Hi, I'm Molly john Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds, and speaker Mike Johnson will blur the faces of the January sixth rioters before releasing the footage the Party of Law and Order. Ladies and gentlemen, we have such a great show today. Congressman Rocanna goes over the landscape now that the Republican majority is one George
Santos slimmer. Then we will talk to Mark Ciusano about his new book, The Fabulous, The Lying, hustling, grifting, stealing and very American legend of George Santos. But first we have the Mary Trump Shows, the One, the Only Mary Trump. Welcome back to Fast Politics. Mary Trump.
Hey, Molly, it is great to be here. I'm not going to ask you how you are.
I was thinking about you before we did this interview, and I was thinking, I'm going to tell her that I love her even if her uncle destroys democracy.
Wow.
Well, I mean this is the most American story ever, right, like reality television host is underestimated, becomes president, is able to fuck everything up, loses presidency, and now is the Republican front Runner again.
Yes, it's a deeply modern American story. It would rise to the level of Greek tragedy if it weren't for the obscene absurdity of it all.
I feel like because we've been living in it for the last decade, by the way, decade, because we're at twenty twenty three, so we're like two years away from a decade of our lives being spent on this nonsense. But because we've been in it for so long, I think sometimes we forget the absurdity of it. And the truth is, it's like we got here because it was so absurd that people could not take it.
Yerious slagh. Yeah, it's a stealth weapon in a way. I remember that well in twenty fifteen, in early twenty sixteen, when I was still talking to my aunt, and part of it was because we knew him so well, and part of it was because we'd been in New York forever. We just thought, this guy's such a clown. There's no way this plays anywhere. But of course, I think neither one of us had watched The Apprentice either, so we didn't quite have our figures on the police of what
was happening in the rest of the country. But I think we've gotten to a point where we're almost full circle. We need to deploy that as a weapon as well.
Our strategy for the next eleven months has to be going after the higher brow issues, you know, talking about democracy and what it means to lose a democracy and calling out the fascism, but we also have to hit really hard on the other end of the spectrum to point out just how absurd and ridiculous he is, and that not that that doesn't make him dangerous, but that to cast a vote for him would be an act of just shame, and we need to mock him because
that is something that he can't handle. And I think honestly, for Donald as an individual person, it's not about battling with him on policy. It's about reminding him every second of every day what a fucking loser he is.
Yes, I would say the reason you do that, I mean it's because it's destabilizing to Trump, and Trump needs to be destabilized in order to be defeated. Was something that de Santis could not do.
Continue sorry, exactly, desanctimonious could not do the same thing because apparently nobody allegedly running for the Republican nomination wants anybody other than Donald to be the nominee. He lacks de talent, continue the talent and the charisma or whatever.
But listen, Molly, I have to be honest.
I am so sick of having to fight in that particular trench. You know, sometimes I feel like this is really not how I want to be spending my time, not how I want to be spending my time.
It's not how any of us too.
Yeah, exactly, But we do need to realize that it's a weapon. It's not sinking to his level, it's using his own weapons against him, because otherwise exactly has happened in twenty sixteen, the field is clear for him to reduce everybody else to becoming the kinds of people we're seeing in the Republican nominating contest right now, who just cannot figure out a way to surpass him because they are not doing the one thing that needs to be done.
And hopefully the Democrats won't have such compunction.
Yeah, you know, what I think is amazing about their problem when it comes to Trump is that Republicans are completely unable to stand up to him, maybe because they're afraid of death threats, maybe because they're cowards, maybe because they just want to keep power. And somehow that dynamic has continued despite the fact that he had like you know,
like I think so much about that. You know, all the times when Republicans are like, well, we're just not going to stand up to him now, they never found a good moment to grow a spine, and so they never did no.
And then they sort of realized that they didn't have to. It's easier to go along to get along, or whatever that expression is that I haven't said since eighteen thirty two. It's about positioning for the future. But I think in the shorter, more dangerous term, it's their recognition, their sort of lizard brain reptilian recognition, that he is the best instrument for them to regain and maintain illegitimate power in perpetuity.
Yeah, think about that for a minute. So basically it's the end of democracy, but Republicans don't mind because their sign wan.
