Transcripts For CSPAN2 SC 20240705

Author Mark Chiusano here with us this evening so little bit about mark Mark Chiusano served as a columnist Editorial Board and sometime podcast maker for newsday whose work has appeared in outlets such as tin house and the atlantic and the paris review combining the very best of boots on the ground, journalism dishy backroom dealings and glittery about gold coast mansions and bodice baring drag shows that feel just at home in your next summer beach. Read his new book on George Santos, for which he received an Honorable Mention for the pen hemingway award is truly stranger than fiction. Sitting in conversation, Charles Arnott tonight is theodore stone, a store owner and former congressman steve israel, a published author. His own right, representative israel opened theodoras books in 2021 and fulfilled a life long dream of opening a bookstore. He served in the us congress from 2001 to 2017 and was most recently appointed by President Biden to the president s committee on the arts and the humanities in his new book, author Mark Chiusano tells the story of George Santos for the first time from humble years spent in brazil to the stunning small time scams employed to ease his slippery climb up this American Society ladder, the fabulous tells a story youll have to read for yourself to believe. And even then its so whos to say so . Please welcome author Mark Chiusano and rep steve. Thank you very much. Good evening. Welcome. Thank you. This is great. Im sorry. George santos couldnt be here this evening. He sends his condolence. Yeah, hes. Hes doing cameos right now. Lets jump right into. Well have a conversation for about half an hour and then open it up to your and then mark is going to do a signing im so proud the theodore books and oyster bay could could host this event. So lets begin with this i want to swap stories with you. Okay. Lets do a story swap. Both of these stories are in your book. Yes. You tell me about your first meeting with George Santos and ill tell about my first meeting. George is, you know, its very funny speaking someone who is a character in the book as well. A way, you know. Yeah. So the first time i met santos was phone actually my editor at newsday said you give this guy call, hes running against tom suozzi. You know, who knows if hes going to win . You know, hes hes launching his campaign. So give him a call. So i call up. I up, i call up santos and. He picks up immediately, which is great, right . This is exactly what you want as a journalist. You really excited to reach someone and he says, yeah, its a great timing. Im launching my campaign today. So i say, oh, great, you know, can i, i come see it. Its better to do these things in would love to get you know to understand a bit about you know more about your campaign you know what you what your what youre all about and he says, no, no, no. Im in florida right now. Im watching the campaign from florida. Its a new york district. You know it didnt make any sense. And so like that was the beginning of the weirdness with santos, right . That from the very beginning he was doing something that. No other politician would do. He also didnt have his Campaign Finance filings up when we talked, which was, you know, the beginning of more weirdness. So and then it just catapulted from there, as steve knows. So before covid, i was to speak at an event in new york city hosted by the committee for a secure america. What better the name of a committee than that . God, how can you argue with that . And i walked in this is in new york city, and i walked and this guy kind of stops and. Introduces himself as. Who i just barely remembered, had forgotten that he had run against uh, he had run for congress two years earlier. Uh, and very nice guy, kind of gregarious, uh, and i shook his hand and then took my seat, but did the speech two days later, everybody who attended the event received an email that, um, somebody had covid at the event. And who do you think it was . So that was the very beginning of my experience with George Santos. Now, one other thing happened. He claimed later on that at that event i announced my endorsement of him for congress i mean, just outlandish and so verifiable. He also he said it on radio, too. And i was just really and people. Yeah. That i had publicly endorsed him that event so number one not only did i publicly endorsement that event but think about this its the easiest thing in the world to check. Its the easiest thing in the world. Bunch of people there. Anybody in that room would have told you no. That never happened. And still that that should give us all an indication of of what went through this guys mind, what he would say, the most outlandish and without any concern to for the truth. So lets talk about a headline today in your in newsday. You were on the Editorial Board for quite some years. Uh, that there are conversations going on, perhaps negotiations George Santos to accept a plea. Now you have studied George Santos more than any other human being, or at least whatever identities that George Santos assumes. Thats right. Where do you think this lands is it possible, in your view, that he accepts a plea and then just disappears completely . So, i mean, maybe this makes me naive, but i continue to kind of keep listening to what santos himself