mother was true.
And all I can say is what we've found out
is certainly not true. No campaign finance records show any
evidence of her donating. She does not appear to have
voted in any election in New York or elsewhere. She
also does not appear to be a citizen, at least
(16:06):
according to her own immigration records. So totally not, you know,
not the story that he was telling.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
So pretty quickly Mark breaks this down and he's able
to say, so much of the story that Santos tells
about his mother just doesn't check out.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, and what seems to be clear to me that
there's a pattern here with Santo's which is where there
are small lies. If you dig deeper, there are bigger lies.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Yeah, it's just like Mark said, the pebble that becomes
the mountain.
Speaker 7 (16:41):
Then there's this nine to eleven story, which very central
to the story he was telling about her, and I
think struck a nerve in New York where people do
have nine to eleven stories and everyone kind of says,
you know, talks about where you were that day, right,
and doubly so on Long Island, where so many that
his constituents were cops or firefighters, right, or bankers too,
(17:03):
who were you know, in the building, So a big
deal to lie about. And again, you know, very hard
to prove a negative. But her own immigration paperwork said
that she was not in the country at the time.
In fact, she herself filed paperwork in I think it
was June of that year from Nitsiroi, which is the
city outside of Rio where she grew up. So again
(17:26):
you can lie on paperwork. It's sometimes immigrants sort of
don't aren't exactly clear on where they were and when.
But no evidence to suggest that she was escaping, and
in fact, in Santos's campaign materials, he said that she
escaped the South Tower from her office as a financial
executive right which again there's no evidence that she was
(17:49):
involved in finance at all.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
So what do we actually know for sure about Santo's
his family, their background.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
So the real story of George Santos starts in Queens.
The family did not have a lot of money, you know,
Santos says they he grew up in abject poverty, and
that appears to be true. His mother, you know, took
care of him and his sister. According to Mark, George
(18:19):
Santos and his mother, Fatima had a very close but
also complicated relationship.
Speaker 7 (18:27):
They seem to have been very close and also in
the way that many close relationships work, also kind of
butted heads a lot. I spoke to one person who
you know, worked on the campaign with Santos. This is
kind of later on after she's dead, years after she's dead,
by the way, and Santos would still kind of have
a kind of shakiness to his voice when he mentioned her,
right in a way that didn't seem to be acting.
(18:48):
It was kind of it was it seemed real. He
would live with her as an adult, you know, from
time to time they were actual roommates, and even that
was kind of it would it would have its ups
and downs.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
You know.
Speaker 7 (19:01):
There would be moments when he was living, say, you know,
in another part of Queen's, and he would come to
visit her and see her because he seemed to missed her,
one roommate told me. And on the other hand, sometimes
they were living together and he would get in these
kind of huge fights with her, screaming, screaming, cursing so
intense that his mother, Fatima, would go into her own
(19:23):
bedroom and close the door and start crying. So this
was kind of the back and forth with them.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Okay, so he has this kind of stormy relationship with
his mom, really close to living together. How old is
he when when his mom gets cancer.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
He would have been in his late twenties when his
mom died of cancer, And.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
How does that play out for Santos.
Speaker 7 (19:47):
Fatima gets sick, and Santos seems to have taken that
very hard and tried to take care of her, tried
to help her.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
While this is going on, Santos appears to have struggled
to pay rent more than once. So at the time
where his mother is sick with cancer, Santos is appearing
in court, and Mark told me about one such moment
like this back in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 7 (20:13):
At one time he shows up in court one of
his interactions with housing court in New York, where he's
trying to explain why he didn't pay the rent, and
one of his excuses is that he's caring for his mother, right,
which you know, don't know if that means that he
wasn't actually able to pay, but it does sort of
show their relationship and kind of their their bombs, their proximity.
(20:34):
So she gets sick, she remains sick, and unfortunately she
dies in twenty sixteen. Some people see this as a
real moment of transition for Santos that he kind of
loses obviously his sort of close friend, someone who's very
important to him, and that that's when he seems to
kind of lose control of his own story and narrative.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
That's really it's just really poignant, like the idea that
he's like his mother's dying and he's basically so poor
that he's going before the court and saying I can't
pay my rent and I'm caring for my dying mother.
It's so interesting he invents these stories to kind of
engender our sympathy, but here it almost sounds like the
real one is perfectly sympathetic in its truthful form.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yes, although I will say, because we were talking about
George Santos, when you think you have reached the truth,
there is usually a catch.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Well, I mean, yeah, maybe I'm a complete sucker to
think that he would tell the judge the truth. And
I have this feeling that you're about to tell me
something about his mother's death that's going to completely undermine
the sympathy that I just fell for him.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Unfortunately. Yes, So what Mark has found through his reporting
around Fatima's death is just really striking. Specifically, one story
around Fatima's.
Speaker 7 (21:51):
Funeral, Santa's mother, Fatima passes away, Santos says that he's
unable to kind of pay for the funeral costs, right,
He and his sister have had a hard time caring
for her and they need money basically, And so luckily
they're all part of this church community, Saint Rita's and
Queen's very close knit, kind of beautiful church. It's a
(22:13):
really nice kind of communal place, and people there remember
Santos and his sister, and so the church has a
they put out a kind of a call for help,
and they collect money for the family, right, and it's
in one of those collection box like typical Catholic church,
and that that box is that that basket is handed
to Santos. And what we know is that the funeral
(22:36):
home was never paid their debt for Fatima's service. So
we don't know exactly what happened with that with that box,
but it left the church's hand and didn't seem to
leave Santos's.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
How much money are we talking about here?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
One of Mark's sources estimated it was somewhere around six
thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Wow, I mean, okay, this is so crazy. I just
want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. Like he
collected this money from all these people in this church
under the guys that he was going to pay the
funeral home for his mother's funeral, and he takes the
money and never pays the funeral home.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
That appears to be what happened.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
I'm really speechless. On some level, we're talking about, like
how do you wrap your mind around lies? So there's
lies of opportunism that we feel, we understand that politicians
will bend the truth embellish the truth, inflate their resumes
in ways that make them look greater than they really are.