Yeah, and it'll be if the worst case scenario happens that Donald cheats, lies and steals his way into the White House, because let's be clear, he kind of win legitimately.
Which is why he says democrats can't win legitimately exactly exactly, which.
Is why the Republicans are impeaching Biden. So you know, they're trying to take our weapons away by deploying them against us and making them irrelevant.
So if he gets.
In in twenty twenty eight, he'll just pick a successor.
Right, You think he'll pick a successor.
It depends on what kind of shape he's in.
But either he will or somebody else will, right, or he'll just keep going until you know, his mummified corpse will be president.
We have great rentals, but Don Junior will never be president.
No, does that disappointment?
No.
The one thing that I'm not surprised by is that I pride myself on my front relationship with my parents. But what's happening over there is pretty incredible.
Yeah. It's textbook family dysfunction on an exponential level. You know, It's it's sort of the platonic ideal of family dysfunction.
Yeah, it's sort of spectacular stuff. So Trump really still has ninety one federal indictments, right, So while he is the Republican front runner, he's also in quite a bit of trouble if this works out, If this new York case happens the way it's meant to happen. And again, I still think there could be he could get a hail Mary from a higher court. But if it does, he will lose that business, your family business, the one
that he stole from your relatives. Talk to me about what you think the psychological implication of.
That is, we cannot overestimate the importance of this case to him. The other cases bolster his credibility among his base.
Being a criminal.
Who's willing to steal classified documents because he has all the power, etc.
Etc.
Order to incite an insurrection, what have you.
This gets to the very heart of who he thinks he is, which he also knows on some very deep level, is a myth.
It's a myth that.
Was created by my grandfather to serve my grandfather's own ends. It was a myth that was perpetuated by the New York media in the late seventies and eighties, and then the banks, and then Mark Burnett and then the Republican Party. The longer the myth has been allowed to stand unchallenged, and the stronger it's gotten. I mean, actually, I cannot
tell you how much I hate saying this. He's an extraordinarily powerful person and at one time he was the most powerful person on the planet, which this country will never recover from that egregiousness. But the point being, he has so much more to lose, and all of that, or at the center of all of that, I should say, is his almost unshakable belief that he is this brilliant businessman who's self made. And the cracks have been showing.
But that's why he's been in the courtroom, like he hasn't been in any other courtroom unless he's been ordered to be. As far as I know, he voluntarily went there. I could think of a billion other things I'd rather do than send a court room for no reason all day long. But part of that was to feel like he had some kind of control over the situation, which obviously he didn't. But part of it was to send
a signal about how important this is. This will destroy to the extent that it's possible, because he's so defended everything he's ever believed about himself or wanted everybody else.
To believe about it him.
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. The punishment for it is humongous, Like he will lose the business. He will be forced to sell the assets, The entire myths of Trump will go, All of the things that he considers himself will be stripped away.
I'm not familiar enough with how this kind of civil trial works to know how.
It's going to play out.
If the ruling is as it should be and he gets fined appropriately and everything remains in receivership, it will be appealed immediately.
I don't know what that means. I don't know if they can immediately take the.
Name off of Trump Tower and start selling stuff, or if everything is just put on hold as the appeals wind their way through the higher courts. But I'm pretty sure it means that he has no access and gets no benefits.
Yeah, do you think there's a sort of self destructive aspect to him? I'm thinking about we're watching him. Obviously there is a self destructive aspect him, But like you know, he went after Obamacare the other day, which is like such a loser for him, and I just wondered if, like, perhaps his self destructive aspect is getting a little bit worse.
Yeah, for a long time now, there's there has been that drive towards self destructive behavior again, because he's just this terrified little boy who is in way over his head and knows it. The irony, I suppose, is that other people keep trying to protect him from himself, not because they give a shit about him, because they need him.
One of the great conundrums in mordern American politics is that Donald who is incompetent and capable, unfit and all those other adjectives, has always been useful to smarter, more powerful men.
So he remains useful to.
