Santos plans to run in 2024 despite indictments and efforts to remove him from office
Plus, Nancy Mace's quest for relevance and new polling which should concern Democrats.
WHAT YOU MISSED
Rep. George Santos (R-NY) says he will still run for reelection even if he’s ousted from office. Santos — who was recently slapped with a 23-count superseding indictment that included charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, false statements, falsification of records, aggravated identity theft and credit card fraud — recently survived efforts this week to remove him from his seat on ethical grounds.
“Nobody said I could win last time,” Santos told CNN this week. “There’s no predetermined outcome.”
Republicans and some Democrats blocked what would have been an unprecedented maneuver, and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) explicitly declined to support the ousting, telling reporters after the vote that members of Congress shouldn’t be expelled simply for being charged with a crime.
The vote failed to reach the two-thirds necessary to depose Santos, with a 179-213 count. The House Ethics Committee has yet to issue a recommendation, though it will release one on Nov. 17.
Santos, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, has been adamant that his anti-establishment bonafides will allow him to remain in office.
“People elected me because I said I’d come here to fight the swamp, I’d come here to lower inflation, create more jobs, make life more affordable, and the Commitment to America. That’s why people voted for anybody,” Santos said.
“To say that they voted based on anybody’s biography, I can beg you this: Nobody knew my biography. Nobody opened my biography who voted for me in the campaign.”
A staffer handbook obtained by the Daily Beast reveals the true intentions of Rep. Nancy Mace’s (R-SC) tenure as a civil servant: Promote the brand of Nancy Mace above all else. The goal of her office, according to Mace, is to create a well-known profile and become known as “NATIONAL NANCY,” according to a memo she drafted in 2021.
Case in point, these new details shed light on what now seems like a publicity stunt: Mace’s support for the ousting of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). The South Carolina congresswoman even went so far as to embroider her white top with a scarlet “A” to designate herself as an anti-establishment martyr.
The handbook also encourages her communications team to send out one press release a day and requested that her policy team write “25 new bills per year,” with the hopes of passing “10 bills out of the floor of the House annually.” All three goals are incredibly unusual for a member of Congress.
One former Mace staffer, who remained anonymous, wondered to the Daily Beast whether they were “a PR firm, or working for a member of Congress?”
“It is not normal for a member to prioritize media and comms over actual legislation like that,” another anonymous staffer noted. “In my experience with and in other offices, comms serves to promote what the member is doing legislatively. In Mace’s office, legislation served to get her more media opportunities.”
POLL WATCHERS
A new analysis by The New York Times found that many of the young voters and voters of color who are disengaged from Biden’s 2024 campaign were substantially less likely to have not participated in the midterms. As such, this constituency appears to be Biden’s biggest vulnerability headed into the election year. And his policy surrounding Israel-Palestine is doing him no favors in that department.
