Talk show host Ziwe has thrilled fans of her irreverent interview style by asking former congressman George Santos: “What could we do to get you to go away?”
In response, Santos shot back: “Stop inviting me to your gigs.”
After Ziwe asked whether that meant Santos would not appear on shows like Dancing With The Stars or Ru-Paul’s Drag Race, she suggested: “The lesson is to stop inviting you places.”
Santos replied with a smirk: “But you can’t, because people want the content.”
The much-anticipated interview was uploaded to YouTube on Monday morning (18 December).
Elsewhere in the tell-all discussion, Santos admitted he had no idea who historic civil rights icons James Baldwin or Harvey Milk were, confirmed he was a drag queen “for a day” and revealed whose baby he was carrying through the Capitol during a viral moment.
On social media, Ziwe’s fans reacted with delight. In response to a moment when the comedian asked Santos: “What excites you most about going to prison?” and then followed up with: “Do you like the colour orange?”, one X/Twitter user wrote: “give Ziwe a Pulitzer I’m so serious”.
Another user felt Ziwe deserved the journalism award for encouraging Santos to say: “Icon” and then responding: “You con!”: “give her the Pulitzer right now lol”
However, some fans were concerned that Ziwe’s interview would only help to give a further platform to Santos, with one commenting: “Can we PLEASE not stan a f@sc!st because he’s snappy & shady”
Elsewhere in the interview, which lasted over 15 minutes, Santos said that he could run for office again, even as he faces 23 federal charges and the possibility of significant jail time.
“Not now but in the future. I’m not ruling it out,” he said, adding that he’s a Republican “for now” but that he could pivot to be an independent “because I think the country needs more independent thinkers now”.
“I’ll be back. I’m 35 – they’re all in their 50s, I’ll outlive them. Each and last one of them,” he said in reference to the current crop of House members.
Santos was expelled from the House of Representatives earlier this month. More than a hundred Republicans joined almost all Democrats in voting to remove him from the chamber.
Santos is one of only a handful of lawmakers ever to be ousted from such a role, following a damning 56-page report from the House Ethics Committee which outlined “substantial evidence” that he violated federal law.
In total, 311 members voted to remove him from the House, easily crossing the two-thirds threshold of 290 – 114 members voted against his removal, two voted present, and eight didn’t vote.