Smarter and more powerful man exactly. And they don't want
him falling apart. But he's really giving them a run for their money, because, let's face it, it's not just Obamacare, it's also what he's doing in terms of his position on abortion and I well, those might be the only two policy but the way he keeps miss speaking, which you could also say or Freudian slips, like he said that the Republican Party is out to destroy American democracy, right yeah, and he you know, he keeps doing things like this.
You know.
Luckily for those smart and more powerful people, the base doesn't care.
The base will.
Laugh and cheer if he's calling for the execution of a general who's done nothing but serve his country admirably.
For Dick, I mean, that stuff is amazing, and.
That's what we need to be paying attention to.
Let's keep going after Donald and destabilizing him before he gets more power than he has now. But let's pay attention to how our fellow citizens are responding to jokes about Paul Pelosi, who are responding to calls for executions, who were responding to his attacks on law clerks for God's sakes.
Yeah, let's listen to them.
Let's pay attention to them, because they're the ones who are driving all of this quite honestly.
Yeah, the vermin comment, let's talk about that for a minute. We have heard him do a lot of that kind of thing, very dark. I mean, I remember his inauguration speech that w considered some weird shit. Do you think your uncle is capable of genocide? I mean, because that is genocidal language.
If nothing else, Donald Trump will do anything that needs to be done in order to protect himself, in order to continue to receive ill gotten gains, and in order to remain empower period.
Yeah, that's not what I was hoping for. This was not the answer. Not to make light of a question like that, but I was hoping for you know, while I think even.
He there's no bottom, there are no limits, and the people around him know that, and they don't care either.
I plan to not sleep tonight.
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
Thank you. We have to talk about this because the stakes are incredibly high.
Yeah, and if language like that is allowed to be normalized, which the corporate media is doing their damnedest to do, the rest of us, if all goes badly, are going to be at the mercy of those crowds who cheer Donald on and laugh at his desire to see his enemies destroyed.
Mary Trump, thank you. Congressman Rocanna represents California's seventeenth district. Welcome back, too fast politics. Congressman Rocanna, thank you for having me.
Great see you the other day.
Who was great seeing you the other day. So let's talk about the House of Representatives. Republicans have a one last seat majority that George Santos thing the House has not expelled to member since two thousand and two with James traffickant discuss.
Well, you know, it's like the Republicans finally woke up and realized how obnoxious and damaging it is to their brand to have someone who basically used public office for a personal profit. I mean, he was running for office so he could make money and use people's money for personal use. The amazing thing is it took them almost a year to come to that recognition and to expel him,
even though it's not in their narrow interests. And the question is, you know, how long is it going to take them to realize all the other outlandish, terrible things in their party and break the fever. Obviously that it took a year just to get Santos out and it's not and it doesn't give you much hope.
We heard Mike Johnson say vote your conscience, right. I mean, this guy, I don't know where he's coming from. When the vote happens, he just changes his mind. In all of the Republican leadership vote against expelling Santos. I mean, doesn't that completely negate any of the good optics of getting rid of Santos?
Yes, I mean the fact that half of their party still was split, it shows you that they're just gonna They have such a tribal mentality their team and don't look at any ethics on the flip side, you know, the Democrats, you sneeze the wrong way and will be the first puts to say, let's have an equery against you. You know, has happened with Al Frank getting a number of members on our side. So there's a huge double standard in terms of ethics in this Congress and among
the parties. The reality is that some of the New York members voted to expel them to save themselves in their race. But certainly the Republican brand is party and their tribe above anything else.
Yeah, you did see these Republicans, these people like Mike Lawler, and so we saw Laloda and also Milli stock Tips. Also those are you know, Republicans from New York who kind of won on a sort of a fluke. Now Santos is out, he is busy on cameo, but also trying to go after those swing district Republicans who are desperate to keep their seats. Kind of an interesting dynamic.
Well, I mean, you know, he's just trying to maximize I imagine his exposure until he goes to jail. I think anyone who's in a swing district took the right vote by expelling him. I mean, there was a huge report all of the enormous crimes that he had committed and that ethics committed to a full investigation. He had his new process, and you know, I know, we kind of find it amusing in there. It's Santos has become the most famous member of Congress and Late Night talks
about him, but at a fun a better level. It should just be sad that we have so commoditized politics that you get people like Santo's right, thinking that it's to make money and to become famous as opposed to serving the community.
