George Santos Tries on a New Disguise: Conservative Renegade

On his first day in Congress, Rep. George Santos (R-NY) sat in a back corner of the House chamber—alone and glum—like a new kid in school who couldn’t find anyone to sit with him at lunch.

But the very next day, Santos seemed determined to find his friend group. Instead of sitting in the back, Santos threw himself right into the mix; he found a spot in the middle of the House chamber, where the most controversial conservatives usually sit. He found a spot—as one GOP member called it—in “sinners row,” next to members like Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), and Lauren Boebert (R-CO).

As the week went on, Santos seemed to be hitting it off on the island of misfit Republicans. One day during the speaker votes, Santos and Greene were spotted exchanging jokes, letting out loud guffaws, occasionally leaning over to whisper to each other. It was a regular occurrence throughout the week to see Santos and Gaetz huddled with each other during votes.

The freshly elected Long Island Republican didn’t exactly campaign as a fire-breathing, Donald Trump-loving, hard-right conservative. But since he’s come to Congress, Santos seems to have found his allies. He’s found a group of Republicans who are quite comfortable, and quite familiar, with being ostracized by the GOP rank and file. In short, Santos has found a new costume—and it seems to be fitting quite well.

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On Thursday, with fellow GOP lawmakers increasingly calling on him to resign, Santos was in the center ring of the hard-right’s hell: on Steve Bannon’s WarRoom podcast. Bannon was busy in court, so Gaetz guest-hosted. And Santos was right at home, claiming he had “lived an honest life” and will survive his growing list of scandals.

“I will deliver 110 percent because that’s what I know how to do,” Santos told Gaetz. “I’m going to outwork any of the pundits and talking heads that are out there saying that I should resign, that I’m unfit for office. The reality of it is, and the case and point here being is, I’m a workhorse. I’ve worked my whole life.”

With that sort of talk, it’s no surprise conservative lawmakers are proving to be his staunchest defenders.

“I really don’t stand in judgment of anybody,” said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), a regular in that middle section of conservatives. “We’re all sinners. I don’t know what’s in his heart. He’s been nice to me.”

“Nothing’s been proven as far as I can tell,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), a lead instigator of the Kevin McCarthy revolt, after going into a lengthy tangent on President Joe Biden fabricating his own resume back in the day. “The American people elected, apparently, apparently, Joe Biden with all his foibles and flaws.”

There’s some political logic behind Santos’ latest alignment with the far right. That crew, at least in the House, is no stranger to controversy. Members like Greene and Boebert have taken heat from their fellow Republicans in the past, dubbed at times as distractions and headaches.

In 2021, Democrats booted Greene from her committees after reporters uncovered threatening statements she had previously made against Democrats. Eleven Republicans joined Democrats in voting to oust her. Boebert was almost censured after making an Islamophobic remark to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

But such scandals only seemed to further endear those Republicans to the far right, where being castigated by Democrats and establishment Republicans is the ultimate badge of honor.

The modern GOP—particularly the far right—revels in subverting traditional rules and norms of politics. Not being accountable to hypocrisy or controversy is its own form of “owning the libs.” And refusing to bow to the “woke mob,” refusing to resign even in the face of clear violations of the public’s trust, is a certain act of MAGA bravery.

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In crisis mode, Santos’ team seems to be brazenly ripping from that playbook. On social media, his staffers have advanced the idea that the Republican is under attack from all sides not because of his resume fabrications, compulsive lies, and alleged campaign finance violations—but because he is a brave anti-establishment truth-teller.

Vish Burra, a conservative operative who has produced Bannon’s WarRoom program, is listed as Santos’ “operations director” on the congressional directory Legistorm. With his boss under fire, Burra has amplified numerous tweets that made Santos seem like a MAGA martyr.

“George Santos is a National Treasure,” Burra tweeted on Wednesday. “This is why the corporate press is trying to silence him.” (That tweet was no longer visible by Thursday night.) Burra also spent Wednesday retweeting messages that called Santos “based,” online slang used to praise politicians, like Gaetz, who candidly and directly appeal to their supporters regardless of political correctness.

At another point, Burra shared a tweet from an InfoWars host saying that the far-right conspiracy outlet “stands behind our official endorsement” of Santos. The host added that if InfoWars was “not under federal indictment for J6,” it “would be there with George Santos.”

Santos’ other staff hires have turned some heads, creating a sort of safe haven for GOP castaways within the congressman’s office. As many internet sleuths noticed, Santos also hired Rafaello Carone, a former staffer for Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), as his legislative aide. Compared to other members, Santos’ hiring has been behind the typical pace, presumably because he could tarnish resumes.

Other members of his staff apparently see it as a bit of a fixer-upper situation. Naysa Woomer, Santos’ communications director, liked a tweet suggesting “[communications] people don’t have to have the same morals and ethics as their employers. This decent, ethical woman did not join to perpetuate a fraud. If she makes the situation better, it will be a public service.”

