Rep. George Santos (R-NY) is still refusing to resign from Congress and said the “truth still matters.”
“I was elected by the people to come here to represent them, and I do that every day,” Santos told the Associated Press. “It’s a hard job. If I said it was easy, I’d be lying to you — and I don’t think that’s what we want, right?”
The freshman GOP lawmaker has been facing calls to resign after he admitted to lying about his personal and professional background while running for office last year and is the subject of several investigations looking until his campaign finances and possible fraud.
Lee McIntyre, the author of “Post-Truth” and a research fellow at Boston University told the AP that lawmakers like Santos is emblematic of the post-truth era in Congress.
“It used to be that when a politician lied, and they got caught, they were ashamed — or there was some sort of accountability,” McIntyre said. “What I see in the post-truth era is not just that people are lying or lying more, it’s that they’re lying with a political purpose. The really scary part is getting away with it.”
But, asked if we’re now living in a post-truth era, Santos answered: “I think truth still matters very much.”
[Image by Samuel Corum/Sipa USA]