says, because i do think can learn a lot even from the little specks of truth that you can find, and also just the he formulates his lies. So what he has said, he said something very interesting recently that someone asked him how long does it take to recover Something Like this . And he said without a beat, five years, which think is about right you know i think hes that its going to it will take him a while sort of launder all of history right. So five years is probably the that he can expect to spend in prison. This is not you know, hes not going to be hanging out for five years doing nothing and i do wonder if subconscious crassly that was on his mind as well. You know when he said five years so he has that ahead of him of course hes also these cameos right which probably weve seen a couple of these videos where. Hes kind of making money off, you know, giving a message to someone. And so that was totally unsurprising to me that he would do like that because this is whats in the book is about his sort of love of entertainment and gossip and sort of celebrity culture from very early on. You know, this is of who he is even more than hes interested in politics. These are this his real interest in life. So i dont think its a surprise hes doing cameo. I think thats the genre of thing well see from him in the future. Lets delve into him a little bit. And not only him, but the condition of america and the conditions allow George Santos to to get elected, to serve in congress and throughout book you point to kind of the unique converge and so of cultural events and other influences that helped propel him to office. And you write there was something particularly gravitational about his moment in American History. So what was it what was that . That gravitation that propelled him in your view . You know, so he its its interesting looking at the kind of social media record for him because. You can find it. He has a bunch of sort of deleted social media posts that i sort of trawled through before 2016. Its nothing about its like miley cyrus, you know, paris hilton. Hes talking about like. Hes tweeting at celebrities, asking how he can get better skin. You know, this is what hes focused on. Then 2016 comes trump starts running. You know, the 2016 campaign and trump has this kind of gravitational pull on him. Trump is also a sort of outer guy, right from queens theyre very different. Lots of ways. Trump has lots more resources and sort of support, but they both this sort of chip on their shoulder, right. For Different Reasons and santos idolize trump. He also idolizes alexandria ocasiocortez. Right. Also an outer borough native. And he said this this is this is him directly. He would say on the campaign trail that she inspired his run. He even sort of introduced himself to her when they got d. C. In this kind of bizarre moment. He also defended her attractiveness a on a podcast once. So hes hes fascinated with her and so i think that that is not so surprising because if we remember at that moment politics was everything in american life. You know, its like all anyone was talking about. It still is to some extent. But weve of you know, weve shifted a little bit because of covid and all sorts of other kind of reactionary forces. But politics was sort of at the center of american life. And so it makes sense that someone like santos who is interested celebrity in sort of being wellknown in the spotlight, would be drawn to the place where the spotlight was sharpest. So so at a time when performative politics kind of reaches a climax this performer exploits, he steps into steps onto the stage. Yeah, but there were also some operational issues. Couldnt be just performative politics. So one of the questions, of course, is operationally, why werent flags picked up . And so as i, i chair the Democrat Congressional Campaign love the committee, love the people there. What it did they fall short in the Oppo Research the zimmerman campaign fall short in the opposition research. Did the republicans fall in allowing him to get the nomination . What went wrong . And of course, the media, to myself included. Right. I mean, theres a lot of institutions that are supposed to kind prevent someone like this from making it all the way in the book. I call it a bit of a perfect storm, right . That everything had to go right for this guy to win. And it did. The other problem is that he wasnt just lying about a few. He was lying about everything. There were, for example, reporters were kind of poking holes in his story, myself included finding little kind, weird things about him, you know, and kind of seems like that would be, you know, six, seven, eight bizarre things about a candidate whos not a front runner. You think you did your job. You know, thats thats thats all good. Im kind of similar with. The trip obviously each of us come in lots of scrutiny and recrimination and some of it is fair. For example, they. Could have called nyu and nyu too, when i called them, they told me, yes we would have told someone that he did not attend and maybe that unravels this whole thing really early. Right. So that was obviously a they didnt go to brazil. They didnt find the records from brazil either, which you wouldnt even have to go to brazil to get them. But if you look at that report that did, theres a lot in there. They found a lot