(23:40):
And it's not right, but we get it. That's part
of the grammy business of how politics is done. But
this is just something altogether different, right, Yeah, what's your
take on this?
Speaker 4 (23:53):
No, I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
I was astounded by this and at a loss for
words even now.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
I mean, it just raised to the question, what, if anything,
do we hold sacred. He clearly was close to his mom,
that seems undeniable with her. Maybe they fought, but they
were also very close. And then he's lying about the
manner of her death as a way of self promotion.
And then when it comes time to put her to rest,
he goes to the community of which she was a
(24:23):
part of, asks for their help in her name to
honor her properly, and then embezzles the money. That's just
a level of deceit that is that cannot be explained
by opportunism alone.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yeah, you have to wonder what was motivating him at
that point, And we don't know what his financial state
was in that moment, so it's possible that he was
really desperate and needed that money and that's maybe one
explanation for why the funeral home never got that money.
But we just haven't gotten answers on this, so we
won't know more about it. And of course there's lots
of things we still haven't gotten answers on.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
And you know, when you're dealing with Santos, even the.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
People closest to him, including his own staffers, have spent
a lot of time just trying to pry the truth
out of him. More on that after the break. I
want to bring us back to NASA, Santos's communications director,
(25:30):
because when we last heard from her, she was prepping
for this big TV interview where she had hoped that
he would come clean.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Whether you sit down with someone like Chuck Todd or
Tucker Carlson, they're all going to be equally tough on you,
and I want to find the right one who is
going to be tough but like firm but fair.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
If you have any guesses on who they go with,
I have no idea. They do not get Chuck Todd,
they do not get Tucker Carlson, but they do get
a journalist from across the pond, Piers Morgan.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
When Peers' team reached out, I thought, this is it,
this is this is my opportunity. We'll do it with
a well known British journalist who has zero skin in
the game when it comes to American politics, and he's
going to be equally tough on a Republican as he
would be with a Democrat. So I thought, he's going
to be in the United States this week. Let's set
(26:24):
this up and get.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
It over with. Rip this band aid off and we'll
be done.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
The Peers interview prepping for that, what are you hoping
or expecting that he'll say the truth? So George sits
down for an interview with Piers Morgan on his show
called Piers Morgan Uncensored, and Piers goes there. He asks
(26:49):
Santos about his mother.
Speaker 8 (26:52):
I want to turn to something it's obviously very personal
to you, and that's your own mother and this question
of whether she was working, as you claimed, in her
office in the South Tower of the Twin Towers on
September the eleventh, and then passed toways you said a
few years later when she lost a battle to cancer.
Now there is no record of your mother, Fatima Divolda,
(27:15):
ever having worked in the Twin Towers, So what's that true?
That's true? Why is there no record of the work?
Speaker 6 (27:22):
I don't know where people are looking or what they're looking.
Speaker 8 (27:24):
For, but there is obviously no because of what happened afterwards,
there's a record of everyone that were there. There's no
doubt about who were there. I'm sorry, Well, there's no
doubt about who is.
Speaker 6 (27:34):
There's no doubt if who worked in the buildings on the.
Speaker 8 (27:37):
There was a full record done.
Speaker 7 (27:38):
I'm very aware.
Speaker 6 (27:39):
So the way that I look at this, and I've
rest this case before, and respectfully, please, I won't debate
my mother's life as she's passed in sixteen, and I
think it's it's quite unsensitive for everybody to want to
rehash my mother's legacy.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
It's painful to listen to like you can feel his
mind kind of churning to come up with something.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, you know, as the journalist, you never want to
be a part of this story. But I found at
a certain point I needed to say the thing that
I was thinking the whole time, and I started getting
into that with Mark.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
The reporter who wrote the book on George Santos.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
I'll share a little bit here. I grew up in
Santos's district. My father was a first responder on nine
to eleven. He was a New York City police officer,
and he did develop cancer that is believed to be
related to his exposure, and he passed away in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
So sorry to hear that, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
The story that he's telling has a lot of resemblance
to the story that my family shares. There is this
community specifically on Long Island that cares a lot about
this specific issue of benefits for first responders and has
a lot of sympathy and empathy for that situation, And
so I think it's just a very specific lie.
Speaker 7 (29:06):
It is in the same way that his story about
Jewish heritage was very specific. But I think he has
a good year for some of these things. And he's
not from Long Island, but like most New Yorkers, he
kind of knows it very well and kind of understands
I think all of its kind of highs and lows,
the kind of glittery Hampton's part of of Long Island,
(29:26):
but also this this story of first responders and great tragedy,
right and the kind of gritty reality of Long Island.
And I think that that he was aware of that
and kind of used.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
That your dad was a New York City police officer, right, Yes?
Was he? Was? He a motorcycle cop? Am I'm memory
that correctly?
