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Salon
Salon
Politics
Kelly McClure

Santos: "I'm not leaving"

Over the course of a three-hours-long X Spaces conversation on Friday, Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., dragged the House Ethics Committee and many of his peers in Congress up one side of the internet and down the other while addressing his time as a former "it girl," as he calls himself, expressing the opinion that he's been made into both a punchline and a punching bag during his first and possibly only term. 

Speaking to host Monica Matthews, Santos said he quickly went from the win of being the first openly-gay Republican elected to Congress to someone whose name is used primarily for "click-bait," admitting to making mistakes, and saying that he won't live long enough to apologize for all of them, at this point. But on that subject, he furthers that resigning would be admitting to everything that's on the 56-page report released by the ethics committee on November 16, and he's not about to do that, saying, "I'm not leaving. Come hell or high water, it's done when I say it's done." But although he's not leaving, he also has no plans to run for re-election, saying he doesn't "want to work with a bunch of hypocrites," meaning other members of Congress who he says are “more worried about getting drunk every night with the next lobbyist that they’re going to screw and pretend like none of us know what’s going on.”

“If you want to expel me, I’ll wear it like a badge of honor,” Santos furthered. “I’ll be the sixth expelled member of Congress.”

Listen to the full conversation here:

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