Politics
EXCLUSIVE: Annise Parker, Lori Lightfoot outline path to victory for Harris
Former Houston and Chicago mayors emphasize importance of big cities
Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker and former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot spoke exclusively with the Washington Blade last week in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention.
Among other topics, they discussed their impressions of the convention, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s path to victory in November, the Democratic campaign’s efforts to mobilize voters in key battleground states, the candidates’ proven track records of fighting for LGBTQ rights, and the ways in which their administration would build on this work of expanding freedoms and protections for the community.
This year’s DNC was the last Parker will attend as president and CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which works to elect LGBTQ candidates to public office, and the LGBTQ Victory Institute, which coordinates placement of LGBTQ federal employees and administers training and networking events.
“It’s not my first convention, but I have to say it is the most exciting and energetic convention,” she said. “There’s an energy around Kamala — the surprise, the sense of change and possibility that I’m not used to, and it feels really great.”
Prior to President Joe Biden’s announcement on July 21 that he would step aside to clear the path for Harris’s nomination, Parker said that “respectfully, some of us were slogging through” because “we knew he was the better candidate than Donald Trump, and we were going to support him because of that reason.”
“Now we’re excited because we have somebody new and different,” she said, “a shift in personality and also a shift in energy, and that works its way through the campaign.”
Lightfoot agreed that “there is a tremendous amount of energy and excitement,” but hedged that “if that doesn’t translate to butts at the polls, it doesn’t matter.”
“So, everywhere I’m going and talking to folks, it’s like, this is great; step one, get the base reunified, because it was very fractured, I think, even a month ago,” she said. “The level of excitement, consolidating the votes for the nomination, positive press, the amount of money that’s being raised — that’s all good stuff, but it’s got to have a significant ground game, because people need to show up.”
Lightfoot noted that folks from Chicago and elsewhere in Illinois, a deep blue city in a largely blue state, are traveling to Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota because “no one wins in November unless they win the Midwest, so we’re reaching out to our friends, our neighbors, and saying, ‘you got to plug in; you got to pay attention, educate yourself and get to the polls.'”
Parker echoed those remarks. “Our job is to bring in those who are not the regular Democratic rank and file,” she said, “the independents, and even disaffected Republicans, and there are a lot of those out there.”
The former mayors agreed that Trump’s narrow electoral college win in 2016 was made possible in part by the decision of many voters to stay home because they believed Hillary Clinton’s victory was not just likely — but certain.
The 2024 presidential election will be very close. Harris’s emergence as the nominee has put some states in play for the Democrats that were out of reach when Biden was leading the ticket, but even as she pulls ahead, recent polls in key battlegrounds show the candidates are in a near-dead heat.
In this race, Parker is counting on the “push-up” effect. Down-ballot candidates can expect a boost from Harris, she said, but likewise “we’re going to turn people out to vote for their school board candidates,” or in city council and statehouse races “and they’re going to vote at the top of the ticket as well.”
Lightfoot said that part of the task before the Harris-Walz campaign will be to engage a “broad cross section of Americans who, frankly, are still disengaged, disenchanted, angry, frustrated, scared” and otherwise struggling as they recover from the “traumatic shocks” of COVID.
The pandemic worsened preexisting skepticism toward the government, she said, so the candidates must “talk about why they are the solution to a lot of the concerns that the average voter has” particularly by “speaking to those incredibly important swing voters in the seven or eight states that are in play.”
First they must win
As Democrats, Lightfoot said, “we have a great propensity, sometimes,” of “trying to make the perfect be the enemy of the good” but “we need to win first, right?”
“This is one of those Bill Clinton-Al Gore moments back in the ’90s,” she said. “It’s like, I get it, I get it, but let me get there first, let me win, and then we can accomplish great things together.”
Parker and Lightfoot, both out lesbians, agreed that LGBTQ issues are not necessarily what Harris and Walz need to be talking about on the campaign trail with little more than two months until the election.
Rather, the focus must be on “the issues [that are] top of mind for the American voter,” Parker said, because the candidates “need to be talking to that great middle America out there that needs to show up to vote.”
Of course, she and Lightfoot said, it is important for LGBTQ folks, especially those who have a seat at the table, to make sure the community’s policy agenda is understood by the candidates, and likewise for the campaign to remind voters of Harris and Walz’s pro-LGBTQ backgrounds — even if, as Parker said, “that’s not how she’s going to win this election, talking about that.”
With respect to their commitments to advancing LGBTQ rights, the former mayors repeatedly stressed that the vice president and the governor have nothing to prove. “They don’t have to promise anything,” Parker said. “They’ve already done it.”
