New York GOP Rep. "George Santos" has become an enduring headache for his fellow Empire State Republicans, and increasingly they want him gone from Congress entirely.
New York’s House Republicans are racing away from the walking political grenade known as George Santos.
Six of Santos’ New York colleagues, particularly the four who flipped tight battleground districts last fall, are working — out in the open and behind the scenes — to contain the blowback from the embattled lawmaker’s deceptions about his past. The first-term foursome started by breaking from the vast majority of their party by calling for Santos to resign, a move that would hurt the GOP’s already tiny majority.
And the newly elected New York Republicans are only growing louder: They’re pushing legislation aimed at hitting Santos financially, hoping to prevent the now-notorious fabulist from profiting off book or TV deals on his story. And they’re firing off fighting words on social media and local airwaves.
But their public criticisms haven’t insulated them from daily questions about his record, particularly as Democrats look to tie them to him. Their frustration, simmering for two months as negative Santos headlines build up, is close to boiling over.
“He is a bludgeoning tool the Democrats are using without regard for truth. They’re lying about us in relationship to him,” Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) said in an interview. “And he’s caused us every day to have to respond to his very existence in the House of Representatives, instead of giving 100 percent of our time to the important issues that Americans and the people who sent us to Washington care about.”
“Every time that we’re having a conversation we seem to be talking about George Santos,” echoed Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.).
The anti-Santos Republicans’ stand is a lonely one. Most others in their conference prefer to spurn Santos in more subtle ways that don’t call for forcing him out, which would tee up a special election in a battleground district that could chip at their four-vote majority. But New York’s newest House Republicans assumed war footing for a reason: Mere months after the Empire State gave the GOP its fattest gains of an otherwise lackluster midterms, they say Santos is making their own donors squeamish and their voters suspicious.
Republicans in New York are afraid Santos will cause them to lose in 2024, and worse, cause voters to take a look at their own records of being Republican cheats and scoundrels.
They couldn't care less about the damage Santos is doing to his constituents. They're worried about their own asses, and nothing more.
They should be worried. They should be terrified, actually.
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