of things that were very sketchy, like santoss pet that wasnt actually a nonprofit which forms, you know, really the part of the heart of the times. This story once they wrote their great piece in december, they found a ton of things. They didnt connect the dots, you know, and no one did. No one connected the dots. Republicans, least of all. And thats the problem. You need to be able to sort with when you have a serial liar like its not enough to poke a couple of holes, need to connect all those dots and there was also quite a bit of complacency wasnt a sense of this is a district that biden did very well in the democratic district actually its what we call a dplus two district, but a democratic leaning district. And youve got this guy, George Santos lost the last time, doesnt have a prayer. Why spend time and money on this guy hes not going to win . Well, theres this interesting misunderstanding, the sort of the understanding about the race from the National Level was, oh, funny, you know, two gay candidate is running against each other perhaps for the first time in this exact make up in history. So lets ask them about and thats it, you know, and that was kind of as far as people dug. And then they would look at the president ial year numbers and say, oh, well, it looks like the democrat wins. No problem. Tom suozzi was winning here for years and, years. You know, this is a democratic district. This guys not going to win. Obviously, that was wrong for many, many one of them is this sort of coattail of forces that had been building all along islands that we all know years. Right. If looked at any race, you know, kind off off cycle race for the past couple of cycles, you would have said, oh this is not so clearly a democrat district or at least theres not democratic time but there wasnt that sort of understanding of the race. And so instead around the country what democrats were focusing on was january 6th and abortion right. Totally made sense. It worked really well. All around the country in 2022, did not work. So well in a blue state where you had a blue governor who was protecting a democratic governor whos protecting abortion rights some extent. So it sort of didnt matter at that point what was happening, you know, with roe v wade and so abortion wasnt the sort of major issue that it was other places i represented most of the district in my time congress. And i noticed that the district was changing, the ideology was changing the mood was changing towards 2016, when i left the house. So i think youre right, there was a bit of a perfect santoss mystique. These are almost comic in many respects, but he actually he hurt people. People got by his lies and deceit. Tell us about rich isacoff, whos in the book, and and his dog, sapphire. So i spent a lot of time with rich, the book this is the just remind people people know this one but he its the veteran navy veteran who was at one point homeless. Has this dog center says hes going to save you know that was the outlines of the story we kind knew that. But when i called rich to see if i could a little more into it, he at first thought it didnt want to talk about it because was still too painful. You know, one of the one of the things that sort of struck me was that his connection to this dog was so great at this time when hes homeless living in a tent on the side of the road he has he actually has his dog, sapphire and a cat with him as well and its so cold during the middle of the winter and so inhospitable that the cat runs away. Right. The dog doesnt the dog stays him, you know. So hes this is like his connection. This dog and santos sort of does the usual santos shuffle. Its not that much money, you know its like a few thousand dollars hes that you know hes allegedly our staff out of but how was he doing that for who arent familiar with this story so hes got so is running a pet nonprofit i suppose it pet nonprofit thats supposed to go around giving money to people who need it to save dogs if your dog is sick santos will help you with that if youre in need. And so our staff kind of bought he thought okay ill ill i need help to save my dog but that his dog was sick, had a cancerous tumor, was trying to get it taken out. And so santos at first says, great, ill take care of it. Will take the dog to the vet and then you start the santos shuffle where hes like not taking him to this vet and maybe go to a different one. And now he doesnt like rich is sort of talking to him in a certain way and theres always some excuse and thats kind of the thing with santos theres always an excuse ultimately, he does not give this guy rich the money to save his. And so our staff, the dog owner is so poor that he actually has to panhandle the money to put the down. Its really sad. Friend of mine is a dog lover and she said, i love your book but i had to skip the dog chapter because its just too its too heartbreaking. So dont skip it. Its a great chapter. You should read it, but its terrible. Its a its a real victimization. Tell us about your process for doing the research. Get this book contract. Tell us how your research unfolded and what your process was. So i got book contract. And then santos tweeted about it, which is very funny. You could see it on the back of the book. I put it in there. He calls it my latest grift, which is great. And that was