“We are working with folks who have a proven track record of understanding the importance of our community,” Lightfoot said. “They’ve hired, they’ve appointed, they get it.”
Expanding freedoms and protections for LGBTQ people has been a through line of Harris’s career in public service. For example, well before it would have been politically advantageous, she fought for same-sex marriage when serving as district attorney of San Francisco and attorney general of California, defying legal restrictions to perform some of the country’s first gay and lesbian weddings.
Additionally, the past four years have cemented the Biden-Harris administration’s legacy as the most pro-LGBTQ presidency in American history, in no small part thanks to the work of the vice president.
And for his part, practically from the moment he was chosen as Harris’s running mate, Walz has been attacked by Trump and his conservative allies over his pro-trans record as governor. Before he entered public life, Walz was a high school teacher and football coach who served as faculty adviser to the student-led gay-straight alliance club in the 1990s, an anecdote that was shared by Harris when she appeared with him for the first time on stage at a rally on Aug. 6.
The campaign has also made outreach to and engagement with LGBTQ constituents a major priority. During an Aug. 21 meeting of the LGBTQ Caucus at the DNC, Harris for President National LGBTQ+ Engagement Director Sam Alleman outlined plans for additional activity and investment in Out for Harris, the LGBTQ national organizing push.
Putting aside the looming election, when asked whether there are specific LGBTQ policies she would like to see in a Harris-Walz administration, Parker said those conversations will be possible in earnest only if Democrats are able to win not just the White House but also flip control of the House and hold onto their majority in the Senate.
Then, she said, “we’re going to want to make sure” that LGBTQ appointees are picked to serve in key positions throughout the federal government, noting that historic numbers — 15 percent — were nominated and confirmed under the Biden-Harris administration.
“I expect that to continue,” Parker said.
Congress will play a critically important role in effectuating the Harris-Walz agenda, including on LGBTQ issues, she said, but policy is implemented “in the departments and in the bowels of government” which is why representation in these spaces matters, too.
The Democratic candidates’ support for LGBTQ rights is of a piece with the positive and inclusive spirit of their bid for the White House, which stands in stark contrast with the approach seen from their opponents.
“There is a joy, truly, about Kamala Harris’s campaign,” Parker said, and while it is unclear whether and to what extent the good vibes will be sustained until Election Day, “you get the sense that she’s really, emotionally, she’s all in it.”
Lightfoot agreed. “What happened within the next 24 hours,” after Biden endorsed his vice president to run in his stead, “no one could have predicted it. No one could have scripted it. It was this organic movement and coalescing around her with really genuine enthusiasm.”
The former Chicago mayor also praised Harris’s digital team. “Their social media game is off the charts,” she said. “They are hitting home runs every single day,” maintaining the vice president’s positive message while trolling Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio.
Meanwhile, as he has done in previous campaigns, Trump “hurls insults and slurs,” deploying a strategy of “constant attack — disrespecting, vilifying people on the other side,” Parker said. “It’s negative, negative, negative.”
Harris “doesn’t have to do that,” she said. Moreover, “people don’t want her to do that.”
Lightfoot agreed. “It would be easy” for the vice president “to roll in the mud with with Trump, and my money’s on her, but she hasn’t done that — what she’s done is addressed the criticism to some extent, but then immediately pivoted to a more positive, forward thinking message.”
The approach is “clearly throwing off the Trump world,” Lightfoot said. “I love it. I think it’s exactly what people want to hear. They don’t want to see, you know, WWE in their presidential candidates.”
Voters “want somebody who is strong, who is ready and up for the task,” but — at least just as importantly — they want a leader sho is “always making sure that they are tuning in with those people who work hard every day,” she said.
Parker said Harris made “a great choice” picking Walz as her running mate, adding,” I’ve met him before, and he’s the real deal.”
Nodding in agreement, Lightfoot said, “I grew up in one of those small towns where football was everything” and “it’s unimaginable, unimaginable, that the football coach” would have publicly embraced the high school’s LGBTQ students as Walz did, including by chairing the GSA club.
Tapping into the power of cities and mayors
Conservatives are fond of characterizing Democrats from progressive coastal cities, especially those from San Francisco, as out of touch elitists whose values do not align with those held by the overwhelming majority of American voters.
Nancy Pelosi, the longtime Democratic leader whose congressional district includes most of the city, balked when Vance sought to smear not only Harris but also Walz, her former House colleague, as a “San Francisco-style liberal,” a label that the former speaker has co-opted for herself and worn as a badge of honor.
Not only was the governor beloved by colleagues when he represented Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, but he was also widely seen as a moderate, she said. “I can say this with some authority: He’s not on the left,” Pelosi told NBC News. “He was right down the middle, right down the middle in his values and leverage in the debate in the Congress.” (As it happens, Walz had never set foot in San Francisco before last month.)
