Bill Maher wants only one thing for his birthday – for someone to explain to him the “phenomenon” of George Santos, who, as the comedian and “Real Time” host put it, “Pinocchio’d his way into Congress and who represents a growing segment of American society — liars.”
“When they film his biography, it’ll start with, ‘Based on a false story,’” Maher joked. “This guy lied about his schooling, his career, his sexuality, his charity work. What kind of family raises a person like this? We don’t know because he lied about them too.”
And Maher isn’t exaggerating. The Republican House representative from New York’s 3rd congressional district has become a bit of a joke among those not on the far-right of politics.
But Maher argues that Santos has quite a game going because his lies have been effective in securing him a place in Congress. “He is the first one to realize that since we are all in our hermetically sealed media bubbles, now you can pretend to be everything to voters in both parties,” the comedian said.
“No one on either side will notice some of Santos’ lies appeal to the far-right: far-right Republicans like being all-in, as he was on Trump’s election denying or making the white power sign in the halls of Congress or claiming he was a Wall Street wonder kind who made millions working in Goldman Sachs, which he didn’t or that he was a luxury yacht broker, which he wasn’t.”
He went on: “The giveaway here is that Santos’ district is Long Island, New York, suburb of Manhattan. Not as liberal but almost always went Democratic. Biden won it by eight points. So how did a Trump-loving election-denying white nationalist get elected in a Democrat-leaning district? Simple. He told them what they wanted to hear too.”
“What do liberals love?” Maher asked. “Identity politics and victimhood. So he said he had a brain tumor and he was one of the first New Yorkers hospitalized for COVID; he said he lost four coworkers in the famous Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016; he’s from Brazil, which is overwhelmingly Catholic, but when he ran in New York, he said he was Jewish and, in fact, his grandparents fled Ukraine to escape the Nazis. That’s right — his Jewish Ukrainian forefathers escaped the Holocaust by being born Catholic in Brazil.”
Lies too numerous to count and yet still, he has his supporters. While many wonder how a guy like that could get elected, Maher has the answer.
“I’ll tell you how — because no one cares anymore about substance. It’s all tribalism,” Maher said. “The only thing that matters is, is he on our team? Is he doing a shtick? Santos is just the first one to realize you could do both-sides shtick and get away with it because people have completely tuned out anything that doesn’t already fit their narrative. Republicans love a winner, and Democrats love someone whose life story makes you want to kill yourself.”
You can watch Bill Maher’s entire New Rules segment about George Santos in the clip above.
