George Santos Gets His Back Up When Confronted on CNN About Trump Giving Him ‘Favorable Treatment’: My Critics Are ‘Pearl-Clutching’
Former congressman George Santos — newly-released from prison after his sentence was commuted — bristled at the suggestion he got favorable treatment from President Donald Trump.
Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, Santos was asked by anchor Dana Bash whether he was surprised Trump decided to grant him clemency. The former congressman revealed the shocking manner in which he learned he was about to go free.
“I had no expectations,” Santos said. “I wasn’t even aware until I learned it off of the chyron of mainstream media inside of the prison myself.”
Bash then questioned Santos — who was sentenced to 87 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud — about the notion that he got preferential treatment from the president.
“When he announced your commutation, President Trump praised you for having, ‘the courage, conviction, and intelligence to always vote Republican,'” Bash said. “There are a lot of people who are really unhappy about your commutation because they see it as President Trump giving favorable treatment to you because you’re a loyal ally of his.”
Santos was visibly irritated by the question. Here was his response:
You know what? I say this — and I hate that we have to go down this road. And then there’s a lot of people who were upset with President Biden who pardoned his entire family before he left office in an unprecedented move! So pardon me if I’m not paying too much attention to the pearl-clutching of the outrage of my critics and of the people, predominantly on the left, who are going to go out there and try to make a big deal out of something like this.
“It is known that presidents have the power of the pardon and the clemency — which are plenary, and they’re extended at their will. President Biden pardoned his son after he said he wouldn’t! I didn’t see outrage! I mean, some of your colleagues… there was some outrage because there was a lot of people literally licking their wounds, because they had said, ‘you see, he’s magnanimous and he’s not going to do it. He’s all about the right thing.’ So he lied.
“So I’m not going debate this, but I’m going to say, look, there’s always going to be critics. People are going to like me. People are gonna hate me. It doesn’t matter whoever gets clemency in the future, or whoever that person might be. I’m pretty confident if President Trump had pardoned Jesus Christ off the cross, he would have had critics. So that’s just the reality of our country.”
“All right,” Bash said. “I’m going to skip over that analogy.”
Watch above, via CNN.