Parker and Lightfoot agreed the matter strikes at an issue that is deeper than misleading political rhetoric targeting the 2024 Democratic candidates.
“Americans live in the big cities across the country,” the former Houston mayor said. “We are a powerful voting bloc, but we’re also where people’s lives happen. Trump has built this mythology — there’s tires burning in the streets, barricades and riots everywhere, there’s armed camps.”
“He’s been attacking cities,” she said, and we need to reclaim them.
Together, America’s largest metropolises are “like 80 percent of the GDP,” Lightfoot added. “So, why are you attacking the economic engine of our country? Why are you attacking the places where innovation happens? Of all the good things that come in America, a huge percentage of that comes from big cities.”
Not only has Trump characterized D.C. as a crime-ridden hellscape, but he has also pledged to “take over” the district — potentially exercising the authority he would have, if elected, to put the police force under his control and arrogate powers that are exercised by the D.C. Council and the mayor.
“I think Mayor [Muriel] Bowser has done a yeoman job under difficult circumstances where she doesn’t get to make her own calls, because she’s got to worry about folks in the federal government, and particularly in Congress, second guessing everything that the good citizens of D.C. do,” said Lightfoot, who noted that Bowser is a close personal friend.
Cities “are the heartbeat of this country, and I think a leader who says, ‘I want to bring everybody together, I want to be the leader of the free world,’ — well, you got to start with being a leader of cities and recognizing our importance on every single issue domestically,” she said.
Parker and Lightfoot agreed that the Harris-Walz campaign would be well served in the election by reclaiming cities.
“All things local,” Lightfoot said. The chief executives of municipalities are some of “the best surrogates to get the message out, particularly mayors of the towns like those that we represented.”
“If the [Harris-Walz] campaign is smart, and it’s getting there, it’s going to galvanize mayors all across the country to be those surrogates,” she said. “Mayors like me who governed under Trump, governed under Biden and Harris, and [can speak to] the sea change and the difference in how cities in particular were helped and recognized and respected in a way that we didn’t see in the previous four years in the previous administration.”
Parker agreed. “Mayors can talk about their cities. Mayors are the public face and the voice of their cities.”
This does not mean one should avoid talking about the challenges facing places like D.C. or Chicago, but there must be an understanding that “cities have to be strong and healthy, or America’s not strong and healthy,” she said.
Next up for Victory
Parker announced her planned departure from Victory at the beginning of February, though she will continue leading the organizations past the election and through the end of 2024 or “until I find my successor.”
She told the Blade that “the goal” is to choose a new president and CEO in September.
“I’m sure that they’re going to find somebody amazing to step in,” Parker said, but in the meantime, “I’m going to leave it in good shape, I can tell you that.”
Over Parker’s six-year tenure, annual budgets were doubled, contributions to candidates served by the Victory Fund were increased fourfold, and the Victory Institute’s David Mixner Political Appointments Program was relaunched to advocate for LGBTQ representation in government.
Strikingly, during this time the number of LGBTQ officials served by Victory swelled from 450 to more than 1,300. “I would love to take credit for that, but some of it is truly the Trump effect,” she said. “The more we are attacked as a community, the more people want to stand up and say, ‘no, I’m not going to put up with this.'”
“The work of Victory has continued for more than 30 years,” Parker said. “The work is still there, it’s still important, representation still matters.”
“We need to elect tens of thousands more [LGBTQ] people to achieve parity,” she said, because even though the number of out elected officials has more than doubled in six years, 1,300 is only 0.25 percent of the “hundreds of thousands of open positions.”
Lightfoot added, “her leadership has been phenomenal. Phenomenal. I mean, really, the organization is stronger now than when she found it. It’s going to be stronger when she leaves it. The amount of things that we’ve been able to accomplish — the programmatic gains, the financial gains, these would not have happened without Mayor Parker.”
Congress
Advocates say MTG bill threatens trans youth, families, and doctors
The “Protect Children’s Innocence” Act passed in the House
Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has a long history of targeting the transgender community as part of her political agenda. Now, after announcing her resignation from the U.S. House of Representatives, attempting to take away trans rights may be the last thing she does in her official capacity.
The proposed legislation, dubbed “Protect Children’s Innocence Act” is among the most extreme anti-trans measures to move through Congress. It would put doctors in jail for up to 10 years if they provide gender-affirming care to minors — including prescribing hormone replacement therapy to adolescents or puberty blockers to younger children. The bill also aims to halt gender-affirming surgeries for minors, though those procedures are rare.