basically the last he, you know, participated in a real way in the book. Id spoken to him for newsday. But he didnt want to talk for the book. He did pick up the phone here and there to kind just yell at me about how i was getting everything wrong. And you know what i was going to, you know, like sort of threatening me to stop knocking on doors and things. But so clearly was not going to be participating in this book, which is fine. You sort of dont want you lying, right . What am am i going to what am i going to use from his his lines anyway . So just started talking to people and i talked to over 100 people who knew him lots of long islanders, lots people from queens where he up i found former teachers former friends former boyfriends i went down to brazil a month and talked to people who him when he was dressing in drag and sort of friends down there. So this was the way that i tried to build like a portrait in absence and did it pretty quickly. I had to turn that the last time i could touch the book was in october, and i had to turn in a draft in july. So it was a it was a sprint. Was there any point when you were researching this more than anybody has ever researched . George santos where you found something redeeming about him . Its you know, hes fascinating figure. I think its a bit of a tragedy, you know, because he was a guy who always wanted more. You know, he up in queens in what did actually seem to be pretty poverty you know hes in this basement apartment in Jackson Heights that has rats it that are always kind of scrabbling around. And he wants Something Better and when he cant get it. He just starts lying about it, you know . So hes kind of constructing this american dream, like the dream of the dream, you know . And to me, that says a lot about culture, about the difficulty there is to actually get ahead and the obstacles that are that were placed in front of him. So i do i have sympathy for him and he has no one to blame but himself for where he is now. But hes not in a great place. Hes in a of dark place. The book has been optioned up by hbo for film adaptation. Frank rich from veep, our friend mike makowsky, a brilliant screenwriter and you are the consulting producer. I love political films, of course. We all all of us remember citizen kane. And so im thinking when i think about how film plays out, im thinking about the very scene in citizen kane. First word in citizen kane, anybody remember what it is, rosebud. Rosebud, right. Which tells you everything you need to know about character, how complex this is. So i see george kind of in that scene. Whats his rosebud, do you think . Well, that is the sort of introduction to book is a bit of a rosebud moment. Its basically imagining looking in the mirror and, kind of, you know, thinking about what he and he does seem to have a real insecurity about his appearance and and always wanting to his appearance. And i think the and he does that through ozempic and liposuction. And lapband surgery and etc. , etc. , etc. , which is in the book and is fun. But i do think that thats to the lies. Thats a bit of where the lies from. I also think that the for me, the rosebud moment is really in brazil when hes dressing drag because, you know, its sort of we look at it from afar and its somewhat, you know, we think, oh, he dressed in drag and hes a republican who is, you know, doesnt sort of stand for various lgbt. Q plus rights. Right. Its you know, its this funny irony. But i think when i went to brazil, i sort of realized there was to it than that um that basically he um he kind of what happened was i went to see his, his, his drag mentor, the who taught him how to dress in drag and you know theres that we dont know theres not many ways that we can see what santos looked like when he did this drag dressing. And so i go, i got very lucky and. I was able to see his drag mentor perform. Um, and so she is know at this essentially its a sex club which i had to go to. Um, its very fascinating. My wife tried to come, but they kicked her out because a woman and also an excellent journalist. Excellent journalist as well. Thats why i brought her. I was like i was like, neither speak the language we need to people to kind get these things down. She got kicked out. I go in and its a little uncomfortable because everyones kind of propositioning you the whole time. My translator, who is great and heroic but not so at the sex club, he was like, im not coming. Sorry, good luck. Its like heroes have limits. I know. Even heroes. Yeah. Not all capes. You know, its so i so alone not speaking the language to, like, bad away, you know advances and i go in and what and i wait for performance to start. And first its kind of what youd imagine its a strip show. You know, people are kind of, taking their clothes off, etc. But then the drag mentor on and its totally different. She and i write about this in the book, a fun scene in the book. She is, you know, she comes out in this kind of shimmery red dress, very similar to what santos wore because santos was copying her her hair kind of perfectly made. She looks like beautiful. You know, its shes a man in the daytime she says and a woman at nighttime. And and shes lip synching to this kind of broadway song. And it kind of strikes me its like, oh this is not about sex at all. Its about transforming who you