Speaker 2 (29:48):
You are? My dad rode a motorcycle for a highway
unit actually based out of Queen's Okay, Well, yeah, I mean,
I will be honest and say I did not expect
the conversation with NASA or with Mark to go there,
but in both cases it did. And obviously it's something
that as much as I want to stay objective and
(30:10):
remove myself from the reporting, I can't forget the fact
that this is a huge part of my life and
my family and our legacy, honestly, and I almost can't
put towards how angry I feel hearing that someone is
co opting that narrative for their own personal gain, because
(30:33):
it's a real narrative that has taken people's lives and
destroyed families and people live with that. And the fact
that he would potentially try to claim this when there's
been no evidence to corroborate.
Speaker 9 (30:49):
It is just kind of infuriating, like he's appropriating, he's
using the legacy of the Holocaust, and then he's in
this case, using the legacy of first responders.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
These are two tragedies that resonate with his constituents, and
he's claiming them both as his own in a way
that he has to understand is going to and gender
sympathy and bolster his popularity.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yeah, and I think that this is a moment where
that really clarified for me. You know, you could look
at the lies that he's told and say, well, to
what end is he doing this? And then I think
when you focus on a few of these stories, you
see the intentionality. You see that there is a reason
that it's this specific lie and it's speaking directly to
(31:39):
people who would then put him in office. There are
still first responders who are receiving treatment related to illnesses
that stem from their time at Ground Zero. There were
real people who were harmed here because they were lied to,
but also because in some cases their stories were.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
Use against them in a way.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Yeah, it's crazy though, Like, did he not think he
was going to be confronted with these facts that there's
a record everyone that worked there, because of how much
significance that attack had.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
I mean, yeah, it's a good question.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
You see this time and time again with George Santos,
where he's faced with an allegation, he claims to have
evidence or proof, but then we never see that evidence, right.
But the thing that is striking to me is there
are certain lies that he has admitted were.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Lies, Like what was what's an example of that?
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Yeah, so he admitted, Okay, I didn't go to Baruch.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Looking back on that lie, that seems like small fry
compared to this.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
I mean, yeah, and I mean why does he still
hold on to this story about his mother even when
so many people have challenged him on it. There's one
version of the story that Santos tells, which is that
his mother passed away in twenty sixteen from cancer, and
that appears to be true.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Yeah, that's all he said.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yes, But then there's another version, or there's an extend version,
if you will, that links her illness to her experience
at ground zero. And that's the part that most people
have come to the conclusion is not true, cannot be substantiated.
But it is a part that Santos has doubled down
on again with those retractions, like he'll admit, okay, I
(33:28):
didn't go to Bruke, but my mother did die as
a result of nine to eleven.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
Yeah, yeah, what do you make of that?
Speaker 7 (33:35):
This was kind of the crazy part about reporting this
book is I would go down these rabbit holes and
start thinking about, like what is the nature of truth?
You know, like, what can I actually like tell the
reader is real about this guy's story. You know, typical
relationships between human beings, You just we assumes what someone
is telling you is true because that's the easiest way
(33:57):
for a society to function. And so there were moments
when I was working on this where I would start
making excuses for Santos, like, oh, who knows, maybe she
worked as a cleaner in one of the towers and
maybe she kind of got out you know during you know,
after that kind of experience. Who knows that could be true. Unfortunately,
Santos hasn't given us any more details or any more
(34:20):
explanation other than his lies. So I think it really is,
you know, kind of up to him to sort of
tell us what's what's real.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
I mean, I think that's the tricky thing about Santos
is that he's not making up stories wholesale. He's mixing
truth and fiction and weaving in bits of his own
story that are really painful and difficult and creating this
this thing that is difficult to disentangle and difficult to challenge,
(34:51):
and it's just confounding.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
I'd agree with you, And I'm left feeling that even
though so much of what has been uncovered might feel,
you know, morally wrong, there hasn't really been any consequences
in this point in time for George Santos. He's telling lies,
he's co opting people's stories, he's betraying people close to him,
(35:16):
but there's no real accountability for any of this.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
It's interesting, like we live. We live in a moment
where sometimes when someone accuses you of being a liar,
it's actually an asset with your constituents because it's like, oh,
it's the New York Times. The Democrats are calling me
a liar, and in fact, you just double down on
your position, and then you know it's like, look, my
enemies are really out to get me. But it seems
(35:42):
like Sanos is dangerously close to the tipping point at
which you know, how long is he going to be
able to do this before he actually has to face
the music?
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Absolutely, I mean, George Santos flies under the radar for
a really long time, but as he is in office
that first year, something is starting to shift. There are
investigations going on both with the Justice Department and in
the House, and you get the sense that Santos and
others are starting to feel like the walls are closing in.
(36:15):
Maybe these investigations are going to start to catch up
with him coming up next time on Deep Cover George Santos.
Speaker 10 (36:24):
For me, I'm furious because I spent some of my
friends that I asked to support George.
Speaker 7 (36:30):
I mean all of them.
Speaker 10 (36:32):
They know me, so they're you know, and they were
hoodwinked and know that I was hoodwinked, but they were
upset that they were dragged into this and it was
my responsibility, you know. I am mad at myself for
not doing my own due diligence.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
For more on Mark Gisano's reporting on George Santos, check
out his book The Fabulous, The Lying, hustling, grifting, stealing
and very American Legend of George Santos. This series is
produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Joey fish Ground. Our
editor is Karen Chakerji. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith.
(37:09):
Mastering by Jake Gorski. Fact checking by Aica Robbins. Our
show art was designed by Sean Carney. Music in this
episode is from Luis Garra An Epidemic Sound special thanks
to Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler and Greta Cone. I'm Jake
calpern
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
So, Jake, let me take you back to January twenty
twenty three. It's a couple weeks after George Santos has
been exposed, and he shows up in Washington, DC.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
That was the first day I saw him in person.
