George Santos likes TV cameras,
even when he knows he'll be asked
to explain his litany of lies.
Tonight,
in an hourlong interview with Piers
Morgan, Santos was confronted
about some of those lies,
starting with
the one about graduating from college
What's the simple explanation for why?
Why would you lie about something
like that? Expectation on society?
The pressure couldn't afford it.
I decided
I wanted to run for office,
although I had built
a very credible business career,
and I just didn't
have that part of my biography
that I could not give any cause
you don't think that you because,
you know,
I just went with it.
I didn't.
I mean, if you're going to make up a lie,
are you thinking at all?
I just think it was a stupid decision
in my part.
Very stupid decision that
I regret every day.
Hmm.
So he has regret about it. Back with me.
Mark McKinnon, John Berman,
Natasha Alford, and Harry Litman.
John, you lie about going to Harvard.
What
just because I was my roommate?
You think so?
We totally were always out team together.
You think so? You're going to.
Are you annoyed with me?
For playing more George Santos?
Are you one of the people who's like,
why are we giving this guy airtime?
Look, it's fascinating.
No, but I think so, too.
I think it's fascinating.
Mesmerizing in some way.
But he's like a lying liar who lies.
And I get that.
I don't know what
he could have said here.
That would have changed anyone's
view of him.
That's not to say, though,
that I didn't find it interesting
watching him try to weave this web.
Well,
we had a really unique new defense today
in this interview, which is well,
I got away with it before.
That was that was that was bizarre.
He said, you know,
why do you do it in 20, 22?
I because I did in 20, 20. No one cares.
That's interesting.
And I'm a terrible liar. That's the news.
Yeah.
I've got a pretty good liar, actually.
Prolific and this court all the time.
So that makes him not a good liar.
Yeah.
He's caught constantly.
And so he'll say
it's like emotion, right?
Like it's
society placed this pressure on me
to go to college
and I couldn't do it, so I just,
I was forced to.
It's so interesting
how he's trying to play on emotions
yet again.
Another example of the, like,
intentional manipulation.
Oh, he's such a great foil
for the Democrats to have him there.
And the Republicans, you know,
they have to keep defending him.
Yeah, I mean, I agree with that.
But if we are becoming
a little desensitized to it.
But the reason that we keep playing
is that it isn't it when you okay.
His friends say
that he's a pathological liar
and you just don't
mean is are a threat
because you're a threat
and his former roommate.
So you just don't
come into contact
with a pathological liar that often.
And when you do,
it is a little mesmerizing.
So here he is again.
This is about lying about his mother
having been in the
World Trade Center on nine 11
I won't debate my mother's
life as she's passed and 16
and I think it's it's
quite insensitive
for everybody
to want to rehash my mother's legacy.
Well, okay.
But hang on.
Here's what I would say to that.
They're only doing that
because you put this
on your campaign website.
But specifically on
the point is why
nobody can find any evidence
that your mother worked
at the World Trade Center at all
ever could.
You just got this wrong.
I mean,
are you telling me that I got wrong?
What my mother told me, I don't know.
Is it possible she misled you?
I don't believe so.
She she wasn't one to mislead me.
Natasha oh,
Alison,
you're putting me in a hot seat here
because I think that is, again,
as you said,
like the pathos of the ethos thing,
like you're playing like
now you're calling my mother a liar.
Right.
And again,
it shows the skill and the regularity
in which he does this.
It's obviously,
you know, really uncomfortable
when you're talking
about a personal relationship,
someone who is not here,
but if he did lie about that, again,
how egregious,
how insulting to families
who did lose someone on nine 11.
This is
this is going to be hard to watch him
in office continuing to do this
reelection is going to be pretty nasty.
I think he's audacious
enough to run again.
I think he I think so.
So now is
I think he's announcing that he is
I think there's going to be a criminal
referral here of some kind
that on his tax
known
for the fundraising schemes or something
that's going to get him
and get him out of there.
Well, I totally agree with you.
And he's got seven different
prosecutors offices
investigating that, right?
Seven. Yeah.
But what's so fascinating to me,
I think that really is the word.
They are separate tracks.
He could get convicted.
He could be in jail.
That doesn't get him out of Congress.
Somebody ran
for president in 1920 from Jay-Z.
Yeah.
So it would have to be
a political solution
only if two thirds actually vote him out.
But I do think at that point
that would give him
the McCarthy
who, by the way,
seems to have known
about some of this,
at least that's been
the reporting says to him, you know, it's
time to go
well I guess
this is a little bit different
because his
constituents seem disgusted with him
or they he perceived
do they're embarrassed. Yes.
You know there are Trump supporters
who listen to his lies and believe them
somehow.
George sentences
constituents are the old
the Democratic leaning district
that that he was remarkable
that he wanted this time to begin with.
It's hard to see how that fluke
would happen again.
It's hard to see how the Republicans
would allow him to be nominated again
if he if he does end up in quarters
he defend himself with his law degree,
though, right? I mean, you know, from
age race, it's a little glitter, right?
Okay. Here's here's another example.
This is where he is
confronted about saying
that his grandparents
were in the Holocaust
in that he be Jewish
This is the one that I'll battle
to my grave,
to the point
that I've already ordered
those DNA test kits.
And I've done four of them so far.
And I'm just waiting for their returns.
And I'm very curious
to share those with everybody because
I grew up with with the story was
my grandfather was born in Ukraine
when it was part of the Soviet Union,
migrated to Belgium.
My grandmother in the fort
in 1940 or 1941,
they fled to Brazil where they falsified
a lot of their documents to claim
they were born there.
Now look,
we're talking about a time in history
where this was a very common occurrence
in the name of survival
Okay.
He's waiting for the
DNA was going to get the DNA results
when we get Donald Trump's
audits on his tax returns.
Which, by the way, George
Sanchez will do, he will do the on
and in this case,
tell us a story that we can't verify.
Right.
Because you're saying that, you know,
the information was changed,
it was common.
There's nothing we can do about it.
We'll never know.
The truth will tell All right.
Well, Mark,
this seems like a good segue
way to the circus.
So tell us about what
we need to know about this season.
Well, never lack of material
you know,
when we first got the assignment,
I thought there be weeks
where we just wouldn't have enough.
I had over 100 episodes.
Now we're on to start our eighth season
Sunday night.
And every week
is, what are we going to cut?
What are we going to cut?
And four days ago,
we didn't know where we're going to be.
And now John Heilemann is in Poland
with the president.
So, you know, it's
it's great having a front row seat
because it is the greatest political show
on earth, American power.