are changing the way you look, changing the person that you can be. And i think thats what sort of appealed to santos about this whole thing was how do make myself different . And he did my final question, then well open it up. You conclude the book with some concerning comments about the future. You discuss the power of ai to revolutionize the art of the con. And you write santos got away with a bogus two page resume and go fund me posts actual photo photos of persons sick dog. How much easier a time would he have had if he could fake diploma or make some heart wrenching pooch videos himself . And then several pages later you describe a scene where santos, after his wave of scandals, is mobbed by people selfies, leading one observer to remark he could literally the president ial race right now unquote if. Santos did indeed write a new chapter in the book of american shamelessness what does america look after . George santos well, i think we have some different paths, right . Theres different parts. Um, one possibility is that this whole experience and shamelessness leads to more scrutiny, more consideration from different and voters thinking more carefully about this, the kind of person we want representing us is this the mode of that we want for the future . Thats one possibility. And certainly where were seeing a bit of that and American History goes in waves. So we will im sure well see at least some extent of that. Um, the other possibility is, um, voters, institutions sort of reject that, that idea and that route and instead kind of embrace shamelessness even further and things become more based on celebrity and gossip sort of entertainment, right and that becomes more of whats in our political world. Um, ends, there are these tools of social media and technology that are very powerful and can lead to good to ferreting out wrongdoing and of supercharging human ingenuity and things like that. Or it can make scammers lives really easy and and that this is happening already that nigerian print scams socalled one of which santos himself has attempted have become so much easier do and are much more prevalent. Americans are losing much more money from them because of the sort of changes in technology. So kind of at a crossroads. And i do think that. Thats what makes this race replace santos so interesting because well see a little bit i think well see a little bit of which path we take in the in the campaign were going to open it up. I just have one more question, if i can. Im, uh, triggered by this. The cover the book cover, kind of an impressionistic art in many respects, kind of an interpretation of an impression mystic person. How much interacts did you have with the publisher on this book cover . Tell us about that process. I went back and forth on it a lot. I love the cover, by the way. So if you could probably see it in copy the impressionistic thing is the word liar and thats what thats the sort of little, little kind of thing thats repeated and well, one of the funniest experiences in this book, because this happened very early, you know, they say everyones gasping, oh, you know, amazing. But you know, so its its funny, i we did the cover before id written the book because this was all so quick. So i to kind of, uh, you know do all the reporting and writing after wed already the cover, but at very beginning the publisher said are we sure that can legally call him a liar, you know and so i had to kind of have it was a sort of philosophical and an ethical and legal one of how can we prove that this is a liar . And in some ways that was kind of the perfect way to jump start the book before we open it up to questions, i want to acknowledge the presence of our extraordinaire new york state assemblyman chuck levine. Thank you for being here. Assemblyman. All lets we have about 15 minutes or so before we begin the signing. So i do have a written question here. Ill ask it, but then feel free. Raise your hand. Go ahead. You want to . Yeah, go ahead. This is your question and answer for the writing. How did santos evade vetting by both parties . Okay. How did he evade vetting by both parties . Think. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A great question. Yeah. Did want to add one. Yeah. So you kind of match that. Yeah. Was there a jerry like the redistricting in. My apologies. Were going to give you the my everyones got hear here have a microphone and was there a german drawing aspect to that district. Sure. Yeah. No its a great question and. An inappropriate one today because we the district was redistricted and today we now got the news that there is going to be further redistricting this district. So its kind of deja vu all over again. You. Yeah, no, no. But so maybe there was a more conservative. Yes yes. Demographic involved there. So what happened was in 2020, this district was, um, was the district that tom suozzi had run in and won but previously and so um, it was a, it was a slightly more democratic friendly district. Then the district gets redistricted, um, its a bit of a long story, but it kind of happens at the last minute. So somewhat too late for a different republican run, right . So it ended up a much more friendly district for republican and santos, whod already run in 2020. Now kind of lucked into that better district him in 2022 and included places