I remember we were walking through the Cannon House office
building and you could hear a pin drop because people
were like, that's George Santos. Did you see that was
George Santos. This is Masa Wumer. She was George Santos's
communications director. You heard from her in our first episode.
(00:52):
She was actually hired back in December of twenty twenty two,
and her first day and the first day she would
actually meet Santos in person, came in January. The amount
of reporters and cameras that were outside of our office,
it reminded me of something that you would see like
back in the nineties, like with when Princess Diana would
(01:13):
show up somewhere.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Wow, this was Nace's first day on the job as
the communications director whatever, But it was also George Santos's
basically first day. I mean, the scandal's happening, but he
hasn't even started his tenures of congressman, or he's just starting.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, their first day is the same first day, and
the press are also camped outside the office on that
first day, and they remain outside the office even as
the week's dragon. They're not really losing interest in the
George Sandos story.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
I've had multiple meetings with individual reporters and they're all
saying the same thing. We can't leave until he speaks
to the press, until we get a sound bite. We
have to stay. And they said, well, we're going to
fix this.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
So she realizes, Okay, well this is not dying down.
We're going to book him on some big name show.
He's going to do a long sit down interview with
a respected journalist, and we're going to prep him for that,
and we're going to spend this time before we have
the interview even set up, We're going to spend time prepping.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
The hard part was getting him to sit down and prep.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
He was very just all over the place, and so
I put out like this little list of like the
fifteen lies that I've already heard in the news, because,
as I said, at this time, it was just you know,
obviously his background from you know, work, family, religion, and
then the new stuff that was popping up.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
What are the burning questions of the burning issues at
this particular moment that people want to ask him.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
At this point, the press is looking into a bunch
of allegations that have come to light, and one of
those stories is that Santos had faced multiple evictions in
New York while also claiming publicly that he was a landlord.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
So there's an inherent contradiction there.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
That seems like so telling that he's being evicted and
yet he's claiming to be a landlord. This is just
stark contrast.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, there's also new info and new allegations coming out
basically on a daily basis.
Speaker 6 (03:21):
A New Jersey veteran says that the congressman organized a
fundraiser for his dying service dog back in twenty sixteen,
only to pocket the money himself.
Speaker 7 (03:30):
In Brazil, a local performer claims Santos was Katara Ravash
and that he once performed as a drag queen, something
the New York congressman strongly denies.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Hash media reports quote.
Speaker 8 (03:41):
Two former Santos roommates told Patch several items went missing
while they lived with Santos, including phones, expensive dress shirts,
and checks from a check book.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
So it's just basically, every time Lisa turns around, there's
a new story that she has to scramble, figure out
what their statement is going to be, and follow up
with all the journalists that are asking her questions.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
So when Nisa is prepping him for this this interview,
what's her take on it. Does she feel that he
is being like forthright with her? Does she still have
faith in him as someone who is credible or not.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I think Nasa is stepping into this role and saying,
I have been hired to do a job, and I'm
going to do the best job I can do despite
the circumstances. And you know, Nasa told me that Santos
was always maintaining to her in their private conversations that
he had answers for all of these things. And so
(04:43):
when she's in that position where this is her boss,
she wants to believe him, and she wants to have
his back, and she wants to set him up for
success because her boats tied to his.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
You know, oh my god, it's just like it.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Even though I was with him for five months, it
probably felt like five hundred years at that point. And
my joke is always my theme song every day felt
like was the led Zeppelin song when the levee breaks.
Speaker 5 (05:12):
It's just waiting for that to happen. So oh wait,
it did.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Keeps this God.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
So in this episode, we're going to get into what
Nisa and others would come to learn about George Santos
while trying to sort fact from fiction stories that he's
told about his family, specifically his mother. And while these
stories are not necessarily related to the charges against him,
I think they reveal something deeper about his character. And
(05:50):
there's one story he told in particular that really struck
an earth. This is deep cover George Santos Episode two,
The Congressman.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
There are a few people in this world you should
not lie. Your lawyer, your doctor, and your communications director.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
By the way, I would ideally include spouse in there
as well.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Just say to say, spoken like a true husband. Yess Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
So how does it go when she tries to prep him?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Just getting him to sit down and prep was always
it was like it's like getting a child to sit
down and do their homework, so very hard.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
But she does get the chance to prep him briefly,
and at a certain point in these conversations, the tone shifts.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
I'd say one of the hardest conversations I had was
the death of his mother.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So in twenty twenty one, George Santos tweeted nine to eleven,
claimed my mother's life. And in the aftermath of the
New York Times reporting, people find that tweet and they
start asking more questions about that, and it was actually
(07:08):
mentioned on Santos's campaign website. It's actually still on his
website to this day. It says, quote, George's mother was
in her office in the South Tower on September eleventh,
two thousand and one, when the horrific events of that
day unfolded, And it goes on to say she survived
the tragic events on September eleventh, but she passed away
(07:31):
a few years later when she lost her battle to cancer.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
And this is.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
One of the allegations against him that this is not true.
