Politics
Harris campaign ramps up LGBTQ engagement as Election Day nears
Rep. Garcia and LGBTQ Engagement Director Alleman outline plans
Vice President Kamala Harris has eked out a narrow lead in the latest polls, but slim margins in seven key battleground states are still likely to decide the outcome of the election, which experts say will be the closest America has had in decades, if not more than a century.
And LGBTQ voters, who comprise a larger share of the electorate than ever before, are expected to play a major role in November.
The Washington Blade discussed what lies ahead for the Harris team, particularly with respect to LGBTQ constituent engagement, in separate interviews last week with one of the campaign’s gay co-chairs, U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), and its national LGBTQ+ engagement director, Sam Alleman.
Criss-crossing the country
With just over a month until Election Day, the Harris-Walz team is in overdrive enlisting key surrogates and staff to fan out across the U.S. With a focus, of course, on Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“We’ve got to make sure we compete everywhere,” Garcia said. “So wherever I can be, I’ll be.”
The congressman headlined an event with the LGBTQ community in Phoenix on Monday night for Out for Harris, the campaign’s LGBTQ-focused national organizing effort. Queer voters are “always engaging and always asking questions,” he said, eager to discuss “their future and their rights and how dangerous Donald Trump would be for them.”
Garcia said the “best part” about his involvement with the Harris campaign has been traveling the country to connect with these folks. “I actually took 100 local activists from Long Beach, from my community, out to Nevada, with two busses a couple weeks ago, which was great,” he said, “just to go door knocking.”
Up next for the congressman is another trip to Nevada and then to Pennsylvania, he said.
“We’re aiming to have Out for Harris working groups and committees in all 50 states to do this work of mobilizing voters in this critical election to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and defeat Donald Trump and J.D. Vance,” Alleman said.
“We’ve had in-person phone banks in New York, D.C., and California,” while “we have New Jersey and Washington State and Massachusetts hosting in-person events,” he said, explaining that by hitting even places that might “not be part of our pathway to victory,” the campaign is building out the infrastructure to help reach “voters in battleground states and be that surge capacity.”
Additionally, “I can’t say too much just yet, but we’re really, really excited for what we’re planning for Pride in Philadelphia, Phoenix Pride, Las Vegas Pride, Atlanta Pride” — all taking place, Alleman said, in mid-October, by which time voting will have already begun in most of those cities.
“Pride is fun,” and the campaign’s presence in places where the community gathers to celebrate is an exemplification of the “joy” that has become a defining feature of the campaign since Harris was tapped to lead the Democratic ticket on July 21, Alleman said.
Voters have concerns. The campaign wants them to see the contrast.
In his conversations with voters, Garcia said, Project 2025, the 900+ page governing blueprint for a second Trump term, is often top of mind, notwithstanding the former president’s efforts to “skirt or dodge” the extreme plans detailed in the document.
“It’s clear that this is the Donald Trump agenda. I think everyone knows that, and we’re going to continue to hammer home that it’s also very bad for LGBTQ+ people,” he said, noting that Project 2025 contains “all sort of horrible things,” including plans to roll back and revoke rights like LGBTQ-inclusive workplace protections while advancing policies like “book bans [that target] our community in schools.”
More broadly, Garcia said, “there’s no question that Donald Trump is bad for gay people. I mean, look at the Supreme Court…just on the courts alone, how could you argue any differently?”
One could look at everything from Trump’s “positions on trans issues,” to “his authoritarian nature” and his opposition to the Equality Act for evidence that his election would be harmful to the LGBTQ community, Garcia said. “I mean, I could go on and on.”
Alleman echoed those remarks and added that Harris and Walz, by contrast, have fought to expand rights and protections for LGBTQ people throughout their careers, standing up for the community well before doing so was popular or politically advantageous. “Standing with us when it wasn’t necessarily very easy to do,” he said, “speaks volumes to our community, but it also just speaks volumes to their values and to their leadership.”
“In every reality, under almost every other issue that you could talk about, right, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are fighting for LGBTQ people’s totality of their lives, when it comes to their ability to access healthcare, when it comes to their ability to work with dignity and make a living wage and work in an economy that works for them, rather than big corporations,” he said. “Those are the issues that LGBTQ+ people also care about the most, in addition to their freedoms and the things that are identity or community driven.”
