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. S