Greene herself described the bill on X, saying if passed, “it would make it a Class C felony to trans a child under 18.”
According to KFF, a nonpartisan source for health policy research, polling, and journalism, 27 states have enacted policies limiting youth access to gender-affirming care. Roughly half of all trans youth ages 13–17 live in a state with such restrictions, and 24 states impose professional or legal penalties on health care practitioners who provide that care.
Greene has repeatedly introduced the bill since 2021, the year she entered Congress, but it failed to advance. Now, in exchange for her support for the National Defense Authorization Act, the legislation reached the House floor for the first time.
According to the 19th, U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the first trans member of Congress, rebuked Republicans on the Capitol steps Wednesday for advancing anti-trans legislation while allowing Affordable Care Act tax credits to expire — a move expected to raise health care costs for millions of Americans.
“They would rather have us focus in and debate a misunderstood and vulnerable one percent of the population, instead of focusing in on the fact that they are raiding everyone’s health care,” McBride said. “They are obsessed with trans people … they are consumed with this.”
Polling suggests the public largely opposes criminalizing gender-affirming care.
A recent survey by the Human Rights Campaign and Global Strategy Group found that 73 percent of voters in U.S. House battleground districts oppose laws that would jail doctors or parents for providing transition-related care. Additionally, 77 percent oppose forcing trans people off medically recommended medication. Nearly seven in 10 Americans said politicians are not informed enough to make decisions about medical care for trans youth.
The bill passed the House and now heads to the U.S. Senate for further consideration.
According to reporting by Erin Reed of Erin In The Morning, three Democrats — U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas and Don Davis of North Carolina — crossed party lines to vote in favor of the felony ban, joining 213 Republicans. A total of 207 Democrats voted against the bill, while three lawmakers from both parties abstained.
Advocates and lawmakers warned the bill is dangerous and unprecedented during a multi-organizational press call Tuesday. Leaders from the Human Rights Campaign and the Trevor Project joined U.S. Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Dr. Kenneth Haller, and parents of trans youth to discuss the potential impact of restrictive policies like Greene’s — particularly in contrast to President Donald Trump’s leniency toward certain criminals, with more than 1,500 pardons issued this year.
“Our MAGA GOP government has pardoned drug traffickers. They’ve pardoned people who tried to overthrow the government on January 6, but now they want to put pediatricians and parents into a jail cell for caring for their kids,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson. “No one asked for Marjorie Taylor Greene or Dan Crenshaw or any politician to be in their doctor’s office, and they should mind their own business.”
Balint, co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, questioned why medical decisions are being made by lawmakers with no clinical expertise.
“Parents and doctors already have to worry about state laws banning care for their kids, and this bill would introduce the risk of federal criminal prosecution,” Balint said. “We’re talking about jail time. We’re talking about locking people up for basic medical care, care that is evidence-based, age-appropriate and life-saving.”
“These are decisions that should be made by doctors and parents and those kids that need this gender-affirming care, not certainly by Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
Haller, an emeritus professor of pediatrics at St. Louis University School of Medicine, described the legislation as rooted in ideology rather than medicine.
“It is not science, it is just blind ideology,” Haller said.
“The doctor tells you that as parents, as well as the doctor themselves, could be convicted of a felony and be sentenced up to 10 years in prison just for pursuing a course of action that will give your child their only chance for a happy and healthy future,” he added. “It is not in the state’s best interests, and certainly not in the interests of us, the citizens of this country, to interfere with medical decisions that people make about their own bodies and their own lives.”
Haller’s sentiment is echoed by doctors across the country.
The American Medical Association, the nation’s largest organization that represents doctors across the country in various parts of medicine has a longstanding support for gender-affirming care.
“The AMA supports public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender dysphoria and opposes the denial of health insurance based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” their website reads.
Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, senior vice president of public engagement campaigns at the Trevor Project, agreed.
“In Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill [it] even goes so far as to criminalize and throw a parent in jail for this,” Heng-Lehtinen said. “Medical decisions should be between patients, families, and their doctors.”
Rachel Gonzalez, a parent of a transgender teen and LGBTQ advocate, said the bill would harm families trying to act in their children’s best interests.
“No politician should be in any doctor’s office or in our living room making private health care decisions — especially not Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Gonzalez said. “My daughter and no trans youth should ever be used as a political pawn.”
Other LGBTQ rights activists also condemned the legislation.
Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, called the bill “an abominable attack on the transgender community.”
“Marjorie Taylor Greene’s last-ditch effort to bring her 3-times failed bill to a vote is an abominable attack on the transgender community and further cements a Congressional career defined by hate and bigotry,” they said. “We are counting down the days until she’s off Capitol Hill — but as the bill goes to the floor this week, our leaders must stand up one last time to her BS and protect the safety of queer kids and medical providers. Full stop.”