Likewise, Garcia said voters’ concerns about the judiciary extend beyond LGBTQ rights and into issues of reproductive freedom, because they understand that the former president appointed three right-wing justices to the Supreme Court, which led to the 2022 decision scrapping Roe v. Wade’s constitutional protections for abortion. “There’s a lot of conversation about abortion rights,” he said. “I think people understand that that’s where Donald Trump plans to take the country even further into restrictions — so, people are pushing back on that.”
“Vice President Harris has made Roe one of the central pieces of her campaign, because there’s still a lot of folks out there that are just tuning in, that might, you know, have gotten a lot of their information from places like Fox [News] or, you know, misinformation on Facebook or social media,” Garcia said.
“It’s important to get the facts out there,” he added, “to get people out there talking to their neighbors, going door to door — I mean, all of that matters.”
It may not be sexy…
First and foremost, Alleman said, Out for Harris is implementing a robust “national, distributed organizing program [that’s] really oriented around voter contact via phone calls,” which is on track — conservatively — “to do approximately 1.2 million calls before Election Day.”
Alleman added that “the work around these community calls” also involves “taking those calls and turning them to actual organizing that supports their battleground states.” And while “it’s not very sexy,” he stressed that these efforts are “low thrills, high value in terms of talking to voters” because “we are truly committed to getting as many people on the phone that we can across the country, especially in the battleground states, between now and Nov. 5.”
By Oct. 12, he said Out for Harris will have phone banking events every day, “and it’ll be like community-based; Monday is Broadway night, Tuesday is trans folks for Harris, Wednesday is LGBTQ+ women for Harris, Thursday and Saturday are catch-all for [the Human Rights Campaign],” and Friday is yet to-be-determined. (Volunteers can sign up to participate or learn more about the program at kamalaharris.com/out.)
Alleman shared that during a recent Out for Harris Broadway-themed call, “we had like, 3,000 people in attendance. And I want to say there were like 500 or 600 people trying to phone bank with us, and they have their first canvassing trip into Pennsylvania,” which illustrates how the program is working within the campaign to ensure “that these calls are translating into organizing.”
Acknowledging that the relationship between LGBTQ rights and organized religion is complicated, Alleman said that Out for Harris plans to administer trainings and lead an organizing call for faith leaders who have created safe spaces for LGBTQ people or otherwise been supportive of the community, such that the campaign can “make sure we’re leveraging their congregations to get them involved.”
Getting creative
Along with organizing in-person events, joining Pride celebrations, administering phone banks, and working with high-profile surrogates like Garcia to help boost the campaign’s message in the battlegrounds, Alleman highlighted upcoming moves like Out for Harris’s plans to partner with Democratic National Committee to provide toolkits to drag performers.
The goal, he said, is to provide materials and guidance “so they can do this work on their own, at their shows” such as by displaying QR codes for fans to get involved and providing instructions for how they can register to vote.
To contend with the challenge of navigating a “fragmented media market,” Alleman said, the Harris campaign is focused on “relationships and messaging in all the senses and ways.” This means, for instance, maintaining a strong social media game, dispatching folks to do “the relational organizing on the ground,” and “finding the nontraditional messengers” — like drag queens and faith leaders — while also “hitting everyone where we can” with earned media coverage and paid advertising.
Alleman also noted Harris’s appearance on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” for the “All-Stars” finale in June, another example of how the campaign has been creative and strategic with outreach to LGBTQ voters and allies.
Leveraging Harris’s advantage with LGBTQ voters
Alleman stressed that the Harris campaign does not take support from LGBTQ voters for granted. “We have to work to earn these voters’ votes, too. And I think the program we are building is so indicative of that, and it’s truly our goal beyond just LGBTQ+ rights — we’re communicating with voters, LGBTQ+ voters, and equality voters about the full range of our platform and what we’re doing, because we firmly believe it will benefit them. Extraordinarily.”
Often, Alleman said, “we divorce LGBTQ+ experiences and people as if they don’t have the same experiences and desires as everyone else” but the Harris campaign is “making sure that we’re saying where we stand on the LGBTQ+ issues but [also] making sure that we’re not losing sight of the totality of the voter we’re communicating to.”
