Fox hosts agreed “there’s obviously something fundamentally wrong” with Rep. George Santos but then they gave Speaker Kevin McCarthy a pass for seating him on two committees.
On MediaBuzz, host Howard Kurtz introduced a discussion about Republican Santos by saying, “New lies keep emerging from George Santos.” Kurtz ran through a now-familiar litany of Santos lies and scams: lies about his college and graduate degrees, ripping off funds for a sick therapy dog, and his supposed investment skills while working at a company that was later accused by the SEC of being a Ponzi scheme.
Kurtz then welcomed Kat Timpf, a cohost of Fox News’ “comedy” show, Gutfeld. Timpf and Kurtz acknowledged that while Santos has become a joke, it’s not really a laughing matter.
“It’s almost like a movie,” Kurtz said, “everything from his mother not being in the country when he said she was at the south tower on 9/11 to diverting money for the dying dog.” As he spoke, a lower-third banner read, “SANTOS SPINS WEB OF LIES: FROM 9/11 TO A DYING DOG.”
Timpf brought up more Santos lies: being a volleyball star and appearing on Hannah Montana. “There’s new headlines every day,” she added.
“We all know those people that lie a lot,” Timpf continued. But Santos is in a whole different class. She said, “There’s obviously something fundamentally wrong with this person.”
“Right,” Kurtz agreed.
Kurtz went on to say that Santos doesn’t usually respond to questions from the press about his falsehoods but that he tweeted a denial about being a drag queen – and then basically admitted he had been.
“I think it’s becoming more of an embarrassment for the Republicans but, of course, he was elected so not much they can do at this point,” Kurtz said
“Right,” Timpf said.
Actually, that’s not quite true. McCarthy could publicly call for Santos to resign, as New York Republicans have asked for. Instead, McCarthy just seated Santos on two House committees. By contrast, McCarthy pulled then-Rep. Steve King’s committee assignments over racist remarks. Not surprisingly, neither Kurtz nor Timpf mentioned that, either.
The two did agree that Santos’ mysterious and suspicious finances “might ultimately prove his undoing.”
Kurtz is hardly a vision of courage on Fox so I suspected right away that Rupert and/or Lachlan Murdoch want Santos gone. Tulsi Gabbard’s smackdown interview with Santos was a big clue but that was before he took office. I felt all the more validated when, while writing this post, I Googled something about Santos and came across this headline from the Murdochs’ New York Post: “Ex-Ground Zero worker demands Kevin McCarthy ‘man up’ on George Santos.”
Maybe the Murdochs are trying to do McCarthy's job for him or maybe just trying to get him to do it.
You can watch Kurtz and Timpf mock Santos below, from the January 22, 2023 MediaBuzz.