Hack added that “healthcare is a right, not a privilege” in the U.S., and this attack on trans healthcare is an attack on queer rights altogether.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene has no place in deciding what care is necessary,” Hack added. “This is another attempt to legislate trans and queer people out of existence while peddling an agenda rooted in pseudoscience and extremism.”
U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, also denounced the legislation.
“This bill is the most extreme anti-transgender legislation to ever pass through the House of Representatives and a direct attack on the rights of parents to work with their children and their doctors to provide them with the medical care they need,” Takano said. “This bill is beyond cruel and its passage will forever be a stain on the institution of the United States Congress.”
The bill is unlikely to advance in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to pass.
Politics
LGBTQ Democrats say they’re ready to fight to win in 2026
DNC winter meetings took place last weekend in Los Angeles
The Democratic National Committee held its annual winter meetings in Downtown Los Angeles over the weekend, and queer Democrats showed up with a clear message for the national organization: don’t abandon queer and transgender people.
Following last year’s disastrous presidential and congressional elections, many influential pundits and some powerful lawmakers called on Democrats to distance the party from unpopular positions on trans rights, in order to win swing districts by wooing more conservative voters.
But members of the DNC’s LGBTQ Caucus say that’s actually a losing strategy.
“There are still parts of our party saying we need to abandon trans people in order to win elections, which is just not provable, actually. It’s just some feelings from some old consultants in DC,” LGBTQ Caucus Chair Sean Meloy says.
Some national Democrats are already backtracking from suggestions that they walk back on trans rights.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom grabbed national attention in March when he suggested that it was “deeply unfair” for trans girls to play in women’s sports. But last week, he doubled down on support for trans rights, claiming to have signed more trans-rights legislation than any governor in the country, and entering into feuds on X with Elon Musk and Nicki Minaj over his support for trans kids.
Democrats are also clearly feeling the wind in their sails recently after major election victories in Virginia and New Jersey last month, as well as victories in dozens of local and state legislative elections across the country in 2025.
“[Abigail] Spanberger in Virginia didn’t win by dodging the trans question. She won by attacking it, confronting it, and that’s how she got ahead,” says Vivian Smotherman, a trans activist and at-large member of the DNC’s LGBTQ Caucus.
“Trans people are not a problem. We are a resource,” Smotherman says. “For my community, surviving into adulthood is not a guarantee, it’s an accomplishment. You don’t walk through a survival gauntlet without learning things … I’m not begging the DNC to protect my community. I’m here to remind you that we are the warriors tempered by fire, and we are fully capable of helping this party win.”
At its own meeting on Friday, the LGBTQ Caucus announced several new initiatives to ensure that queer and trans issues stay top of mind for the DNC as it gears up for the midterm elections next year.
One plan is to formalize the DNC’s Trans Advisory Board as distinct from the LGBTQ Caucus, to help introduce candidates across the country to trans people and trans issues.
“One in three people in this country know a trans person. Two-thirds of Americans don’t think they do,” Smotherman says. “So the real problem is not being trans, it’s that you don’t know us. You cannot authentically support a trans person if you’ve never met one.
“That’s why my first goal with this Trans Advisory Board is to host a monthly Meet a Trans Person webinar. Not as a spectacle, as a debate, but as a human connection, and I will be charging every state chair with asking every one of their candidates up and down the board if they know a trans person. And if that person doesn’t know a trans person, I’m gonna have that state chair put them on that webinar.”
The LGBTQ caucus is also opening up associate membership to allies who do not identify as LGBTQ, in order to broaden support and connections over queer issues.
It’s also preparing for the inevitable attacks Republicans will throw at queer candidates and supporters of LGBTQ issues.
“These attacks are going to come. You have to budget money proactively. You have to be ready to fight,” Meloy says. “There are some local party chairs who don’t want to recruit LGBTQ candidates to run because these issues might come up, right? That’s an absolutely ludicrous statement, but there are still people who need support in how to be ready and how to respond to these things that inevitably come.”
“The oldest joke is that Democrats don’t have a spine. And when they come after us, and we do not reply, we play right into that.”
Meloy also alluded to anti-LGBTQ tropes that queer people are out to harm children, and said that Democrats should be prepared to make the case that it’s actually Republicans who are protecting child abusers – for example, by suppressing the Epstein files.
“They are weak on this issue. Take the fight, empower your parties to say, ‘These people have nothing to stand on,’” Meloy says.