People do not find evidence to substantiate the fact that
his mother was there. And NASA knows that this is
something he's going to get asked about, so in her
attempts to prep him, this is something that they talk
about in detail.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Wait, what are the holes that people are poking in
this story? At least initially or are there any.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
So when Santos's tweet comes to like, there's a lot
of questions because when you say nine to eleven claim
my mother's life, that seems to imply that your mother
died on nine eleven.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, that's what I thought when you when you read it.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yeah, And then it quickly becomes clear through reporting and
just public records that his mother died in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
And one of the things we had talked about with
him was just did she because I saw the timeline
of her death and I had thought, well, I remembered
John Stewart was starting to highlight a lot of problems
that like first responders were starting to die as a
result of nine to eleven from exposure to the ash
(08:39):
and dust that came from the World Trade Center.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So Nisa, in that moment understands that maybe it was
just an error in how Santos chose to phrase the tweet,
but that his mother died in twenty sixteen from cancer
which was linked to her time at Ground zero. That
was the claim that Santos was making. OKAYNSA is saying, Okay,
if you're going to be making this claim in public,
(09:05):
then let's break it down. Let's talk through the details
of this because you will be asked about it, right.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And it seems like he can kind of make that
argument some incredibly because on the website it's saying she
passed away a few years later when she lost her
battle to cancer. You know, it seems to me like
he's actually got some cover here.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yes, and she's quickly picking up on what he's saying,
which is that no, no, no, I'm claiming that she
died later as a result of her exposure to ground zero.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Okay, but Nesa wants details.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
And I asked him, I said, did she die as
a result of nine to eleven? And he said yes.
I said, okay, so let's just break it down. Was
she in the north of the South Tower? And he
said the South Tower? I said, all right, so she
was in the South Tower on September eleventh, Okay, like,
do you remember what floors she worked on? And he
just you know, she worked for a cleaning company. So
(10:00):
I did not have the He did not give out
the specific floors. I think he I think he tried
to say it was like the thirty fourth or something,
and I said, okay, Well, so she did work in
the World Trade Center and he said yes. I said,
all right, so she got out of the building. Yes,
she got out of the building. I said, okay, so
she escaped, she's she's safe. And I said, but you know,
(10:25):
was she exposed to the dust and he said yes,
And I thought, okay.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
So finally this is starting to make sense for Nissa.
She can understand the narrative that Santos has been telling,
and even though he doesn't have all of the details,
NASA is advising him. You know, this is a powerful story.
This is an experience that people can relate to.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
You know, people will want to see a human side
to you like that. And I said, maybe that's just
that's something you should talk about.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
It's interesting because I heard that tape and I hear
her kind of poking a little bit too.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Well, right, she's doing her job. She's saying, I'm trying
to prep you for these interviews. Here's all of the
questions that you may be asked about this, So let's
try to get some specifics down.
Speaker 8 (11:12):
Right, m hm.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
And then a few weeks later, I think the New
York Times or MSNBC had reached out and said they
had found proof that she wasn't in the country, and
I thought, oh my god, this is like, why are
you doing this? It just I thought why, like why?
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I mean, that's the question, right, Does she have any
answer to that question?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I would argue NASA is still looking for her why
And NISA isn't the only one that's trying to make
sense out of all this. The guy that I think
has gone the deepest down the rabbit hole is a
journalist's named Mark Gisano, and what he's found reshaped the
way I think about George Santos. That's coming up next.
(12:12):
I had to call the guy who has done, in
my opinion, the best reporting on Santos's family and his background.
His name is Mark Gisano, and he wrote a book
with a very long title.
Speaker 7 (12:27):
The book is called The Fabulous, the Lying, Hustling, drifting, stealing,
and very American legend of George Santos.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Mark worked for Newsday, basically one of the only major
newspapers left on Long Island, and he's covered Santos since
his first campaign.
Speaker 7 (12:43):
Back then, he sort of had to pick up the
phone because no one was really calling him, and so
he would he would answer me or he would send
a statement or he would have someone call me.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
What was Mark's early take on Santos, like in those
first interactions.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
So Mark told me that Santos seemed somewhat evasive.
Speaker 7 (13:02):
He definitely, you know, kind of would allied details and
sort of tell you stuff that didn't totally make sense.
But it was hard to tell in the beginning. This
is what a lot of first time candidates.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Are like, right, And as time went on, of course,
it would become clear to Mark and everyone right that
Santos was not being transparent about his life on the
campaign trail. It strikes me reading through different stories of
Santo's stories that he's told about himself that a lot
(13:34):
of the stories about him seemed to start with the
story of his mom. So what was the story about
his mother that he was telling?
Speaker 7 (13:42):
Yeah, his mom was pretty central his campaign. You know,
she really loomed large. He called her a Wall Street executive,
you know, one of the first female executives on Wall
Street or something of that effect. He said that she
escaped the South Tower during nine to eleven. He said
that she was a big political actor. He claims that
she had donated over I think he said something like
(14:04):
twenty years donated to Republican politicians. He even said that
she campaigned for Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani, that is, and brought
him along with her, that he had fond memories of this.
So this was his the image that he painted of her.
And the funny thing with Santos is that the truth
and the fiction is sort of intermingled, and sometimes what
starts as a pebble of truth, as one of his
(14:26):
relatives told me, you know, turns into this kind of
large mountain of lies.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Well, there's a bunch to unpack there, but one thing
that jumps out is that when he was talking to
NASA about prepping for that press conference, NASA says that
he described his mother as working for a cleaning company
in the World Trade Center. So that's at odds with
her being a Wall Street executive here.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
No, yes, you've hit on one of the first key
discrepancies that people pick up on. You know. Santos tells
this story about his mother, and because we have the Internet,
everyone can kind of compare notes. He tells the story differently,
so in certain tellings she's a financial executive, in other tellings,
(15:11):
she's working as a cleaner. In the towers, and it's
a bit hard to parse out if any of that
is true. But also, you know, he's projecting a version
of his mom that in many ways mirrors the version
of himself that he was promoting. Mark is very keen
to figure out what parts of the story that Santos
(15:36):
told about his mom, what parts of that can be substantiated,
and he even travels to Brazil to report out, you know,
what the family's history there is.
