Republican Rep.-elect George Santos admits to lying about his credentials

Judy Woodruff:

An incoming New York congressman says that he still plans on taking his seat in the next Congress, despite admitting that he misled voters about his credentials.

Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins is here to break down what happened, what's next, and what we still don't know about representative-elect George Santos.

So, hello, Lisa.

Lisa Desjardins:

Hello.

Judy Woodruff:

Just an extraordinary story.

What exactly did the congressman claim, and what do we know is true?

Lisa Desjardins:

Well, let me take you to Long Island. That's where he won this seat. It was an open and competitive seat.

George Santos is 34 years old, and he is someone who actually our viewers may be familiar with, because he made history as the first Republican who will enter Congress as an openly gay person. Now, as part of his campaign, he made several claims about his life history.

And let's look at what he has claimed and what he is now admitting, in part, are not true. First of all, he claimed that he worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. He says that is not true. He now says he had a — worked at a firm that worked with them. He also claimed that he graduated from Baruch College. He never graduated from college at all, he now says.

He also claims to be a businessman, a successful businessman, owning 17 properties, now says he does not own any property. And, for the time being, he is actually living with his sister.

Now, how does he explain all of this? He has been doing interviews with local media. He says these were embellishments. He says this is a part of media culture. There's a bit of gymnastic logic here. But, in this interview, he pointed to The New York Times, for example, as calling a job that he had as a customer service rep an odd job.

Here's what he said.

George Santos (R), New York Congressman-Elect: For The New York Times to diminish it and call it an odd job just shows you the type of preconceived notion that people give to people who work hard, right?

So that's where I probably felt, in a sense, the need to not share that and the need to embellish a little bit my resume, which I regret. Regrettably. And, in hindsight — in hindsight, vision is always 20/20.

Lisa Desjardins:

Still so many questions, including about the $700,000 that he personally loaned to his campaign. It's not exactly clear where that came from yet.

Judy Woodruff:

And, Lisa, we understand that he even misled voters about his own heritage.

Lisa Desjardins:

Yes, this is significant.

He had claimed that his grandparents, through his mother, were Jewish and who fled to Brazil, he said, from Ukraine and from persecution also during World War II. However, an independent American Jewish media outlet, Forward, looked into his past and found that those grandparents were actually born in Brazil, not in Europe or Ukraine, but in Brazil, before World War II.

Now, he has talked about this as well. He has said he was going off of family stories. And here's where he talked — said about this.

George Santos:

I always joke, I'm Catholic, but I'm also Jew-ish, as in ish.

And I have made that joke because, growing up, I grew up fully aware that my grandparents were Jewish.

Lisa Desjardins:

Now, so Jew-ish is something that's not ringing well with the actual Jewish community here in America.

The Republican Jewish Coalition, which was a group who had been supporting Santos, came out with this today. They said: "He deceived us and misrepresented his heritage. He will not be welcome at any future RJC events."

As you can imagine, that's an important American conservative Jewish group. And also worthy of note, Judy, that district has a significant Jewish population as well.

Judy Woodruff:

So, Lisa, you cover the Congress. You know the rules. What happens now?

I mean, can he be prevented from taking office before he is to be sworn in?

Lisa Desjardins:

The Constitution dictates this, Article 1 of the Constitution. Only Congress itself can expel its members. And it takes a two-thirds vote of the House chamber to do that.

There is no expectation that that will happen. One reason, Kevin McCarthy has a very narrow, very slim Republican majority in the House. He cannot afford to lose any votes, certainly not now, as he's trying to become speaker a week from today.

Now, what could happen, there are some, including other Republicans, now calling for an ethics investigation. The House Ethics Committee is evenly divided, Republicans and Democrats. They could recommend a censure. They could recommend a reprimand, those kinds of things.

I think we're going to be watching more carefully for perhaps investigations outside of Congress into the finances and all of his kind of campaign disclosures overall.

Judy Woodruff:

So, Lisa, this was not the first time he had — Mr. Santos had run for Congress. He ran in 2016.

What did Republicans know? Or did they know about this background? And what about everybody else involved?

Lisa Desjardins:

I have a prominent, closely involved source who told me that the National Republican Campaign Committee that runs the campaigns for the House Republicans knew about George Santos' issues and problems, that there were, in fact, falsehoods as part of his resume, before the election, and chose not to disclose it.

That source told me Kevin McCarthy also knew. Now, the NRCC on the record told me today that's false. They completely reject that idea. They say they didn't know

How did any — how did nobody know? How are we just finding out? Well, Republicans have — will say privately, listen, we're not going to say anything bad about one of our guys. How about Democrats? Their job is to find out the problems on their opponents, right?

When you talk to Democrats today, they say, we only look to the public information. A lot of this was private, things about where he went to school or if he went to school.

I think the truth is that the Democrats really feel that this is probably a missed opportunity. It right now looks like there will be another race in that district not for two years.

Judy Woodruff:

So, he gets to take a seat and serve as a member of Congress.

Lisa Desjardins:

He will. He will take his seat next week.

Unless there's more that comes out about him more, damaging material, right now, he is going to take a seat. And he says he's going to prove to voters that he should come back again in two years.

We will see.

Judy Woodruff:

Remarkable.

Lisa Desjardins:

It's incredible.

(LAUGHTER)

Judy Woodruff:

Lisa Desjardins, thank you.

Lisa Desjardins:

You're welcome.