Congress
EXCLUSIVE: George Santos speaks out on prison, Trump pardon, and more
Not interested in political comeback: ‘I made so many poor choices’
It has been just over two years since George Santos — the disgraced politician who once represented New York’s Third District — was expelled from Congress. Now, Santos is breaking his silence about his expulsion, imprisonment, subsequent pardon, what he believes he did wrong, and allegations regarding immigration fraud.
In 2022, Santos was elected to represent the Long Island communities of North Hempstead, Glen Cove, and Oyster Bay, one of the wealthiest congressional districts in the United States. This week, he sat in the lobby of the Hyatt Capitol Hill, just blocks from his former office in the Cannon House Office Building, to speak with the Washington Blade about how he became the center of one of the most outrageous political scandals in modern U.S. history. Despite the media scrutiny surrounding his lies, criminal convictions, and eventual pardon by President Donald Trump, Santos appeared relaxed during the interview, speaking freely about his experiences, admissions, and grievances.
Scope of Santos’s misconduct
Many journalists have struggled to verify George Santos’s personal history and professional resume. Numerous claims he made during his campaigns have been debunked or walked back, particularly regarding his personal and professional history since 2020.
Santos gained media attention for claiming Jewish heritage despite being raised Catholic and identifying as Catholic. He said his maternal grandfather grew up Jewish, converted to Catholicism before the Holocaust, and raised his children Catholic. Investigations, however, show his maternal grandparents were born in Brazil, not Ukraine or Belgium. Santos described himself variously as “Jew-ish,” “half Jewish,” a non-observant Jew, a “proud American Jew,” and a “Latino Jew.”
He also misrepresented his mother’s professional history, claiming she was “the first female executive at a major financial institution.” Records, including her 2003 visa application, show she had not been in the U.S. since 1999 and listed her occupation as a domestic worker.
Santos further fabricated his educational history, claiming a bachelor’s degree in finance and economics from Baruch College, where he said he graduated near the top of his class. Investigations revealed he never graduated. He also falsely claimed an MBA from New York University on official campaign documents — a misrepresentation that later became grounds for his expulsion. Santos later blamed the lies on a local Republican Party staffer.
His professional claims were also fraudulent. Santos called himself a “seasoned Wall Street financier and investor” and claimed to have worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. Both companies reported no record of his employment. When pressed, Santos admitted he had used a “poor choice of words,” eventually describing his experience as “limited partnerships.” He also falsely claimed to have lost four employees in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando; no victims had any connection to companies listed in his biography.
Santos misrepresented his residences during his 2020 campaign. He listed an Elmhurst, Queens, address outside the district he sought to represent, later moving with his partner to a Whitestone rowhouse. He was registered to vote at the Whitestone address but did not live there.
When asked about his lies, Santos told the Blade he wishes he did everything differently.
“Everything, everything, everything,” Santos told the Blade. “I made so many poor choices that I think it would be redundant to not say everything.”
He did not fully take responsibility, describing the scandals as a mix of personal ambition and what he called a “sensational political assassination.”
“Ambition is a toxic trait, and unfortunately, I was consumed by that. I forewent everyone else’s [considerations]… I had no consideration for anything around me other than myself, and that’s awful,” he added.
In addition to personal history fabrications, Santos made numerous false claims the Department of Justice later treated as campaign finance fraud. He solicited donations through a fake political entity, diverted funds into an LLC he controlled, and disguised personal expenditures as legitimate political expenses, using donations for luxury purchases.
Santos denied wrongdoing, stating, “I didn’t steal people’s credit cards… I didn’t go shopping at Hermes and Onlyfans. It’s not true either.”
He defended some purchases as campaign-related, singling out House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest.
“The only two luxury brands that you’ll see of purchases in my campaign were Ferragamo and Tiffany. [I got] Ferragamo for the [male members of the] Republican steering committee when I was lobbying for my seat committee and three Tiffany pens for the females … That’s where those are legal expenses. They’re very legal.”
The House Ethics Committee found “substantial evidence” of lawbreaking, stating Santos “fraudulently exploited every aspect of his House candidacy,” using campaign funds for luxury shopping, cosmetic procedures, travel, and rent.
“I had a choice to not straw donate to my campaign, and I chose to, yeah, that was a poor choice,” Santos admitted. “Of course, I’m guilty for that. Was I forthcoming in the GOP with the party? No, I was not. I was very dishonest with the GOP, and for that I regret, and I also regret that the GOP in New York created an environment that made somebody like me feel it was needed to do that. But I regret not being forthcoming and honest about it.”
Santos also collected pandemic unemployment payments of approximately $24,000 while employed.
