Congress
‘They’re shutting me up’: George Santos has a few final thoughts before heading to prison
NEW YORK — Convicted fraudster George Santos will report to federal prison Friday with no signs of clemency from President Donald Trump.
The former House member remains loyal to his president anyway — reserving his signature snark for politicians he views as getting off scot-free for comparable allegations.
“I will not waver in my support for him,” Santos told Blue Light News in a phone call this week.
But does he hold out hope for an 11th-hour pardon or commutation from Trump?
“I don’t think he can,” Santos said. “He’s in a position where he needs to put the country ahead of one man, and that’s just a fact. He would lose support in the House from Republicans who have already capitulated.”
The saga of Santos reaches a new — and perhaps final — public chapter this week as the serial liar begins his 87-month sentence at an undisclosed facility for a bevy of fraud, embezzlement and identity theft crimes. He’s going out with a whimper. New York GOP leaders who once boosted him as the party’s future — then treated him like its biggest albatross — aren’t even bothering to bid him good riddance.
Santos won election to a Queens and Long Island seat in 2022 despite a falsified résumé (selling himself as a Wall Street superstar) and served nearly all of 2023 in the House fighting allegations of campaign fraud (including spending on designer duds, lavish lodging and Botox). His fellow Republicans kept their distance, and Democrats watched the implosion with glee.
The Long Island federal courthouse where he was indicted in May and October of 2023 and pleaded guilty last August served as his reality show set and runway. He faced reporters with performative defiance and dressed to impress in Ferragamo.
A White House spokesperson would not comment this week on whether there’s a pending clemency request concerning Santos.
Santos’ fabulist-but-make-it-fabulous vibe has dissipated as his prison time nears. He said he’s fearful of being targeted for violence in prison as a gay man — and a former politician at that. And while he has managed to reinvent himself in small ways since he was ousted from Congress, including with paid Cameo appearances and as host of the “Pants on Fire” podcast, Santos said he sees “no light” at the end of his incarceration tunnel.
But there are still glimmers of the outsized character who knocked political Washington and New York off their bearings a couple years ago.
In recent social media posts, he raged over Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.), who is under investigation for alleged ethics and campaign finance violations, and has targeted others he believes should share his fate. The obvious subtext: Why them and not me? He’s also knocked Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy and former President Barack Obama.
In his interview with Blue Light News, Santos expressed contempt for the one-time New York Republican colleagues who turned their backs on him, including Reps. Nick LaLota and Mike Lawler. He also slammed Attorney General Pam Bondi as part of a “weaponized” Justice Department, though he won’t say a bad word against her boss, the president.
He discussed his cosmetic procedures with the “Sources Say” podcast, including his lapsed use of “fillers” to smooth wrinkles while behind bars, and saw the disclosures get the tabloid treatment in the New York Post.
He told Blue Light News that his song of the moment is Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” then went on X to post a clip of a particularly relevant verse: “And now, the end is near. And so I face the final curtain.”
He wants credit for the nicknames he’s bestowed on political rivals, including “Senile Joe Biden” and “Temu Obama” for House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, meaning a cheap ripoff of the original. He’s also proud of “Mallio Stock Tips” for his fellow New York Republican Nicole Malliotakis, who traded bank stocks in 2023 while working to address the banking crisis but was cleared of wrongdoing.
Santos at points sounds like the eccentric dissembler who dressed in drag in Brazil, claimed to be “Jew-ish” and accused other politicians who wear sweaters under suit jackets of stealing his look.
It’s all a sort of last hurrah before heading to the slammer.
“I’m not allowed technology at all, and I’ve been notified that I will not be allowed to do interviews either,” Santos said. “They’re shutting me up essentially.”
There’s not much left to say anyway, the one-time member of Congress said.
“I guess I put it all out there,” Santos said. “It’s essentially: sorry. To keep it simple, I should have done better, not for me, but for everyone else as well. Sorry to everyone.”
Congress
Trump apparently shares Tom Cotton’s phone number in push to make Daylight Saving Time permanent
President Donald Trump appeared to share Sen. Tom Cotton’s phone number in a Saturday morning social media post imploring the Arkansas Republican to get behind a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.
“Almost everybody wants “The Sunshine Protection Act” to pass, except for Tom Cotton,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”
The president has spent months personally pushing Senate Republicans to end the practice that sees Americans change their clocks twice a year, cementing more sunlight hours in the evening for all twelve months of the calendar. Cotton, whom Trump called “a friend of mine” in the Saturday post, has long argued that making daylight saving time permanent would leave children, farmers and other early risers in the dark for hours on winter mornings.
One of Trump’s key selling points on Saturday: the PGA tour.
“The PGA TOUR, as an example, needs more Daylight in the afternoon in order to finish their Tournaments,” he said, attaching a letter from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp endorsing the bill. ”Likewise, regular Golfers, Tennis Players, Hunters and, perhaps most importantly, Farmers who want more Daylight to play or work.
A Blue Light News call to the cellphone number went to voicemail. A spokesperson for Cotton did not respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The current version of the bill was introduced in the House in January 2025 by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) leading the Senate version. The legislation would make daylight saving time permanent across most of the country, ending the twice-yearly clock changes. The legislation has been stalled in the Senate since July.
The president encouraged supporters of the bill, dubbed the “The Sunshine Protection Act,” to call Cotton to “let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”
During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, he publicly gave out the personal cellphone number of then-rival Sen. Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican criticized him. Trump, who came to count on Graham as a reliable Senate ally after he won the presidency, revisited the moment during Graham’s funeral in July, acknowledging that sharing the number was something he “shouldn’t have done.”
Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.
Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.
The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.
The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.
“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”
Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.
He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,
Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.
Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.
House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.
“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.
Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.
Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”
Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.
Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.
“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”
Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.
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