Santos Showed The World What A Circus Congress Is-- Which Is Why So Many Wanted To Get Rid Of Him

“I Use Cosmetic Botox & Filler, That’s Not A Secret, Did Anybody Ever Doubt That?”

Uptight congressmen couldn't handle one mouthy drag queen in their midst

EXPELLED!

311- aye

114- nay

2- "Present"

I’m not convinced of the common wisdom that, as Jacqueline Alemany and Leigh Ann Caldwell wrote yesterday “the stunning turnabout” by McCarthy after the insurrection actually “paved the way” for Trump’s “return to de facto leader of the Republican Party.” Trump hs never needed a dullard like McCarthy get him anywhere. So when they Alemany and Caldwell asserted that Trump didn’t return the favor 3 years later when Gaetz was kicking McCarthy out of the speakership, is there anyone who knows anything about Señor Trumpanzee that is unaware that loyalty is and has always been a one-way street for him. McCarthy was never any more than a marginally useful-ish tool in an entirely transactional relationship, as all Trump’s relationships are, even with his own children.

There is zero chance that Gaetz would have made that move without Trump’s explicit support. I wouldn’t be surprised if the idea to oust McCarthy came from the Trump inner circle. After all, he didn’t endorse Trump; he didn’t impeach Biden; he didn’t shut down the government… what good was he?

Alemany and Caldwell wrote about a call between McCarthy and Trump, presumably initiated by McCarthy to ask Trump to call off Gaetz. According to the reporters, “Trump lambasted McCarthy for not expunging his two impeachments and not endorsing him in the 2024 presidential campaign. ‘Fuck you,’ McCarthy claimed to have then told Trump, when he rehashed the call later to other people in two separate conversations, according to the people.” That sounds like something would say to people to puff himself up in the retelling… but not like something McCarthy would ever say to Trump.

McCarthy has previously grappled with discrepancies between his private, disparaging comments about Trump to others and his continued fealty to the former president. In her new book, former congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) accused McCarthy of repeatedly lying about his relationship with Trump after the Jan. 6 attack. Cheney writes that when she pressed McCarthy about why he visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago, McCarthy claimed that he was summoned by the former president’s staff out of concern for his well-being.

“They’re really worried… Trump’s not eating, so they asked me to come see him,” McCarthy told Cheney, according to CNN.

During McCarthy’s prolonged fight for the speakership in January, Trump assisted him in clinching the gavel by leaning on some of the holdouts, which he later claimed credit for on social media. But during the Gaetz-orchestrated ouster effort, Trump remained relatively quiet. After McCarthy was removed as speaker, Gaetz indicated in an interview that Trump was supportive of his actions.

Yesterday when McCarthy was asked about the dysfunction in the Republican delegation to the House, he said “You have a cross section. You have Gaetz, who belongs in jail & you have serious members.” Gaetz responded tartly: “Tough words from a guy who sucker punches people in the back. The only assault I committed was against Kevin’s fragile ego.” These two are not going to survivor long in the same space. McCarthy would do anything to get revenge against Gaetz. But he’s probably going to resign from the House in the next week.

He has plenty of friends in the House and… Gaetz has plenty of enemies. Yesterday, along with extremists Clay Higgins (R-LA) and Troy Nehls (R-TX), Gaetz took to the floor of the House to defend Santos. My guess is that may have cost Santos some support. He argued that the Ethics Committee— which happens to be investigating him as well (for sex trafficking a minor)— “has done this incredible violation of precedent will do grave damage to this institution for many years to come, because now there is no requirement of any conviction.”

I asked a House Democrat what people think Gaetz’s stake in this is and she told me he doesn’t care about Santos at all but is “trying to undermine the credibility of the Ethics Committee process” [because there is]… a very good chance that they will recommend the [Gaetz] be disciplined as well.” She thinks McCarthy is doing all he can to push everyone he knows to expel Gaetz or at least make it harder for him win a primary election, which McCarthy has the money on the table to finance. Although Gaetz has two primary challengers, neither is a credible candidate, nor is the Democrat opposing him. None of them have raised enough money to generate an FEC financial report ($5,000) and Gaetz has raised over $2 million already.