Speaker 7 (15:44):
Like, so to be careful. I tried to really see
what if any of that story about his mother was true.
And all I can say is what we've found out
is certainly not true. No campaign finance records show any
evidence of her donating. She does not appear to have
voted in any election in New York or elsewhere. She
also does not appear to be a citizen, at least
(16:06):
according to her own immigration records. So totally not, you know,
not the story that he was telling.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
So pretty quickly Mark breaks this down and he's able
to say, so much of the story that Santos tells
about his mother just doesn't check out.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, and what seems to be clear to me that
there's a pattern here with Santo's which is where there
are small lies. If you dig deeper, there are bigger lies.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Yeah, it's just like Mark said, the pebble that becomes
the mountain.
Speaker 7 (16:41):
Then there's this nine to eleven story, which very central
to the story he was telling about her, and I
think struck a nerve in New York where people do
have nine to eleven stories and everyone kind of says,
you know, talks about where you were that day, right,
and doubly so on Long Island, where so many that
his constituents were cops or firefighters, right, or bankers too,
(17:03):
who were you know, in the building, So a big
deal to lie about. And again, you know, very hard
to prove a negative. But her own immigration paperwork said
that she was not in the country at the time.
In fact, she herself filed paperwork in I think it
was June of that year from Nitsiroi, which is the
city outside of Rio where she grew up. So again
(17:26):
you can lie on paperwork. It's sometimes immigrants sort of
don't aren't exactly clear on where they were and when.
But no evidence to suggest that she was escaping, and
in fact, in Santos's campaign materials, he said that she
escaped the South Tower from her office as a financial
executive right which again there's no evidence that she was
(17:49):
involved in finance at all.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
So what do we actually know for sure about Santo's
his family, their background.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
So the real story of George Santos starts in Queens.
The family did not have a lot of money, you know,
Santos says they he grew up in abject poverty, and
that appears to be true. His mother, you know, took
care of him and his sister. According to Mark, George
(18:19):
Santos and his mother, Fatima had a very close but
also complicated relationship.
Speaker 7 (18:27):
They seem to have been very close and also in
the way that many close relationships work, also kind of
butted heads a lot. I spoke to one person who
you know, worked on the campaign with Santos. This is
kind of later on after she's dead, years after she's dead,
by the way, and Santos would still kind of have
a kind of shakiness to his voice when he mentioned her,
right in a way that didn't seem to be acting.
(18:48):
It was kind of it was it seemed real. He
would live with her as an adult, you know, from
time to time they were actual roommates, and even that
was kind of it would it would have its ups
and downs.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
You know.
Speaker 7 (19:01):
There would be moments when he was living, say, you know,
in another part of Queen's, and he would come to
visit her and see her because he seemed to missed her,
one roommate told me. And on the other hand, sometimes
they were living together and he would get in these
kind of huge fights with her, screaming, screaming, cursing so
intense that his mother, Fatima, would go into her own
(19:23):
bedroom and close the door and start crying. So this
was kind of the back and forth with them.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Okay, so he has this kind of stormy relationship with
his mom, really close to living together. How old is
he when when his mom gets cancer.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
He would have been in his late twenties when his
mom died of cancer, And.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
How does that play out for Santos.
Speaker 7 (19:47):
Fatima gets sick, and Santos seems to have taken that
very hard and tried to take care of her, tried
to help her.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
While this is going on, Santos appears to have struggled
to pay rent more than once. So at the time
where his mother is sick with cancer, Santos is appearing
in court, and Mark told me about one such moment
like this back in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 7 (20:13):
At one time he shows up in court one of
his interactions with housing court in New York, where he's
trying to explain why he didn't pay the rent, and
one of his excuses is that he's caring for his mother, right,
which you know, don't know if that means that he
wasn't actually able to pay, but it does sort of
show their relationship and kind of their their bombs, their proximity.
(20:34):
So she gets sick, she remains sick, and unfortunately she
dies in twenty sixteen. Some people see this as a
real moment of transition for Santos that he kind of
loses obviously his sort of close friend, someone who's very
important to him, and that that's when he seems to
kind of lose control of his own story and narrative.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
That's really it's just really poignant, like the idea that
he's like his mother's dying and he's basically so poor
that he's going before the court and saying I can't
pay my rent and I'm caring for my dying mother.
It's so interesting he invents these stories to kind of
engender our sympathy, but here it almost sounds like the
real one is perfectly sympathetic in its truthful form.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yes, although I will say, because we were talking about
George Santos, when you think you have reached the truth,
there is usually a catch.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Well, I mean, yeah, maybe I'm a complete sucker to
think that he would tell the judge the truth. And
I have this feeling that you're about to tell me
something about his mother's death that's going to completely undermine
the sympathy that I just fell for him.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Unfortunately. Yes, So what Mark has found through his reporting
around Fatima's death is just really striking. Specifically, one story
around Fatima's.
Speaker 7 (21:51):
Funeral, Santa's mother, Fatima passes away, Santos says that he's
unable to kind of pay for the funeral costs, right,
He and his sister have had a hard time caring
for her and they need money basically, And so luckily
they're all part of this church community, Saint Rita's and
Queen's very close knit, kind of beautiful church. It's a
(22:13):
really nice kind of communal place, and people there remember
Santos and his sister, and so the church has a
they put out a kind of a call for help,
and they collect money for the family, right, and it's
in one of those collection box like typical Catholic church,
and that that box is that that basket is handed
to Santos. And what we know is that the funeral
(22:36):
home was never paid their debt for Fatima's service. So
we don't know exactly what happened with that with that box,
but it left the church's hand and didn't seem to
leave Santos's.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
How much money are we talking about here?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
One of Mark's sources estimated it was somewhere around six
thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Wow, I mean, okay, this is so crazy. I just
want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. Like he
collected this money from all these people in this church
under the guys that he was going to pay the
funeral home for his mother's funeral, and he takes the
money and never pays the funeral home.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
That appears to be what happened.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
I'm really speechless. On some level, we're talking about, like
how do you wrap your mind around lies? So there's
lies of opportunism that we feel, we understand that politicians
will bend the truth embellish the truth, inflate their resumes
in ways that make them look greater than they really are.
