Hear the bizarre new George Santos recordings revealed by a documentarian
Documentarian Blake Zeff is revealing some of the tapes of his attempt to film a piece about embattled New York Republican Rep George Santos. On Wednesday, he spoke to MSNBC host Ari Melber sharing a clip of Santos attempting to make a joke about a "room full of Jews."
“If you sit in a room with a lot of Jews, you’re f---ed. It’s funny when the -isms start coming out, right? ‘Oh, he’s such a mensch, he’s such a mensch.’ Then they go onto the next thing,” Santos said in the clip.
On Thursday, the clips continued to drop, beginning with Santos' demand to be paid for the documentary, which the filmmaker didn't think would fly with the House Ethics Committee.
In the recordings, Santos tried to get away with it by saying, "So, I was actually given encouraging feedback yesterday when I spoke to them that it's become a very common occurrence of members selling rights to their stories as politics comes more to the front and center of the national stage and public interest. So, it's become a very common thing, and this wouldn't be the first."
\u201cNEW AUDIO: George Santos asks about money for interview.\u201d— The Beat with Ari Melber \ud83d\udcfa (@The Beat with Ari Melber \ud83d\udcfa) 1683842774
Zeff explained that it isn't common for lawmakers to demand payment to be part of documentaries about Congress. In fact, every other lawmaker that he spoke to for another documentary last year, he said, never expected to be paid nor did they ask to be. It was only Santos.
What Santos told Zeff was feigning ignorance "I don't have a number in mind," and pretending as if he didn't know what he was talking about or what he was doing.
"He seems like a person who has a dim awareness that it could sound bad," said Melber. "Is that how you took it?"
Zeff agreed.
"One, when I was in his congressional office meeting with him on Capitol Hill when this topic started to come up, he stopped me and said, we cannot have this conversation office while I'm in this congressional office," Zeff recalled. "We've got to have a separate conversation about this. So a phone conversation was orchestrated where I presumed he was not in the Capitol. Where he'd been given some guidance from the Ethics Committee. Where the potential disconnect occurred was my filmmaking team and I did not think the Ethics Committee was going to give him the go-ahead to take money for being in this. So, we didn't want to give him money, we weren't going to. We thought the Ethics Committee was going to say, 'You can't take money for this anyway.' And we'll get back to making the documentary. I kept saying, I don't think the Ethics Committee is going to sign off on this. Then he comes back, as you heard in the tapes, and said, I have good news, the committee says everything has changed."
Zeff also explained that he didn't know if it was true because he wasn't there when Santos spoke with the Ethics Committee, but it isn't something that he's heard in his history of filmmaking.
"It's entirely unusual. I have not had that situation where somebody asked for a lot of money," Zeff confessed. "One other thing. You brought up the wording. 'I don't have an exact dollar amount.' If you listen to some of the other conversations or the witnesses that have been involved with previous situations with George Santos, even before he was in Congress. If you remember, he was involved with a dog charity, for example. His language was similar where he has this 'aw-shucks' mentality. 'I don't know about the money. This is not really my thing. It's not about the money.' Always kind of leads with that. And this was kind of similar."
The MSNBC host went on to say that these tapes were recorded in Jan. and Feb. 2023, when Santos was only facing a few controversies. As of this week, Santos has been indicted on 13 charges that include lying to Congress, wire fraud and unemployment fraud. Santos denies the charges are valid.
As to the unemployment piece of the case, Santos says in one of the audio clips that he was perfectly entitled to file for unemployment despite being given a $55,000 salary.
"So, the way I look at it is they're not understanding," Santos told Zeff. "The question is simple — George, why was your income $55,000 in 2020, and why is your income drastically higher? Here's the answer to that. I reached a deal with the company so nobody went unemployed and got reduced to, like, a very basic salary just so we could —what we called 'livable wage' in the company — so we could get by. So, long story short I went from 2019 to making $400-some thousand dollars to 2020 my income was 55k. Couldn't be more legitimate. I actually qualify for unemployment."
Melber explained that it isn't how the federal investigators see it.
Another interview with Santos has him dreaming about running for president, but understanding that his campaign finance issues will be something he has to get out of first. Now it turns out there's a lot more he has to deal with too.
\u201cNEW AUDIO: George Santos on running for president.\u201d— The Beat with Ari Melber \ud83d\udcfa (@The Beat with Ari Melber \ud83d\udcfa) 1683843199
Hear the secret George Santos recordings revealed by documentarian www.youtube.com