Embattled Republican Representative George Santos compared Congress to the movie “Mean Girls” as he faces multiple federal charges and a potential expulsion vote in the House of Representatives.
Mr Santos spoke on the Macrodosing podcast and was asked what Congress was like.
“Have you ever watched ‘Mean Girls’?” Mr Santos asked the interviewer. “That’s Congress in a nutshell. There is a mean girl there.”
Mr Santos compared himself to Cady Heron, the main protagonist in the movie portrayed by Lindsay Lohan.
“I don’t come from a political background,” Mr Santos said, despite the fact he ran for Congress in 2020 and lost before he mounted his successful campaign in the Long Island district in 2022.
Since then, multiple news outlets reported stories about the fact Mr Santos fabricated numerous aspects of his career, from his claim that he worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, to his falsehood about being of Jewish heritage, to his running a fake charity.
Last week, the Justice Department announced 13 criminal charges against Mr Santos, leading to Mr Santos turning himself in and facing arrest. Specifically, the DOJ charged him with unemployment fraud and making false statements to Congress. He has since faced calls to resign even among New York Republicans and members of the House Republican Conference.
Representative Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California, filed a resolution to force an expulsion vote for Mr Santos, though it is unlikely to pass, given an expulsion requires two-thirds of the House to pass. Republicans hold a narrow majority in the House, which means they need all the GOP support they can get.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called on the House Ethics Committee to take up the expulsion resolution and has said he would not support Mr Santos for re-election despite previously saying he would stand by the freshman Republican.
“You got to have a process,” Mr McCarthy said in a news conference. “So I'm going to ask that Ethics look at this.”
