George Santos Gets the Last Laugh at House Republicans Who Threw Him Out

"Tonight the establishment set $10 million on fire!" Santos posted triumphantly after House Republicans lost his seat in a special election on Tuesday.

By Kylie Cheung  |  February 14, 2024 | 5:48pm
Photo: Shutterstock Politics
George Santos Gets the Last Laugh at House Republicans Who Threw Him Out

On Tuesday night, New York’s third Congressional district partook in a special election to replace former Rep. George Santos (R), who was ousted in December over, well, a lot of things. The night concluded with his GOP-controlled seat going to Democrat Tom Suozzi, further shrinking Republicans’ narrow House majority. And, as anyone could have predicted, Santos was not quiet about any of this.

“Tonight the establishment set $10 million on fire!” Santos posted triumphantly on Twitter shortly after the election results came out, seemingly in reference to the $8 million the GOP spent on campaign ads for Republican Mazi Pillip. He boasted that he won his race “with $0 super PAC money, $0 CLF money and $0 Establishment money,” though he also allegedly won it with a whole lot of stolen credit card numbers, per the Department of Justice. “I FLIPPED a 23 year Blue seat with the help of grassroots activists and by activating the base with retail politics…” Santos wrote. “#NY3 is #MAGA country and since MAGA was disrespected, MAGA stayed home!”

In another sassy little number, Santos wrote, “Hey Americans! Please thank these two gems for losing a seat in the house today!” with a photo of New York’s GOP Reps. Nick LaLota and Anthony D’Esposito, who both voted for Santos’ expulsion. Santos was charged with nearly two dozen counts connected to alleged wire fraud, money laundering, and identity theft. LaLota wrote in October that Santos “deserves to be in prison, not Congress.”

For the last two months since Santos was removed from Congress, his seat has been managed by the Clerk of the House. Now that he’s been replaced by a Democrat, the House stands at 221 Republicans to 214 Democrats, giving Republicans only a razor-thin margin of error to attempt to push their far-right bullshit. Predictably, tensions are high right now, and as of Tuesday night, Santos isn’t the only Republican with a lot to say about the party’s failures. In a Truth Social post, Trump touted his “almost 99% Endorsement Success Rate in Primaries” (has anyone seen the math on this???), and squarely blamed Pillip for her defeat. Calling her a “very foolish woman,” he wrote that Pillip lost for “running in a race where she didn’t endorse me and tried to ‘straddle the fence,’ when she would have easily WON if she understood anything about MODERN DAY politics in America.”

As for the victor: Who is Suozzi, you ask?? I don’t know a lot about him and, unlike his NY-3 predecessor, I actually hope to continue knowing as little about him as possible. But Suozzi is a former Congressman who held the district for three terms right before retiring to unsuccessfully run for New York governor. His departure cleared the way for Santos’ great grift, thanks to the New York Democratic Party’s apparent inability to perform basic oppo-research. So, I suppose we sort of have Suozzi to thank for Santos’ current ability to sell Cameos for hundreds of dollars.

Anyway, as of Wednesday afternoon, Santos is still tweeting and doing victory laps around the Republican Party and the House Republicans who dumped him. His pinned tweet is currently a short and simple “-1,” in reference to the GOP losing his seat. And he’s spent the better part of the day calling House Republicans and varying GOP candidates “clowns” and “idiots.” So, clearly, post-expulsion life is going well for him—if you count tweeting all day and all night as a meaningful life, I guess!

 
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