He was charged with multiple federal offenses, including conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, wire fraud, making materially false statements to the FEC, falsifying records, aggravated identity theft, access device fraud, money laundering, and theft of public funds. Santos pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft and was sentenced to 87 months in prison in April 2025, ordered to pay hundreds of thousands in restitution and forfeiture. He was released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Fairton, N. J., following Trump’s pardon in October.
Immigration fraud allegations
In addition to the professional and personal claims Santos has made that have been proven false, he also addressed allegations of immigration fraud raised by the Washington Blade. A source familiar with Santos’s history with U.S. immigration proceedings described several alarming allegations, most notably a reportedly fraudulent marriage to his former wife, Uadla Viera, to help her obtain U.S. immigration status. Santos has adamantly denied wrongdoing.
According to the source, who spoke to the Blade on condition of anonymity, Santos married Viera in a civil ceremony in Manhattan in 2012, despite neither living in the city. There are no known photos, announcements, or records of a wedding celebration, engagement, bridal party, shower, or honeymoon. This unusual lack of documentation stands out for Santos, whose life and actions are typically geared toward media attention.
While the source questioned the motive behind the marriage, Santos insisted it was legal and not done for any nefarious purpose.
“I married a person who was legally in this country, and all in all, what I did was kind of skip the line for her. And we were married, and there was no financial benefit [for me]. We were married. We had bills together. There’s no proof or evidence of a financial benefit other than jaded people again, anonymously, lying saying ‘He got paid. He offered me money.’ First of all, I don’t even have the wherewithal for that. Second of all, we went through a very rigorous — fucking rigorous — immigration litmus test, house interviews, multiple layers of interviews, a consummate marriage that was very obvious for anybody who was around us, and then I ended up cheating for now, obvious reasons.”
In 2013, the source said Santos dated Leandro Bis, a Brazilian tourist, while still married to Vieira. Santos denies this, framing the period as tumultuous and asserting that he was merely helping someone in need who now falsely alleges more. Bis told ABC News in a 2023 interview that Santos had “promised the world” to him while they dated.
“I’ve never dated a Leandro,” Santos told the Blade. “I can’t believe that six months of my life are common stories in the New York Times. This lunatic is going on TV and putting himself out there…I look so much better than him, and I’m much older than him. I mean life does numbers on people, because hate is a virus.”
The source further recounted Santos’s interactions with Greg Morey-Parker, a former roommate of Santos’s who told CNN that he was suspicious of Santos’s academic resume and stories of family wealth.
“Greg Morey-Parker is not a boyfriend– nowhere near a boyfriend,” Santos told the Blade. “He was actually a homeless Starbucks barista that I felt bad for. Let him crash in my living room. … He accused me of stealing his Burberry scarf. You’re homeless and you have a Burberry scarf? Bro, make up your fucking mind.”
In 2014, Santos met Pedro Vilarva, 18, on Tinder and dated him for a year while still married to Viera. According to the source, the trio socialized frequently: Santos and Vilarva with other gay men, Viera with heterosexuals. That same year, Santos filed a family-based immigration petition for Viera, who was granted conditional permanent residency. Santos publicly celebrated his engagement to Vilarva in a Facebook post at La Bonne Soupe, a Manhattan restaurant, though the relationship eventually ended. That Facebook post has since been deleted.
Santos maintains he was honest with both immigration authorities and his spouse.
“I was honest with immigration authorities, 100% above board. I was honest with my spouse, as far as my relationship with him and with my ex-wife, so much I’m the one who told her, I’m sorry we can’t do this anymore. I’m seeing Pedro. And she knew Pedro, it was a shit show. Okay? I’m gonna leave it at that, out of respect to both her and Pedro … I cheated on my first wife, and that was a whole story on its own.”
Later in 2014, Santos met Morey-Parker, who told the Daily Beast that Santos advised him to marry an immigrant woman from Brazil to make money. Santos denied that claim to the Blade.
“That is Gregory again making more shit up and there’s no proof or evidence or anything that you can point to,” Santos said.
Viera became a permanent resident in 2017, according to previous media reports, and in 2018 gave birth to a daughter. Santos did not claim paternity or seek custody. Santos and Viera were granted an uncontested divorce in 2019. Viera became a U.S. citizen in 2022 and purchased a $750,000 home in New Jersey, according to the Blade’s source and to the official deed of the property.
Santos did not mention that he had been married or divorced during his congressional campaigns until an internal vulnerability study commissioned by the campaign identified it as a potential issue for voters.
Santos downplayed all of this, saying it was a running joke among his staff. “I would be a joke. I would allude to it [and say] ‘Ladies, look, I love you guys, but there’s a reason that I don’t date women anymore, and I’m divorced from my first wife.’ It was like a running joke, making light of it and self-deprecating humor, which is my favorite kind of humor.”