So House Republicans have moved on from spelling Santos and now they are ready to focus on basically what Donald Trump wants them to do, which is impeached Joe Biden. For vibes. Explain to me what's happening now. Do you think they're going to have a vote? They sort of want it to look like they have a real vote. And also I'm shocked at how often they admit that they are impeaching Biden to sort of Trump, you.
Know, I mean, their last impeachment hearings were hugely disappointing for the I mean, they had Republican witnesses. I'm on the overside committee, and they had Republican witnesses and we'd ask them, do you think that the evidence rises to the level of having an impeachment? And they'd say no. And we said, do you think they should first have a vote before they do this equery They'd say yes.
So it was a total failure. They embarrass themselves. What the American people want is folks, folks to their pocketbook issues, and I think the House demopment Republicans are trying their artists to have the Republicans lose. If you're Donald Trump, you're probably, on the one hand, these people have total fealty to you. On the other hand, they're totally competent. You're probably wondering if they're going to cost you the reelection.
Yeah, I mean it does seem like. I'm shocked whenever I see Comer on television just how bad at this he is. He almost makes Jim Jordan look like a savant.
I mean, they're just the results. They haven't been able to do anything. And I've suggested to the Biden team they ought to run against the do nothing Congress. Even though I'm a part of it, I'm not in leadership like Harry Truman did at forty eight for re election, and Biden should just say, look, these people are crazy. They can't get the government to function, they can't pass
some budget. They want to cut everything. They're voting every day on making the salaries of the National Student of Health Director one dollar, the person who helps give student loads what dollar. The person who keeps our air clean one dollar? Air traffic controllers what dollar. Literally, these are their abdmits. It's a circus and they are the weakest leak right now in the attire Republican political system. Weaker
than Trump, by the way. I mean, that's where I think that their biggest vulnerability.
Is one of the things that Republicans are sort of trying to do before the holiday, even though they have passed this tiered CR, which is just kind of a scam, right, I mean, it's just a CR. But they're trying to perhaps right do a supplemental with funding for Ukraine Israel. But the pound of flash they want is to make it even harder for people to come to this country. Explain to me what the thinking here is you think and what is going on?
Well, it's hijacking important for an aid that's needed for Ukraine, for defensive equipment for Israel to a ideological ejecta. What they want to do is get rid of the president's parole power. Well, the parole power is what allowed the president to have Ukrainians leeing Ukraine come to the United
States for two years. It's what allowed the president to have Afrighanis who fought with us, will help be translators for America troops come here after we withdrew for two years, and no one thinks that we should be taking the parole power away from the president who is thoughtful about foreign affairs. That's what they want to do, and I don't think the Democrats of the Senate are going to go for it. So what's the result. The result is
our money for Ukraine is running out. Ukraine has valiantly fought off who valiantly made sure he doesn't get to Kiev, and now all of that is at risk because we can't get our act together.
So do you think that as we are watching this, I think that there's a news cycle that's finally focused on the incredible danger of a second Trump president. Say, one of the things that Trump has been musing about from the side lines is using the insurrection act to immediately if God forbid he wins, shut down any protests, put everybody in jail. Is there a moment where Congress and the Senate could temper presidential power when it comes to that, or is that just beyond possible.
That's what we should be doing. But you've got the Speaker Johnson who was the personal attorney or file lawsuits for Donald Trump to try to overturn the election. So you know, it's probably not a.
Very realistic scenario.
I mean, look, here's the law that considers me a twenty eleven Obama signed the law. He said his administration wasn't going to enforce it, but he was forced to sign this terrible law to just get our troops funded. And it says that any American citizen could be detained by the military. Military could cut to your door, detain you without a trial, without a ward if they think
that you're connected to terrorism or a national security threat. Well, most presidents fire, they're not going to abuse that, but you could see how a stat like that gets abused by Donald Trump. Same with the insurrection statue. And we need to narrow some of those presidential powers which we have relied on norms to chat, but I know Jamie Raskin several of us are working on it, but it's going to be an uphill battle with Johnson as speaker.
