WASHINGTON — Republican Rep. George Santos positioned himself in a major location for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union tackle — an uncomfortably outstanding place for the embattled new lawmaker who faces a number of investigations and has acknowledged embellishing and even mendacity about his life story.
Santos’ presence on the middle aisle to see and be seen with the arrivals was met with a stern rebuke from a fellow Republican, Sen. Mitt Romney.
“You don’t belong here,” the Utah Republican scolded Santos as he entered the House chamber and noticed the New York Republican on the aisle.
Words have been exchanged, it was reported, although Romney mentioned later he didn’t hear all of it.
“He shouldn’t be in Congress, and they are going to go through the process and hopefully get him out,” Romney instructed reporters afterward, his workplace confirmed. “But he shouldn’t be there, and if he had any shame at all he wouldn’t be there.”
The trade was an uncommon lashing by the extra reserved Romney, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 2012, however reveals the discomfort Santos is bringing amongst conventional conservatives important of the rightward drift of extra extremist components of the GOP.
Santos retorted with a tweet: “Hey @MittRomney just a reminder that you will NEVER be PRESIDENT!”
The arrival of Santos has been an issue for the Republicans since he received a New York congressional seat, which helped to ship the occasion a slim majority, as soon as his private story started to unravel.
Santos has acknowledged fabricating, and at occasions mendacity, about components of his training, work expertise and even his household’s personal faith and historical past.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met privately with the congressman final week amid a swirl of potential investigations on and off Capitol Hill. Santos introduced he would step apart from his committee assignments forward of an anticipated House Ethics Committee probe.
McCarthy mentioned Tuesday the state of affairs with Santos would work its manner by means of the House Ethics Committee. Fellow New York Republicans have known as for Santos to resign from Congress. Santos faces different investigations past Congress.
Other Republicans heard the trade and one Republican lawmaker who was instructed about it mentioned there was widespread displeasure that Santos had located himself in such a outstanding spot. The lawmaker requested anonymity to debate what others mentioned in regards to the topic.
The middle aisle mainly gave Santos the prospect to grab the limelight by greeting the president and different outstanding officers as they entered the House chamber and made their manner down the aisle.
As senators entered the House in a line, it was then that Romney noticed Santos and delivered his message.
“I didn’t expect that he’d be standing there, trying to shake hands with every senator and the president of the United States,” Romney instructed reporters later.
Romney mentioned that given the investigations, Santos “should be sitting the back row and staying quiet, instead of parading in front of the president and people coming into the room.”
But Santos, as is usually the case, had his second, changing into for a time the face of the GOP.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”
