On Thursday, The Daily Beast reported that Fox News has virtually vanished any mention of scandal-plagued Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY) from their political coverage — despite previously boosting him as one of the most up-and-coming new politicians in the Republican Party.
"Prior to the burgeoning scandal that may cost Santos his House seat, Fox News had presented Santos as a rising star of the Republican Party," reported Justin Baragona. "Besides regularly featuring him on its airwaves before and after the midterm elections, the network’s website published multiple 'exclusive' stories fawning over Santos’ 'historic' electoral victory and giving him space to call himself the 'full embodiment of the American dream.'"
Then, virtually his entire life was exposed as a lie by The New York Times.
"The Times was unable to find any records that he worked at either Goldman Sachs or Citigroup, the animal charity he claimed to run doesn’t appear to exist, and there is no evidence he graduated from Baruch College, let alone attended the school," Baragona writes. "Records show he was evicted from multiple properties over unpaid rent, though he asserted he was a landlord. The Times also revealed he did not list any properties on his financial disclosures."
Subsequent reporting also revealed he may have also lied about losing friends at the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando; that he appears to have faked his Jewish heritage and his parents being Holocaust survivors; and may have even faked being openly gay for 10 years as he was married to a woman until 2019.
Now, Fox News is doing its best to keep Santos out of the headlines, according to the report: "Following the publication of The New York Times piece, Fox News and its sister channel Fox Business Network has given the swelling scandal a mere 38 seconds of airtime: a short Tuesday night hit on 'straight news' program Special Report with Bret Baier, according to a transcript search via media monitoring service TVEyes. On the digital side, the Fox News website has published one article about Santos this week — a piece that described how Santos had 'fire[d] back' against the Times."
Santos, for his part, initially tried to blame "the Left" for the reports about his fabulism. He has since promised that his "story" will be told next week, answering all questions about the gaps in his résumé.
This is far from the first time Fox News has gone silent about a figure they promoted after scandal struck. The network similarly tried to sweep their support for far-right rapper Kanye "Ye" West under the rug after he gave an interview to InfoWars professing his admiration for Adolf Hitler.