Is Johnson just so new? Remember they put the person who is number four in the caucus in power. Is he just so new that he doesn't know how to do a lot of this stuff? Or is he so ideologically burn it down and you know, small government that he doesn't want to do a lot of this stuff.
I think he's very ideological. You may be willing to have government funded, but he's beholden to a ideological caucus that wants grass stick twenty thirty percent huts and food assistants and housing assistants and educational assistants and agencies that keep are air, clean water, cleay. That's who he's beholden to. That's how he's gotten elected. And with Trump, he's got total fealty. I mean, he's the person who led the
lawsuits to overturn the election results. So the idea that he's going to work to limit a future candidate Trump becoming president's power is just unrealistic.
Yeah, you have like eight days until the vacation or it's not vacation, but it's sort of vacation. You have eight days until then. Do you think you're going to be able to sort of get anything done with this supplemental or you think it's just they're just going to hold it up.
Unfortunately, I think they're going to hold it up. I mean, I hope we would see movement, but the Senate hasn't been able to move. But forget the House, the Senate. It's so extreme what they're demanding that the Democratic senators have concerned. So you know, the only shot is that the Senate sends us something and that jams up Johnson and forces his hand and we vote on it. But so far it doesn't look like the Senate's going to send us anything.
What does that mean for like the Ukrainians?
Well, why does this end?
The fun runs out soon?
I mean they're not going to specify the exact number of days, but we're talking about days and a few months, not you know, a half a year. And if we don't have the funding it, they don't have the weapons.
I mean, that's basically handing Putin away.
And I mean, obviously the Ukrainians have great resolve, but they have great bravery and there's going to skill keep up the fight, but they're going to be fighting then with a huge disadvantage.
There's no escape hatch for this.
There is it.
Congress has the power at the fun thing. The administration can't fund things without Congress, and that was the Iran contrast scandal with Reagan. The president can't do it.
I'm sorry, Tom, just now, I'm just thinking about the idea of finding doing that. So let's just talk brass tacks. New Year is going to be a complete nightmare in your head? Does this chaos, I mean, besides hurting the American people and the Ukrainians and likely a bunch of other unforced errors, do you think this helps Democrats win back the House?
I do. I think that the fact that they've it's chaotic, that they can't keep government open, that they can't get a Speaker of the House, that they deposed the Speaker of the House, that they've got to be spelling members. I think lost Americas look at this and say we can't have two more years of this cloud show and this chaos. So I do think that they helped the Democrats get back the House. The only challenge we have
is redistricting. You know, some of the lions drawn in states like North Carolina have been very, very unfair, and if we don't win back the House, it's because of the redistricting issues.
At this point, there's going to be a special election for the Santos seat that will change the balance more. I mean, and again this is like my West wing brain, but is there a world in which somehow you flip a vulnerable Republican.
Or there's a chance.
I mean, look, I mean they're you know, McCarthy made out right, they made moves out or House members. I definitely think there is a chant that McCarthy, I mean, that keep Jeffries emerge as a speaker. Their majority is very narrow. But you know, anyone who votes against Johnson is basically saying they're going to lose a primary. So you read my guest is you probably need them to flip to becoming a Democrat and then supporting them as a Democrat. It's not out of the realm of possibility.
I'm shocked to hear that and delighted. Thank you so much for joining us through OCANNA.
Thank you always enjoy it.
Mark Ciasano is the author of the Fabulous Line Hustling grifting, stealing and very American legend of George Santos. Welcome to Fast Politics.
Mark, thank you for having me.
So he's fresh.
He likes to look fresh, he does.
We're talking about New York Congressman George Santos. Tell me how you got going on this book and how you got such good timing.
I've been following Santas for a long time.
I was reporting on him back at Newsday in twenty nineteen eight. It was, you know, my editor comes up to my desk one day in November and says, there's this new guy running against Tom Swazi, who's the incumbent Democrat in C.
Three.
And she was like, give him a call, check it out, you know, just write a quick little update.
I was writing for this newsletter at the time, and so I did.