like levittown and massapequa that parts of those places that were very, very red and so so became a it wasnt exactly jerry mander, but it became a much more competitive district and just a follow up. Uh dispel my cynicism he said he wouldnt resign. He did hes indicted hes plea bargaining you seem to think he will eventually serve time could the plea bargain involve resignation in return no prison time. So i mean, hes out now. He was expelled so he has to so that was a huge bargaining chip. But youre exactly right that he that he sort of had and longer has now. So i think um he that that is one more reason that hes in this kind of dark place because he no longer has the bargaining chip of of of his office to to bargain away. Yeah i really hoping this wasnt asked answered. I got here late and you wouldnt believe i went through on my odyssey to find this particular building. Its, uh. Its tough. Yeah. Yeah, it was, um. Anyway, so what i was wondering about was the title the fabulist. And one of the reasons i was curious about it is its like the word fabulous kind of interesting, fabulous, and one of the things, one of my reactions to, it was, you know, its its sort of amusing that kind of play on words thats going on there. And i very active in a group that was really hard to get rid of him. We were working on this for a while and one of our beefs, i guess was that its very easy to laugh about this totally. Its hilarious. But i mean, i, i dont know. Did you sort of struggle with that because its a serious thing we didnt have representation on for however many months and yet, i mean, i was glad actually that you used the word liar there. But, you know, fabulist almost sounds like, you know, a creator, a spinner of. Yeah. So no, its a great question. And by the way, were in the heart of the district right now, right. Um, so, and youre right that it was kind of missing it was lacking representation for a while i sort of toggled between those two i think extremes in the book on the one hand it is a while and bizarre story that is often funny and he is i think a i think fabulist worked because he is basically a weaver of tales its slightly different than lying. His mother actually said um thats how she called it. She said, oh anthony in his stories again something that so she i think she thought of them as stories and he often thinks of them as stories, too. Theyre, of course, lies in his minds. Thats what they and hes you know, not the president. Right . Hes one of many members. He doesnt have executive power. There is a level which, you know, hes a joke and now hes gone so theres that. But on the other hand, youre totally right and this is what the book kind of gets into is that he left a trail of victims behind him, personal victims, and he also victimized as voters of the district. Right on both sides of the aisle because republicans didnt know what his deal was either. Republican voters, you know he also, i think, is doubly dangerous or he was when he was in office because of the, um, what came along with his lies because not was he lying about his background, but would engage in these like zany, crazy conspiracies like during covid saying that a cordon sanitaire going to drop on new york or the israel the hamas attack israel saying that, you know, we should have a police state in the u. S. And that we should door to door and that if you waved a flag, you should be arrested or there was probable cause to arrest you. Crazy stuff. Crazy because he then followed that up when he said it with i would vote for anything like this in congress. Okay thats scary right. Because now youre a member of congress. Youre not just some guy scouting in your basement. So i think that is to me what forms the drama of this book that in some ways he gets into and he succeeds because of the wildness of his story, a story that he wielded well. And thats why hes interesting to. Many of us, however, it is very dangerous if we keep going down road. So mark none of the major newspapers picked up on santa background and his character but the locus valley leader of all socalled publications which is a right wing publication manufactured i think somewhere in oyster bay managed to get this story. Do you know how happened or how did it happen that of all news sources it was the locus valley. Yeah, that was the muckraker here thanks totally. So grant lally is the publisher of the north shore leader and and he theres a couple of fun scenes with lally, the book. Um, lally, many of you probably know, ran for the seat, a version of the seat before is very deeply involved in republican politics. Um, so does have sort of connections to the republican political world also had actually sat down to lunch with santos and offered santos advice about his political career. So the north shore leaders very interesting publication because it straddles the line between politics and media. Although im not sure grant lally would totally agree with that description, but it is basically what they do. So. So they were a little maybe more, i guess sort of cognizant of some of the rumors that were coming up. Santos theres fun scene to like i said that lally is sitting down to lunch with him and sort of cataloging some of santos his weirdness and sort of evasions and even lies. So i think i he was personally kind of a little more aware than