Serial liar George Santos got testy when an ostensibly friendly interviewer grilled the Republican Long Island congressman on his litany of fabrications, asking the freshman lawmaker at one point: ”Where do you draw the line between right and wrong?”
The interview on conservative One America News Network started out with Caitlin Sinclair asking Santos about how he has been treated by the media and remarking that Congress is “littered” with deceit before zeroing in on Santos’ falsehoods.
“Where do you draw the line between right and wrong? And as a public office holder, is there any scenario in which you feel it is okay to lie?” Sinclair asked the 34-year-old Santos in the interview that aired Tuesday.
“No, I don’t think lying is excusable ever, period,” Santos replied.
After a few minutes of back-and-forth, Sinclair told Santos, “You seem angry.”
“I am not angry at all. I am,” he replied.
The interview aired as Santos continues to face criticism for lying about his career, his educational background and his family history.
Earlier Tuesday, Santos announced that he would temporarily step down from two House committees as an investigation into his campaign’s fundraising plays out.
Sinclair lobbed some softball questions at Santos at the outset, noting the “deceit, mistruth, corruption” at the “highest levels” of Congress before asking him to share his story.
Santos said he came from “humble beginnings,” was raised in “abject poverty” in Queens and concluded that “people like me aren’t supposed to do big things in life.”
“And when we do, it disrupts the system,” he continued. “And I know that a lot of people want to create this narrative that I faked my way to Congress, which is absolutely, categorically false.”
“I’ve worked hard. I’ve built, ground-up, a career through experience and through knowledge and through self-education. And, you know, I think it’s amazing that I have to sit here and be spoken down to on a regular basis yet again by the media,” Santos said.
Santos admitted to The Post in a December interview that he lied about graduating from Baruch College and working for high-profile Wall Street firms Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.
Sinclair then tightened her questioning.
“Would you say, or is it a fair statement to say, that the idea that ‘the end justifies the means’ was maybe a concept that you subscribe to?” she asked Santos.
“No,” he said.
“I’m just going to say, look, it was a bad decision, poor judgment. I felt the need to do it because I thought that without a diploma I’d be looked down on and less than the other people,” he added.
“As the end goal became loftier, became one of political ambitions, did the exaggerations become larger?” Sinclair pressed.
“You’d have to define exaggerations because there’s so many things out there,” Santos shot back.
“Where do you draw the line between right and wrong?” she said.
“I don’t think lying is excusable ever, period,” Santos contended.
“So what I might have done during the campaign does not reflect what is being done in the office,” he explained.
Sinclair told her subject that Americans are forgiving, but that “starts with a sincere apology.”
“Prevailing opinion is you have not yet shown that.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that, because I have,” Santos told her.
“Well, you seem angry. You seem angry,” she told the congressman.
“I am not angry at all. I am,” Santos said.
“Are you sorry?” Sinclair pushed.
“I’ve been — I’ve said I was sorry many times. I’ve behaved as if I’m sorry … If you want to compare emotions, people show emotions differently. I am sorry. I’m deeply sorry,” Santos said.
“I don’t know what, what is asked of me right now when you ask, ‘Oh, you have not shown remorse or you don’t seem to look sorry.’ I don’t know what looking sorry looks like to you, Caitlin,” Santos said.
“The prevailing opinion out there, right now, from your voters, is that they have not heard a sincere apology from you yet,” Sinclair responded.
Santos said he has come clean about his education and critical details of his resume.
“I don’t know what more can be said other than admitting,” he said. “Is there anything more humbling, humiliating than admitting that on national television, Caitlin?”