I gave him a call, and the strange thing was that right away he said, you know, oh, I'm launching my campaign today. So I thought, great, okay, I'll come meet you. You know, I'm in the neighborhood. Just let me know where it is and I'll come over. But he said no, Actually he was in Florida at the time for a work conference. So that was like this first strangeness, It's like, why are you launching your campaign for a New York district from Florida? And you know, things just got weird from there.
Why was he launching his campaign from Florida?
He's claimed he was at a work conference down there, and there were indeed, like social media that he posted from there, so it was, you know, one of his sort of vaguely financial jobs. But yeah, it made no sense.
You know, why wouldn't you just wait another day? You know, in retrospect, I kind of think what happened is he did that kind of like typical new candidate thing of just wanting to get as much press as possible, and he thought, oh, you know, Newsday is calling me today, so today is the launch.
But you know, it was weird.
It was like, why are you Why are you telling me that you're launching your campaign today? If you maybe are, but maybe aren't.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say something crazy and controversial. Politicians lie, that's kind of not unused ale, but he has hit such a sort of other level of lying. I was wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about that.
Yeah, you know, there's one moment in the book that I like a lot that kind of you know, gets at this. It's Santos is talking to this other queen's political candidate who was a little bit younger than him, and I guess Santos kind of sees himself as a mentor figures thing. And the guy tells Santos how old he is, because Santos asked him, and then Santos says, ah, yes, I remember, you know at that age, something like I made my first million already.
And what was weird.
About this to the other candidate was that it seemed to him that Santos really believed this, Like it wasn't like just a thing that he made up, but he literally legitimately believed that he'd made a million dollars before he turns thirty, you know, which is totally not true.
And so I think that's a little bit what sets him apart from a candidate who maybe misspeaks or sort of exaggerates or goes a little too far on something or literally just lies, you know, right, Because like you said, lots of politicians totally lie, but usually they lie for a reason. They lie on a specific subject. There's limits to it, and with Santos there have basically been few limits.
So some of the lying about his backstory, it was so unnecessary and got him into so much trouble.
Could you talk about that?
Yes, And I think this is sort of where he just didn't need to lie sometimes. I guess he does two things. There are some times where he doesn't need to lie, and he lies anyway, right, and then there's other moments where he seems to be lying for some purpose, like to connect with his audience or to kind of continue the conversation going or something. So I think that's a little bit what happened with, for example, that famous volleyball line, which I go into like how that happened.
In the book, he basically claims that he not only went to Beroke College, which he did not, it's a college in New York. He also claims that he was a championship volleyball player for the team, which he was not. He's on a radio show. This is kind of like
the big lie about volleyball. He's on a radio show and basically the two hosts are sort of chatting with him, and somehow it comes up that one of the children of the hosts you know, was a I think a volleyball player and a tennis player, maybe an athlete, and Santo says, oh, you know, so am I I'm an athlete, And then he goes into this whole volleyballs thing, you know, kind of connecting with the host on this level, both that the host, I think one of the host's kids
was an athlete and the other host kid was a Barugrad. So he's just kind of grasping at these connections and launches into this crazy story claiming that the team, you know, beat some ivy League schools that didn't even have volleyball teams at the time. Just kind of kind of zany stuff. The other funny thing is that though he seems to
kind of take stories from other people sometimes. So he had a former boss at a vaguely financially related company who actually was a volleyball star at group, and is it possibly he took the story right from him. It seems like it. It seems too sort of coincidental. And that's a pattern that I sort of go into in the book as well.
When does it start to come crashing down this because he's getting away with it for a while totally.
He has lots of crashing down moments.
You know, his life is kind of gone in this funny cyclical maybe like or parabolic wave kind of thing where he's doing great, he's making money, you know, the lying is working, and then it'll sort of hit an obstacle. So, you know, one of them was with this check fraud case in Brazil. Basically he's using checks that were owned by a dead guy and he tries to pass off these old checks and he gets caught right in Brazil when he's you know, not even twenty, and that was tough, right.
He's charged for this in Brazil, but he kind of gets away, he leaves, they can't find him.
He sort of escapes. You know.