(23:40):
And it's not right, but we get it. That's part
of the grammy business of how politics is done. But
this is just something altogether different, right, Yeah, what's your
take on this?
Speaker 4 (23:53):
No, I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
I was astounded by this and at a loss for
words even now.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
I mean, it just raised to the question, what, if anything,
do we hold sacred. He clearly was close to his mom,
that seems undeniable with her. Maybe they fought, but they
were also very close. And then he's lying about the
manner of her death as a way of self promotion.
And then when it comes time to put her to rest,
he goes to the community of which she was a
(24:23):
part of, asks for their help in her name to
honor her properly, and then embezzles the money. That's just
a level of deceit that is that cannot be explained
by opportunism alone.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yeah, you have to wonder what was motivating him at
that point, And we don't know what his financial state
was in that moment, so it's possible that he was
really desperate and needed that money and that's maybe one
explanation for why the funeral home never got that money.
But we just haven't gotten answers on this, so we
won't know more about it. And of course there's lots
of things we still haven't gotten answers on.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
And you know, when you're dealing with Santos, even the.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
People closest to him, including his own staffers, have spent
a lot of time just trying to pry the truth
out of him. More on that after the break. I
want to bring us back to NASA, Santos's communications director,
(25:30):
because when we last heard from her, she was prepping
for this big TV interview where she had hoped that
he would come clean.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Whether you sit down with someone like Chuck Todd or
Tucker Carlson, they're all going to be equally tough on you,
and I want to find the right one who is
going to be tough but like firm but fair.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
If you have any guesses on who they go with,
I have no idea. They do not get Chuck Todd,
they do not get Tucker Carlson, but they do get
a journalist from across the pond, Piers Morgan.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
When Peers' team reached out, I thought, this is it,
this is this is my opportunity. We'll do it with
a well known British journalist who has zero skin in
the game when it comes to American politics, and he's
going to be equally tough on a Republican as he
would be with a Democrat. So I thought, he's going
to be in the United States this week. Let's set
(26:24):
this up and get.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
It over with. Rip this band aid off and we'll
be done.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
The Peers interview prepping for that, what are you hoping
or expecting that he'll say the truth? So George sits
down for an interview with Piers Morgan on his show
called Piers Morgan Uncensored, and Piers goes there. He asks
(26:49):
Santos about his mother.
Speaker 8 (26:52):
I want to turn to something it's obviously very personal
to you, and that's your own mother and this question
of whether she was working, as you claimed, in her
office in the South Tower of the Twin Towers on
September the eleventh, and then passed toways you said a
few years later when she lost a battle to cancer.
Now there is no record of your mother, Fatima Divolda,
(27:15):
ever having worked in the Twin Towers, So what's that true?
That's true? Why is there no record of the work?
Speaker 6 (27:22):
I don't know where people are looking or what they're looking.
Speaker 8 (27:24):
For, but there is obviously no because of what happened afterwards,
there's a record of everyone that were there. There's no
doubt about who were there. I'm sorry, Well, there's no
doubt about who is.
Speaker 6 (27:34):
There's no doubt if who worked in the buildings on the.
Speaker 8 (27:37):
There was a full record done.
Speaker 7 (27:38):
I'm very aware.
Speaker 6 (27:39):
So the way that I look at this, and I've
rest this case before, and respectfully, please, I won't debate
my mother's life as she's passed in sixteen, and I
think it's it's quite unsensitive for everybody to want to
rehash my mother's legacy.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
It's painful to listen to like you can feel his
mind kind of churning to come up with something.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, you know, as the journalist, you never want to
be a part of this story. But I found at
a certain point I needed to say the thing that
I was thinking the whole time, and I started getting
into that with Mark.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
The reporter who wrote the book on George Santos.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
I'll share a little bit here. I grew up in
Santos's district. My father was a first responder on nine
to eleven. He was a New York City police officer,
and he did develop cancer that is believed to be
related to his exposure, and he passed away in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
So sorry to hear that, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
The story that he's telling has a lot of resemblance
to the story that my family shares. There is this
community specifically on Long Island that cares a lot about
this specific issue of benefits for first responders and has
a lot of sympathy and empathy for that situation, And
so I think it's just a very specific lie.
Speaker 7 (29:06):
It is in the same way that his story about
Jewish heritage was very specific. But I think he has
a good year for some of these things. And he's
not from Long Island, but like most New Yorkers, he
kind of knows it very well and kind of understands
I think all of its kind of highs and lows,
the kind of glittery Hampton's part of of Long Island,
(29:26):
but also this this story of first responders and great tragedy,
right and the kind of gritty reality of Long Island.
And I think that that he was aware of that
and kind of used.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
That your dad was a New York City police officer, right, Yes?
Was he? Was? He a motorcycle cop? Am I'm memory
that correctly?