“Thanks for having my back!” Woomer replied.

It is somewhat fitting that Santos is attempting a rebrand as a hard-right firebrand. Just as he has tried on seemingly every ethnic or religious identity, Santos has also frequently shifted his political positioning from his first congressional campaign in 2020 to today.

The key pattern is less that Santos is a flip-flopper—and more that he appears to compulsively tell an audience what he believes they want to hear.

In February 2021, for example, Santos was interviewed by Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, where he gushed about his presence at Donald Trump’s speech outside the White House on Jan. 6.

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“That was the most amazing crowd, and the president was at his full awesomeness that day,” Santos said. “It was a front-row spectacle for me.” Santos said he did not follow the mob to the Capitol and condemned the violence, but his rhetoric led The New York Times to label him as a “far right” Republican after he won in November.

But leading up to that victory, Santos positioned himself as a mainstream Republican. His campaign’s Facebook ads hit the sweet spot of the GOP’s messaging playbook in New York, focusing on crime, high gas prices, inflation, and the occasional complaint about “wokeness” in schools.

In July 2022, Santos proudly announced that McCarthy was endorsing him. “I look forward to working with Leader McCarthy to take America back,” Santos’ announcement said. “In taking the House back from Nancy Pelosi, Republicans will lead the charge against inflation and for safer communities all across the nation.”

In other interviews, Santos sounded desperate to portray himself as a different kind of Republican, perhaps in hopes of appealing to voters in a historically Democratic district that Joe Biden easily carried in 2020.

“I’m a next-generation Republican and I’m in this fight to bring common-sense solutions to Washington,” Santos told the Long Island Press in October 2022. The main issue he emphasized was, in fact, a core Democratic concern: “I will fight,” he said, “to make sure the people of New York’s Third Congressional District have quality health care.”

Amid all this scattershot positioning, Santos left little impression as to how he’d actually legislate while in office. The Long Island newspaper Newsday wrote in an editorial after the election that he “provided little detail during his recent campaign about his focus and ideas.”

While Santos is trying to win over conservatives inside and outside Congress, it remains the case that very few major players on Capitol Hill want anything to do with him.

Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK), chairman of the influential Republican Study Committee, didn’t say Santos should resign. Instead, he said GOP leadership would have to consider what to do if New York Republicans continue to call for his resignation.

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But Hern indicated that Santos would find little traction if he remains in office. “I would have a hard time working with him on anything,” Hern said. Asked if Santos had expressed interest in joining the RSC—the GOP conference’s biggest internal group, with 156 members—Hern chuckled and said he wasn’t aware if he had.

Some GOP members suggested there is room for Santos to recover at least some faith among his colleagues and constituents. Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) faced his own scandal throughout the 2010s, as he was found guilty of violating 11 House rules, including misuse of campaign funds, misuse of staff, improper spending and more. He was eventually fined $50,000.

But Schweikert has continued to win re-election, including a tight race in a battleground district in 2022. He told The Daily Beast that he appeared constantly in front of constituents to address their concerns.

“I had to go around to every Kiwanis Club… and sort of bring my little slide saying OK, you know, here’s where I screwed up, I didn’t watch carefully enough,” he said.

Schweikert said that such humility went a long way. But he stopped short of saying he was giving Santos advice, arguing that it was up to his constituents to decide whether to keep him or not.

“My personal philosophy is, get off your ass, go talk to your people. And it is shocking how forgiving the American people are,” Schweikert said. “That doesn’t mean they’re not going to vote you out… but at some point, it’s their choice. And if they rise up, you gotta respect it.”

Santos has already reportedly told local GOP leaders he won’t run again in 2024. But he’s also been adamant—repeatedly—that he will not resign, unless all 142,000 people that voted for him ask him to.

Such a scenario appears far-fetched at the moment—as does the prospect of GOP leadership pushing for his ouster, at least until Santos suffers more damaging developments.

Despite promises of a red wave this November, McCarthy was left with an uncomfortably small majority—one in which he can only lose four Republican votes before losing altogether. The limitations of that margin were made crystal-clear as McCarthy struggled to gain a majority of votes for speaker earlier this month. Republican leadership surely wouldn’t want those margins to shrink even more.

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Santos, in that essence, plays a critical role in the Republican conference. Even if he were to resign, that’d tee up a special election in his swing district, potentially opening the door for a Democratic win.

And, after all, some still believe Santos is just the story of the hour. Over the past two years, House Republicans, even in the minority, had a particular proclivity for chaos.

In the majority, that’s not likely to change.

“There’ll be another distraction the next day,” Schweikert said. “I mean, seriously, someone between now and tomorrow will do something stupid.”

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