He claimed that the New York Times story was the reason he became more sensitive with posts related to his ex-wife.
“The reason it’s not [visible] today is because I pulled it all off because of privacy issues. It was all archived for my Instagram, but if you had access to my Instagram prior to the New York Times story, you would see I never deleted my pictures with her…They were all over my Instagram, going to the beach, like everything. It’s like our entire life was documented together.”
On Trump, politics, and public office
Santos was tight lipped when the Blade questioned him about his conversations with President Trump.
“You never, ever share a lick of a word you exchange with the sitting president of the United States, no matter who that person is… I’ve seen it backfire for people who did it with Biden, with Trump, with Obama. I’m not about to make that mistake. Yeah, my conversations with the president are private.”
He did say that he was humbled by Trump’s pardon but regrets ever entering politics.
“I had such a good life, and to have to be at the place I am today is indicative of, you know, politics is really for the elites…I’m so uninterested in politics these days…I want to get involved in policy change, but not politicking.”
He said he is not interested in a position in the Trump administration.
“I would respectfully decline [any government job], I would say thank you from the bottom of my heart, and say ‘I’m probably not best suited for a job in government.’ I want nothing to do with the government or public office.”
Trans and LGBTQ issues
Santos also spoke on his experience as both a member of the LGBTQ community and a Republican legislator. Most notably, he doesn’t think there is any barrier for gay people to join the Republican Party, citing his ascent into Republican leadership as an example.
He defended his record as a gay Republican, noting the continued election and reelection of LGBTQ members of Congress and emphasizing that he disproved stereotypes about Republicans.
“There’s no bigotry in the Republican Party. It’s a matter of how you present yourself…I’m not saying there’s no anti-gay sentiment, I’m pretty sure there is, but I never experienced it.”
He continued, explaining how far-right figures gaining prominence within Republican circles sets off some tension.
“I know it exists… I mean Nick Fuentes exists, right? His followers go on my social media, and either call me a Jew or a homo all day long. But I’m proud of it. I’m proud that I was the first who didn’t conceal the fact that he’s gay, and still got elected by a constituency of Republicans in a landslide victory.”
It is important to note that Santos is the first openly LGBTQ non-incumbent Republican to be elected to Congress, not the first openly LGBTQ Republican to win an office. Santos won his seat with 53% of his district’s vote while his opponent, Robert Zimmerman, got 46%.
Santos spoke on his experience as a gay man, echoing other LGB Republicans who have distanced themselves from transgender rights.
“This is very controversial for me, but I don’t loop my issues in with the trans community issues. I’m a gay man. I’m gender conforming. I’m he/him/sir.”
He continued, saying all he can speak on is his experience as a gay man, which doesn’t inherently lend him to being a champion for transgender rights, unlike many other LGB elected officials have done.
“I’ve never walked in the shoes of a trans person, so I can’t speak for them.” Santos framed his stance on gender-affirming care carefully: “I believe those people deserve the right to treatment, and that’s fair. I don’t believe in a mass agenda of pushing children towards that. I think we need to have a sensible conversation of, let’s allow kids to get to a certain age, right? Let’s allow adults to make those decisions, not children…for permanent decisions like hormone blockers and puberty blockers…that should be with adults.”
This is despite general medical consensus that views gender-affirming care as medically necessary, appropriate, and potentially life-saving for trans youth. The American Medical Association, the largest medical association in the country, opposes state laws that interfere with or ban gender-affirming care, calling such actions harmful and contrary to medical evidence.
Prison experience
Santos also spoke explicitly about what he says are dehumanizing conditions at FCI Fairton, something that has given him a new passion following his release from the facility.
“It’s punitive and dehumanizing,” he said when describing the situation he was in.
“Black mold bubbling all over the ceiling. Rat infestations… Listeria and ringworm outbreaks. Expired food… Underwear with skid marks… either wear that or don’t wear underwear.”
He continued, emphasizing the dehumanizing treatment he says he received, and hoping it will lead to prison reform.
“Solitary confinement for 41 days. Three showers a week. One 15-minute phone call every 30 days. [The warden] an absolute vicious human being. … We need to rehabilitate people. Just make it humane.”
Santos hinted at a future in media and activism, particularly related to prison reform, signaling that while he has stepped away from public office, he may still seek to influence policy and public discourse.
Despite his dramatic fall from political grace, Santos remains unapologetically in the public eye. From allegations of fraud to his prison experience and ongoing controversies, he presents a portrait of a man both shaped by — and defiant of — the consequences of his actions. Whether the public views him as a cautionary tale, a redeemed figure, or something in between, Santos’s story continues to provoke debate about accountability, ambition, and the limits of political power in America.
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