As for Santos, the House will vote today and I’m guessing he’ll be expelled. Yesterday he told Olivia Beavers “I will do the same thing members that to me and go to the Office of Congressional Ethics, all throughout today and tomorrow and report, a free thing that I think is relevant to the committee for them to look into.” He wouldn’t name them— and he might be making an empty threat to scare people— but he did accuse Max Miller (R-OH) of being a “woman beater” on the floor yesterday during the debate. He also said he’s turned down several documentary requests but that he will be writing a book. (I bet he wouldn’t turn down a musical.) Beavers asked him if he would do reality TV and he said “Olivia, I’m not going to answer that,” with a sigh. He then admitted he would not rule of Dancing With The Stars.

Soon after, Marc Molinaro (R-NY) was on the floor reminding their colleagues that their “future former colleague is divorced from reality. He has manufactured his entire life to defraud the voters of his district and on his choice, for a member of Congress.” Annie Karni speculated that Santos “seemed determined to go out the way he came in: as a scandal-plagued curiosity attracting maximum attention.” Yesterday, she noted he arrived at his 8AM press conference “dressed in navy Ferragamo loafers he insisted were not purchased with cash he stands accused of stealing from his campaign.” Instead of resigning, “he said he was introducing a motion to expel Jamaal Bowman.”

Yes, it was gimmicky, but that was his point. Santos claimed his impending expulsion vote was “all theater. It’s theater for the cameras. It’s theater for the microphones.”

If Congress was theater, Santos was just getting started on his final run as a lead in the play, which he described as his “year from hell.”

Being at the center of scandals of his own making may have been traumatic, but it was also exhilarating at times. Dodging cameras and walking with an attendant horde of reporters at least gave the committee-less congressman something to do over the past 10 months on Capitol Hill.

“If Manu’s not chasing you, you’re really not a member of Congress,” Santos joked, referring to the seemingly omnipresent CNN congressional correspondent, Manu Raju. The friendly small talk continued as Santos settled into his second performance of the day: an hourlong question-and-answer session with a group of hand-selected journalists he convened to talk about his current plight and wishful aspirations.

…Santos said he had finally accepted that he would most likely be leaving Congress Friday and never returning. “I think they have it,” he said of the two-thirds majority needed to expel him. “I mean, it’s the third time, get it together.”

Still, with journalists from national news outlets seated around him, some peppering him with flattering questions about whether he might run for governor of New York, Santos was upbeat. He said job offers were already pouring in, and he planned to write a book. “I realized I’m highly employable,” he said. “They’re offering me jobs left and right, from media to entertainment to public advocacy.”

Santos scoffed at the idea of using the lifetime floor privileges that former members of Congress— even those expelled— are granted. No one should expect to see him back at the Capitol anytime soon, he said, adding, “I have a sour relationship with a lot of people in the body.” On Saturday morning, he planned to sleep in and then pack up his Washington apartment for good.

Which Kitara will leave Congress for the last time today?

The Finale

Traitor Greene, a dumbbell who still doesn’t understand how the House works, is running around grousing about how the House expelled Santos but not “Democrats who are responsible for destroying our country and have so far thrown out a Republican Speaker and now expelled a Republican member.” Max Miller (R-OH), on the other hand, was applauding. 105 Republicans voted for expulsion, bringing their fragile majority to 3. It will be one when McCarthy resigns in the coming weeks. The entire GOP Leadership voted against expulsion, but didn't whip the vote. The 2 who voted “present” were Al Green (D-TX) and Jonathan Jackson (D-IL). The Democrats who voted against expulsion were Nikema Williams (D-GA) and Bobby Scott (D-VA). Almost all the Republicans in swing districts voted for expulsion, exceptions being Derrick Van Orden (WI), Bill Huizenga (MI), and Laurel Lee (FL).