Two House Republicans offered vastly different takes on the same TV show Sunday when it came to habitual liar Rep. George Santos, suggesting the fraud may not be going anywhere any time soon.
On Face the Nation, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) took the most absurd outlook, claiming that the nation should ignore Santos’ completely fabricated biography in light of his colleagues’ own penchant for lying.
"Look, there’s a lot of frauds in Congress,” Gonzales said. “I mean, George Santos is the least of this country’s worries.”
Santos’ dirty laundry has been belatedly found, hung, and fleshed out into a standalone wardrobe in the weeks since his win for New York’s third congressional district. The topline is that he has told a slew of mostly-admitted lies about everything from his ethnic identity and work history to his educational degrees and family background. But that’s not all. As The Daily Beast has reported, he was fairly recently married to a woman despite claiming to have long been openly gay, has had a bizarre living situation with his sister slash roommate facing eviction, may have broken campaign-finance laws, and more.
“We have a lot of things to worry about. Step one is- is getting this rules package done,” Gonzales added when pressed to confirm whether or not he believed Santos should stick around.
At least some other conservatives weren’t so keen.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) alluded to a growing hypocrisy within the party as it struggles to figure out what to do with Santos amid a slim, four seat majority.
“It’s very difficult to work with anyone who cannot be trusted,” Mace said, also on Face the Nation. “It’s very clear his entire resume and life was manufactured until a couple days ago, when he finally changed his website.”
“It is a problem,” Mace added. “If we say we can’t trust the Left when they are telling the truth, how can we trust our own? Americans want transparency, and the one lesson I’ve learned in DC: if you want a friend you can trust, get a dog.”