Another kind of moment of crisis came when he's running for office and his own campaign staff does this vulnerability study on him and they find all this crazy stuff, a lot of the stuff we know now that he didn't go to the colleges. He said he wanted to, you know, he had all these wild things that he's claims to have done in his background, which he hadn't, and they said to him, look, George, you got to not run like this is crazy. This is going to
come out and he tried to make excuses. He said, no, no, no, it's fine, you know, I'm gonna explain, and he never did explain, and those you know, campaign staff left and he kind of got through. So there's there's these moments of him kind of overcoming and overcoming and overcoming and
you know until finally he couldn't overcome anymore. Get us to the indictment, right, So the indictment comes after the great New York Times story from December of last year, right, which you know, showed it kind of pulled all the threads together and showed, you know, all this crazy stuff
that he was claiming that was totally not true. And so that kind of started as free for all of people, you know, poking into his background and not only finding lies, but finding these schemes that Santos was running, and a lot of them were published and so some of that is what the Feds indicted him for, was this kind of different schemes. What was interesting about Santa's now been indicted. He is twenty three it's a twenty three count federal indictment.
He was in he there were two separate indictments. In the first one, it was really very narrow and kind of what people call like a paper case. It was pretty straightforward, just things that basically Santos lied about in documents. You know, lawyers I talked to said this is pretty open at shut you know, he doesn't have much of a chance. He obviously he's pleading not guilty and says he didn't do the things.
But it's an uphill battle.
So in some ways, like what's in the book or what a lot of people know about Santos is kind of way more lurid and wild than what he was actually indicted for. That's not to say he can't be indicted again. There can be another superseding indictment for Santos. So he's in a lot of trouble.
I mean a lot of the lies he did, lying about your past or lying about your mother, none of those things are illegal. Where he gets into legal trouble is when it comes to the campaign finance stuff, right totally.
I mean, that's one big balloon of illegality with him. It's like there's a lot of allegedly illegal behavior that he has committed. But yeah, the campaign finance stuff is big and kind of fun actually, so we know even more about this because of the House Ethics Committee report from a little bit ago now, But he basically was, you know, using campaign funds in all these different, totally inappropriate ways.
I'll give you one example.
He was just straight up using campaign funds for what he logged as botox. Right, you're not supposed to do that.
He was supposed to.
Use like but he wanted to look fresh.
He wanted to look fresh, and you know, this was this is how I started the book, is with this kind of deep dive into Santos's head about like what he sees when he looks in the mirror, because I think that is kind of how you understand Santos, that he wanted to look different, he wanted to look fresh, you know, and.
There's so much of it.
I mean, there's botox, He's talked about lipossumption, lap band surgery, using ozempic. He even claims that he was a stockholder in Ozempic, which doesn't seem to be true at least not as according to his filings. This is a big part of his life is him wanting to look different and in his mind better, And I do think that that kind of explained some of where the line comes from.
What I was struck by what the Ethics investigation was that it's unusual for an ethics investigation usually they provide cover, and that didn't happen here, right, Can you talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, So what was so kind of extraordinary and wild about this Ethics Committee investigation is that they had the bank statements right. They actually knew what he spent money on, where the money came in, and that's what's been missing before. So we actually saw not just what he said he was spending money on, but what he actually, like where
the money actually went. So I think that that is partially why it's so different than other Ethics Committee reports in the past, because there's just so much like well documented stuff in there.
And yeah, like you said.
It's uncommon for a member of Congress to be expelled, right, So this is this is just like one of the more extraordinary things about Santos.
Do you think there are lessons to be taken from the Santos experience? I mean, he didn't win like a ruby red seed. He won a very competitive seed, so it must have been fuck up, you know, among fuck up among fuck up to get here right for Democrats?
Yeah, I mean so I call it a kind of perfect storm election. All everything broke this guy's way this year, and I mean, it's it's what's funny about this is that so much of it is kind of not even that interesting. You know, the district was redistricted, there were you know, there was this like big red wave year in this very specific area, even if Democrats at large did very well in.
The midterms of twenty twenty two.
So it's it's just funny that this bungling guy sort of stumbled his way into a congressional seat. Lying all the way that being said, he also was very good at harnessing these currents that were you know, that were happening in the district, like a sentiment of like anger at COVID mitigations. You know, people were sort of tired in New York of COVID and so criminal justice reforms.
