Republican George Santos faced hostility on Fox News over the lies he told to get elected to Congress.
The New York Rep.-elect admitted in a series of interviews Monday that he lied about his job experience, college education and heritage. He claimed during his campaign that he had worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs and that he had a degree from Baruch College in New York, but none of those organizations had records of that. He had also called himself a “proud American Jew.” When questioned by the New York Post, he said he was Catholic and never claimed to be Jewish, telling the newspaper: “Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background, I said I was ‘Jew-ish.’”
He characterized the lies as “embellishing my resume” ― and has, so far, faced little to no backlash from Republican party leadership.
But on Fox News Tuesday, he met fierce pushback from former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate-turned Tucker Carlson fill-in.
“A lie is not an embellishment on a resume,” Gabbard told her guest. “These are blatant lies, and it calls into question how your constituents and the American people can believe anything that you may say when you are standing on the floor of the House of Representatives.”
Santos tried to cast the discussion as a debate about his resumé, but Gabbard interrupted: “Is it debatable, or is it just false?”
At another point in the interview, Gabbard asked Santos, “Do you have no shame?”
He didn’t answer and immediately pivoted to attacking Democrats.
The interview ended when Gabbard cut her guest off while he was complaining that “everybody just wants to push me and call me a liar.”
“We’ve given you a lot of time. I think the time that is owed is [to] the people of New York’s third [congressional district],” Gabbard said. “It’s hard to imagine how they could possibly trust your explanations when you’re not really even willing to admit the depth of your deception to them.”
Gabbard often appears as a guest on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and has filled in as host several times. She joined the conservative network as a paid contributor last month. In October, she left the Democratic Party after years of gravitating closer to the political right and adopting increasingly far-right talking points.
