Congress

‘They’re shutting me up’: George Santos has a few final thoughts before heading to prison

Published

11 months ago

July 24, 2025

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

GOP leaders cancel Friday votes as House agenda hangs in balance

Published

32 minutes ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Republican leaders have canceled planned Friday votes as GOP hard-liners continue threatening to block legislative action over an elections bill that is stalled in the Senate, according to a notice sent to members Thursday.

Members are expected to leave town after a 1 p.m. vote Thursday, and it’s possible they might not return Monday as planned: Speaker Mike Johnson is hoping to discuss the legislative agenda with President Donald Trump at an afternoon meeting in hopes of brokering a solution that will allow the House to resume voting next week.

If not, the House could join the Senate on an extended recess, not returning till mid-July, two people granted anonymity to describe internal conversations said.

Congress

Raskin launches discharge effort to formally block ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’

Published

2 hours ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is launching a campaign to force a floor vote on legislation that would formally block the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”

The so-called No Carte Blanche Act — a tongue-in-cheek nod to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — also would also explicitly bar payouts from the Judgement Fund, a pre-existing account for settlements with the United States, to people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

While Blanche, who will sit for a confirmation hearing July 15 to run the Justice Department in a more permanent capacity, recently told lawmakers that the administration was abandoning the effort amid bipartisan backlash, he has refused to put that pledge in a written declaration to Congress.

“This is why Congress must act to comprehensively shut down this shameful shakedown once and for all,” Raskin, of Maryland, said in a statement. “The people’s representatives must decide whether to uphold the rule of law and protect taxpayer dollars—or stand aside as this unprecedented corruption spins out of control.”

Raskin is attempting to compel a floor vote on his bill through a discharge petition, where 218 signatures in support will require Speaker Mike Johnson to bring the measure up for a vote. It’s a maneuver members of both parties have deployed with success in recent months due to the GOP’s slim majority — and it’s possible it could work this time, too, with a small number of House Republicans on record opposing the fund.

It would likely face an uphill battle getting the necessary 60 votes in the Senate to become law, however: An earlier attempt from Democrats to block the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” from going into effect failed in a 50-49 vote.

The fund was created out of a settlement from President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the federal government over the leak of his tax returns. While it was purportedly intended to provide financial compensation to individuals deemed victims of “lawfare,” critics worried it was designed to reward Trump’s allies.

Also as part of the settlement agreement, Trump, his family and businesses would be freed from any current audits of their taxes. Raskin’s legislation would also block that provision.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Johnson tries to clean up Trump’s Hill mess

Published

4 hours ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s obsession with the SAVE America Act has hurled Congress into indefinite gridlock.

Senators are gone until July 13 after starting their Independence Day recess a few days early.

Now House Republican lawmakers are looking toward Speaker Mike Johnson, who will Thursday head to the White House to try to convince the president to salvage the GOP’s legislative agenda.

The president’s insistence Congress pass the controversial election security legislation has ground both chambers to a halt.

The deadlock threatens to derail a host of other legislative efforts Republicans and the White House hoped to complete in the coming weeks, including a sweeping reconciliation bill filled with potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in Iran war military funding, billions of dollars in relief for farmers, fiscal 2027 funding bills and the annual defense policy bill.

“I’d like to celebrate victories, not come up with reasons why we failed,” Sen. Kevin Cramer said in an interview, joining other Republicans in venting frustration after Trump scrapped a planned signing of a major housing affordability bill Wednesday.

“We’ve demonstrated a lot of dysfunction lately,” he said.

Wednesday’s explosive lunch with Trump and GOP senators probably didn’t help.

“The president came to the Capitol to do what he thinks Senate Republican leadership can’t do: flip votes on SAVE and nuking the filibuster,” a senior Senate GOP aide told Jordain.

“He left with the same number of votes that existed when he arrived — possibly fewer.”

Now eyes are on Johnson, who has lost control of the floor as hard-liners demand the Senate pass the elections overhaul.

He’s keeping the House in session ahead of his 2 p.m. Trump meeting in hopes of salvaging plans to put several bills on the floor this week — including a pair of fiscal 2027 spending measures.

But if Johnson and Trump can’t reach a compromise, GOP leadership may cancel all votes for the remainder of the week and next week, too.

That would further imperil their plans for another party-line reconciliation bill and the $88 billion supplement funding request the White House transmitted Wednesday.

What else we’re watching:

— JOHNSON’S PITCH FOR RECON 3.0 FALLS SHORT: House GOP leaders are trying to make good on their promise to advance a long-shot, party-line package of conservative priorities by arguing it’s the only chance to pass pieces of Trump’s doomed elections bill. So far, their pitch is falling short. Members who attended a meeting with House Budget Republicans Wednesday argued the REAL ID grant program Johnson proposed was no substitute for enacting the full SAVE America Act. And fiscal hawks on the panel warned they would oppose any budget resolution unless it’s paid for on a yearly basis, and without budgeting gimmicks.

— TRUMP’S $88B ASK FOR IRAN WAR, FARM AID: The White House sent Congress Wednesday a much-awaited request for emergency funding to cover military operations in Iran, farm assistance and disaster assistance. But the proposal could complicate House Republicans’ pursuit of a third party-line spending package, which was supposed to be centered around $350 billion in defense funding that Democrats wouldn’t support. The request for tens of billions of dollars in extra war spending comes as the House Appropriations panel Wednesday advanced a $1.1 trillion base budget plan for the Pentagon. Taken together, the three efforts represent a record-breaking roughly $1.5 trillion military budget, about a 50 percent hike from this year’s level.

Jordain Carney, Mia McCarthy, Meredith Lee Hill, Connor O’Brien and Grace Yarrow contributed to this report.