Former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) slammed the New York Republican congressional delegation in a text message Tuesday night after former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) won the seat Santos was expelled from in December, further thinning the GOP majority.
In the text to his former colleagues, except for Rep. Brandon Williams (R-NY), which was first reported by the Daily Beast, Santos wrote he hopes they “are happy with this dismal performance” from Republican candidate Mazi Melesa Pilip “and the 10 million dollars your futile Bull Shit cost the party.”
🟡NEW via @kadiagoba: Ex-Rep. George Santos texted his former New York Republican colleagues to trash them for pushing to remove him from Congress after Rs lost NY03 seat.
— Joseph Zeballos-Roig (@josephzeballos) February 14, 2024
Rep. Andrew Garbarino responded: “Sorry new phone , who dis?” https://t.co/6xr2SY2NHZ pic.twitter.com/XqICWLnc37
As of Wednesday afternoon, the New York Times’ election results showed Suozzi with 53.9 percent of the vote to Pilip’s 46.1 percent. The result is almost an exact inverse of the 2022 race, where Santos won with 53.8 percent to Democrat Robert Zimmerman’s 46.2 percent.
“I look very much forward to seeing most of you lose due to your absolute hate filled campaign to remove me from Congress arbitrarily,” he added. “Now go tell the Republicans Base what you fucking idiots did and good luck raising money next quarter.”
According to a screenshot of the text exchange obtained by Semafor, only Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) responded to Santos’s message, writing, “Sorry new phone , who dis?”
Garbarino did not return the outlet’s request for comment, while Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-NY) told Semafor “NOPE” via text when asked if he had a comment for Santos in return.
Notably, House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) were the only two in the delegation to vote against the resolution to expel Santos from the House in December. Santos trolled those in the New York delegation who voted for his expulsion on X on Tuesday night as well.
To my former colleagues in the house GOP please make these idiots pay you guys $10million back.
— George Santos (@MrSantosNY) February 14, 2024
These RINO’s are the most effective democrats operatives in the nation!@ANTHONYDESPO @nicklalota @lawler4ny @RepGarbarino @Brandon4ny22 @NMalliotakis @NickLangworthy @marcmolinaro
The vote to expel Santos, which broke hundreds of years of precedent, came after Santos had been federally charged with 23 counts in October that ranged from conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States to counts of wire fraud to counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and more.
It also came after an Investigative Subcommittee report released by the House Ethics Committee in November concluded the Santos campaign used donations for botox treatments, OnlyFans, and lodging in Atlantic City and Las Vegas when he had no official campaign events on his calendar.
105 Republicans Vote with Democrats to Expel George Santos Without a Conviction
U.S. House of RepresentativesHowever, Santos became the first member in the history of the U.S. Congress to be expelled over accusations of criminal wrongdoing. Of the five members expelled before him, three fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, while the other two were criminally convicted, as Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) previously pointed out.
Suozzi’s win leaves the GOP with a 219-213 seat majority in the House.