He worked with that.
And I think what separated him from other politicians is, you know, other people can exaggerate, or they sort of try to rally up.
A crowd or something. He just doesn't care.
You know, He'll just tell tell a group of people what they want to hear, and that makes it a lot easier to kind of get that political current so interesting.
Why do you think like Republicans have been really careful about not condemning corruption, and I'm thinking about with Senator Menendez, Republicans were careful not to touch him, right. The thinking had to have been, if we condemn Senator Menendez, we're going to have to condemn Trump, and nobody wants to do that because he's the leader of the Republican Party. So I'm curious when you look at Santos, that is
not what happened with Santos. Republicans are delighted to condemn him, and in fact, it looks like they could do much more than that. I'm curious what you think the difference between the two are, the difference between a sort of okay with corruption. I mean, I just am curious in you're yeah, totally.
This is one of my favorite pieces of the book is going into doing kind of deep dive into the Nasau County political world that Santos comes up in. So basically Nasa County, the GOP there are wildly powerful, like dating back to the last century. It's like, you know, Ron Reagan said, when when a Republican dies and goes to have and it looks like Nasa County, you know, like this, it's a GOP place, you know, at least
in the in the twentieth century. And that changed and it shifted and the party had lots of corruption scandals and got weaker. But you know, it's still there and it's still kind of working hard. And Santos is not a party guy. He is like he comes from the outside as the current GOP chair like loves to say, you know, oh, he's not my guy, you know, like
everyone's kind of pointing away, but he's really not. It's like most of a lot of the candidates historically have been you know, Irish Italian, Santos is like an outsider.
He's Jewishish, yeah right.
I mean the Jewish thing is a super fun thing to jump into because you know, he claims he is actually Jewish, right, and that also he sometimes joked about being Jewish.
You know.
This is the fun thing about this book was I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and say, Okay, here's what he's saying. If he's doubling down on something, let me see if it's true or not. So I really tried to find whether he could have been Jewish, and the moral of the story is, you know, his family has this tradition of maybe generations back having some Jewish roots. So the answer is now, yeah, exactly exactly.
But it's like, it's crazy that what you have to do to kind of prove it negative, right.
And that is such a good point. Thank you so much, Mark, great to have you.
Thanks Molly, No moment exactly, Jesse Cannon, Oh.
No, Molly Cash, Patel and Steve ben and they're going to put us in jail. They're going to be in Gato. I feel like you have like a little sense of humor about this, but as someone who will be in Guintanamo Bay Gitmo as it's called.
For sure, yea.
I comforted my loving partner by saga.
I'm probably not important enough for them to do this too, so that that's probably likely why I'm back toglect this bring.
You to tell me that, Jesse Cannon, I've always longed to see Cooba, but this is not how I want to see it.
Highly confident that when you go back and as a senior member of this administration, President Trump's administration, starting in the afternoon of the twentieth of January of twenty twenty five. Do you feel confident that you will be able to deliver the goods? That we can have serious prosecutions and accountability? And I want the Morning Joe producers that watch us, and all the producers to watch us. This is just
not rhetoric. We're absolutely dead serious. You cannot have a constitutional republic and allow what these deep staters have done to the country. The deep state, the administration state, the fourth branch of government never mentioned in the Constitution, is going to be taken apart brick by brick, and the people that did these evil deeds will be held accountable
and prosecuted criminal prosecutions. Cash, I know you're probably going to be of the CIA, but do you believe that you can deliver the goods on this and pretty short in a pretty short order of the first couple of months, so we can get rolling on prosecutions.
Yes, really incredibly scary stuff. That said, Cash, Battel is wearing a hoodie. He's definitely not all there. We have, luckily for us, gotten on the radar of one Steve Bannon, who uh he calls me Molly Jong, except perhaps he is not a huge reader, so he calls me Molly Young, which I had to listen to, but I think he's saying young. But anyway, for those out there who know, it's Jong like Kim Jong and for that, all of that, the mispronunciation, the trip to Gitmo, you Cash Battel and
Steve Bannon are our moment of fuck right. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and fri to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.