Speaker 2 (29:48):
You are? My dad rode a motorcycle for a highway
unit actually based out of Queen's Okay, Well, yeah, I mean,
I will be honest and say I did not expect
the conversation with NASA or with Mark to go there,
but in both cases it did. And obviously it's something
that as much as I want to stay objective and
(30:10):
remove myself from the reporting, I can't forget the fact
that this is a huge part of my life and
my family and our legacy, honestly, and I almost can't
put towards how angry I feel hearing that someone is
co opting that narrative for their own personal gain, because
(30:33):
it's a real narrative that has taken people's lives and
destroyed families and people live with that. And the fact
that he would potentially try to claim this when there's
been no evidence to corroborate.
Speaker 9 (30:49):
It is just kind of infuriating, like he's appropriating, he's
using the legacy of the Holocaust, and then he's in
this case, using the legacy of first responders.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
These are two tragedies that resonate with his constituents, and
he's claiming them both as his own in a way
that he has to understand is going to and gender
sympathy and bolster his popularity.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yeah, and I think that this is a moment where
that really clarified for me. You know, you could look
at the lies that he's told and say, well, to
what end is he doing this? And then I think
when you focus on a few of these stories, you
see the intentionality. You see that there is a reason
that it's this specific lie and it's speaking directly to
(31:39):
people who would then put him in office. There are
still first responders who are receiving treatment related to illnesses
that stem from their time at Ground Zero. There were
real people who were harmed here because they were lied to,
but also because in some cases their stories were.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
Use against them in a way.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Yeah, it's crazy though, Like, did he not think he
was going to be confronted with these facts that there's
a record everyone that worked there, because of how much
significance that attack had.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
I mean, yeah, it's a good question.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
You see this time and time again with George Santos,
where he's faced with an allegation, he claims to have
evidence or proof, but then we never see that evidence, right.
But the thing that is striking to me is there
are certain lies that he has admitted were.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Lies, Like what was what's an example of that?
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Yeah, so he admitted, Okay, I didn't go to Baruch.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Looking back on that lie, that seems like small fry
compared to this.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
I mean, yeah, and I mean why does he still
hold on to this story about his mother even when
so many people have challenged him on it. There's one
version of the story that Santos tells, which is that
his mother passed away in twenty sixteen from cancer, and
that appears to be true.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Yeah, that's all he said.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yes, But then there's another version, or there's an extend version,
if you will, that links her illness to her experience
at ground zero. And that's the part that most people
have come to the conclusion is not true, cannot be substantiated.
But it is a part that Santos has doubled down
on again with those retractions, like he'll admit, okay, I
(33:28):
didn't go to Bruke, but my mother did die as
a result of nine to eleven.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
Yeah, yeah, what do you make of that?
Speaker 7 (33:35):
This was kind of the crazy part about reporting this
book is I would go down these rabbit holes and
start thinking about, like what is the nature of truth?
You know, like, what can I actually like tell the
reader is real about this guy's story. You know, typical
relationships between human beings, You just we assumes what someone
is telling you is true because that's the easiest way
(33:57):
for a society to function. And so there were moments
when I was working on this where I would start
making excuses for Santos, like, oh, who knows, maybe she
worked as a cleaner in one of the towers and
maybe she kind of got out you know during you know,
after that kind of experience. Who knows that could be true. Unfortunately,
Santos hasn't given us any more details or any more
(34:20):
explanation other than his lies. So I think it really is,
you know, kind of up to him to sort of
tell us what's what's real.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
I mean, I think that's the tricky thing about Santos
is that he's not making up stories wholesale. He's mixing
truth and fiction and weaving in bits of his own
story that are really painful and difficult and creating this
this thing that is difficult to disentangle and difficult to challenge,
(34:51):
and it's just confounding.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
I'd agree with you, And I'm left feeling that even
though so much of what has been uncovered might feel,
you know, morally wrong, there hasn't really been any consequences
in this point in time for George Santos. He's telling lies,
he's co opting people's stories, he's betraying people close to him,
(35:16):
but there's no real accountability for any of this.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
It's interesting, like we live. We live in a moment
where sometimes when someone accuses you of being a liar,
it's actually an asset with your constituents because it's like, oh,
it's the New York Times. The Democrats are calling me
a liar, and in fact, you just double down on
your position, and then you know it's like, look, my
enemies are really out to get me. But it seems
(35:42):
like Sanos is dangerously close to the tipping point at
which you know, how long is he going to be
able to do this before he actually has to face
the music?
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Absolutely, I mean, George Santos flies under the radar for
a really long time, but as he is in office
that first year, something is starting to shift. There are
investigations going on both with the Justice Department and in
the House, and you get the sense that Santos and
others are starting to feel like the walls are closing in.
(36:15):
Maybe these investigations are going to start to catch up
with him coming up next time on Deep Cover George Santos.
Speaker 10 (36:24):
For me, I'm furious because I spent some of my
friends that I asked to support George.
Speaker 7 (36:30):
I mean all of them.
Speaker 10 (36:32):
They know me, so they're you know, and they were
hoodwinked and know that I was hoodwinked, but they were
upset that they were dragged into this and it was
my responsibility, you know. I am mad at myself for
not doing my own due diligence.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
For more on Mark Gisano's reporting on George Santos, check
out his book The Fabulous, The Lying, hustling, grifting, stealing
and very American Legend of George Santos. This series is
produced by Amy Gaines McQuaid and Joey fish Ground. Our
editor is Karen Chakerji. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith.
(37:09):
Mastering by Jake Gorski. Fact checking by Aica Robbins. Our
show art was designed by Sean Carney. Music in this
episode is from Luis Garra An Epidemic Sound special thanks
to Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler and Greta Cone. I'm Jake
calpern
Host
Jake Halpern
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