Fabrication-prone Congressman George Santos made headlines and drew widespread condemnation on Monday morning for comparing himself to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.
Being interviewed by podcaster Mike Crispi, the New York lawmaker took issue with those who would make him “sit in the back” of the room, seeming to equate his situation as an elected official under multiple investigations with the status of Parks when she famously did not surrender her seat in the front of the bus just because it was required by Jim Crow laws at the time.
George Santos just compared himself to Rosa Parks. This is who Kevin McCarthy continues to protect.
— John Burrows (@JohnBurrowsCA) July 10, 2023
It’s shameful. It’s embarrassing. Join me, let’s defeat McCarthy, and restore leadership back to the House: https://t.co/uLt2bqWeTX pic.twitter.com/hPyyadLzfZ
What’s getting less media attention is Santos’s lashing out at Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT), who is perhaps foremost among Republicans in objecting to the party’s tolerance of Santos, whom House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and others support.
The Senator took highly publicized issue with Santos’s presence at President Biden‘s last State of the Union address, reportedly telling him: “You don’t belong here.” It’s this particular Romney upbraiding that Santos decries in the interview, asserting it’s Mitt Romney-types who want him in the back of the bus — or the back of the house chamber.
“Mitt Romney…tells me, a Latino gay man, that I shouldn’t be in the front, I should be in the back,” Santos tells Crispi. That’s when the Parks comparison spills out, before Santos returns to Romney, accusing the Senator of living in a world apart.
“Mitt Romney lives in a very different world and he needs to buckle up,” Santos says.
Romney has characterized his own “very different world” as one where truth is still a real thing. The Senator, who was the GOP nominee for President in 2012, looks askance at GOP efforts to treat Santos’s fabrications as mere embellishment.
“Embellishing,” Romney has said, “is when you say you got an A when you got an A-minus.” Romney went on: “Lying is saying you graduated from a college you didn’t even attend.”
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