some were about santos, his misdeeds. Um, that being said, there were other reporters who were looking into santos and writing about santos earlier than the leader was doing my own thing, but also the daily beast. Well, letterman talented reporter, was pulling really, really great documents like new understanding of santos employment history. Well before else. And thats just a couple of examples. But so so the problem in some ways like i said before is that there were people were poking holes, but didnt connect the dots ends that there wasnt follow up on the of small but interesting stories did exist on santos until the times this piece. Ousted him so mark you might touch on this in the book do you have a um kind of analysis on what santos means for uh, Donald Trumps Republican Party 2024 going forward, obviously. Santos not in congress anymore, but his his legacy, as it were, remains so do you have a take on, on where we now . Totally. So i think whats so interesting about and santos is how kind of paired they are and subtly different. So santos himself saw trump as a mentor, kind of followed trump around honestly, he would go to mar a lago anytime that a that a trump sort of universe person was in new york he would show up and like film take a look at them really learn from them sent centers even more sort of far right over his political life. He was always pretty conservative, but became more and more vocally like kind of aligned with the Maga Movement as he. So he sort of became more like trump. Um, the difference, i think is that if you kind step back for a second, its not totally that someone like donald trump would win, you know. I mean he a person that has a lot of money, not as much money as he says he has, but certainly has, like wealth. He had a ton of connections. He had a tv show that tons of people in america watched millions of people, you know, and comes at a time when people are fed up, the establishment not so surprising that a person who has resources like that could win. What is a little surprising is that someone like santos could to have those resources pretend to have some of that background, have no support whatsoever. I mean he comes on to the queens political scene at the very last minute and is nowhere the National Political scene right um and has no money you know hes in debt most of the time hes running hes stealing from donors you know to support himself like literally to pay his rent and someone like that is able to marshal the forces of misinformation and sort of cynicism about american politics. I think that somewhat disturbing for the future of american politics, if there can be more people who have the resources background and frankly, talents of donald and are still able kind of lie their way into politics. This a related question question in your book, do you talk about some of the interpersonal relations he may have had with Marjorie Taylor, for example, matt gaetz and and even Speaker Mccarthy and how he used was he a tool of that of that group of people. Yeah. Its such a its so funny. Im just remembering the, um, you know, i had to fact check this book. Obviously, that was a big part of that. It was very important to me to make this a book not of gossip and innuendo but of just like straight reporting. It just kind of telling the story as you carefully as i could. And so one of the questions that i went back and forth with, with the fact checker was was he friends with Marjorie Taylor greene . I think thats how i phrased it at first, that he friends with her and we were sort of again, were sort of philosophically debating what it mean to be friends with someone, you know. But im just of all the evidence that i supplied to the checker, he was friends with her and he was, you know, part of her movement that he he sort of they sort of were joked with each other on media. And she sort of protected him in d. C. She they were they were she and i call it a sort of shamelessness caucus in the book which is, you know, kind of a little bit of catch all because these are people who are often with the freedom caucus, but not its not exactly that caucus, but people who are in it, not for any real political reason, but just in for themselves. And its for the sort of, you know, to increase their on their own of fame. And santos was right there with them. And he votes very or he voted very similarly with them. Um, and yeah, i think that is i think that was protected by mccarthy in the beginning. Right. And the sort of small, um, but it didnt last forever. Right. Um, it last a while, but not forever. So heres how many my former colleagues and i read books in congress from from right to left, from back to front, first we checked to see if our name is in the index. The washington read the washington so so thank you. It was in the end but i couldnt help but read some of the blurbs not for the book on the back cover, but for George Santos. And so will end before our signing and before lauren gives us instructions with two of my favorite blurbs praise for George Santos stealing puppies from the amish. I mean, this could be the crime of the century, the 18th century, but the crime of the and then from colbert. If you want to learn more about, santoss inspiring time in grad school, you can read his memoir i am malala big hand from our for this very important read i