“LGBTQ+ people are more likely to suffer from housing insecurity, more likely to suffer from food insecurity, more likely to be in poverty, more likely to be homeless as teenagers,” he said, “and all of the work that we’ve done in the inflation Reduction Act and in this administration, and all the things that Kamala Harris has said that she’s going to do [if elected] have direct impacts on the LGBTQ+ community and our ability to live full, authentic lives.”
This means “not just to be out as LGBTQ, which is critically important, but [also] having a government that fully cares for everything that goes into what being an LGBTQ plus person is,” Alleman said.
“The majority of us are voting already for Harris,” Garcia said. “That’s great. But what about our friends and family? Like, can we have those conversations with friends that might be on the fence, or maybe we have family that are independent or are not sure who to vote for — those are the conversations that we need to have [to] explain to our family how electing someone like Donald Trump could actually be very damaging, hurtful, and cause real harm to us.”
“LGBTQ people have a role to play, not only in voting, but in telling our stories and talking to people that have yet to make up their mind on how they’re going to vote,” he said. “People that we know.”
Alleman, likewise, acknowledged that “LGBTQ+ people overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates and overwhelmingly support Kamala Harris,” adding that part of the campaign’s work and his work as LGBTQ+ engagement director is to “capture that energy” and “bring them into our campaign and our movement.”
The Harris campaign has earned the support of every major LGBTQ advocacy group, and in turn has focused on “creating buy-in for” the “state and local partner organizations” along with “our national partners” such that they “feel like this is a place where they can invest their time that is meaningful, to make a difference in their work,” Alleman said.
“We are seeing the Human Rights Campaign make historic investments and cooperate with us, [working] hand in glove with our campaign,” he said.
Alleman noted the campaign’s endorsements from groups like the Center for Black Equity through its c4 Political Action Fund (a first for the organization, which started and runs Black Prides throughout the U.S.), LPAC, the political action committee supporting LGBTQ women and nonbinary candidates (which had not backed a presidential ticket prior to this year), and the National LGBTQ+ Task Force Action Fund, which had not otherwise endorsed a presidential candidate in the last 50 years.
Not only does the support of these groups signal that they understand “what’s at stake” in this election, but also their recognition of the “vehicles and access points where they can see themselves and their people in the work that we’re doing as a campaign and as a party,” Alleman said.
“Empowering the partner organizations that do this work within those subsets of LGBTQ+ communities,” he said, allows the campaign to target and engage with the voter who “comes from one of those different backgrounds or walks of life” in an intersectional manner that acknowledges how “there are LGBTQ voters across every other identity that we do this work in.”
The Trump campaign has taken a different approach to engaging with LGBTQ voters
In April, former first lady Melania Trump headlined a fundraiser for Log Cabin Republicans, the conservative LGBT group, at Mar-a-Lago. And more recently, on Sept. 29, the organization hosted a concert in Nashville by musician Kid Rock that also featured Donald Trump Jr., former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Ric Grenell, the gay diplomat who served as acting director of national intelligence, U.S. ambassador to Germany, and special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations during the Trump administration.
Otherwise and apart from “flashy media things to contact us and reach us” without meaningful follow-through, “I haven’t seen any intentional effort” by the Trump campaign to engage with LGBTQ voters, Alleman said. “I haven’t seen anything on the ground. And I just think it’s so fascinating and interesting that [they claim to] want to do these things, and yet their actions just show how little they care about us as a voting bloc.”
In an emailed statement, Log Cabin Republicans President Charles Moran noted that “As has been widely reported, the RNC and Trump campaign are decentralizing their outreach efforts to involve organizations and groups doing the work to increase efficiency and energize the grassroots, and LGBT voter base is no different.”
“We are one of the fastest growing voting blocs in this country,” Alleman said. “As the data bears out, about eight percent of people identify as LGBTQ+” which equates to “somewhere between 20 and 25 percent of people [aged] 18 to 25” — a group of voters whose support, therefore, one might expect both campaigns to aggressively court.
On “the lack of any real intentional outreach,” by the opponent’s campaign, which may strengthen Harris’s edge with LGBTQ voters, Alleman said, “you know, I’m not mad about it.”
Moran detailed some of his organization’s work on LGBTQ voter outreach and mobilization on behalf of the Trump campaign during this election cycle: “Log Cabin Republicans, the nation’s oldest and largest organization LGBT Republicans, conservatives and our straight allies, is leading the charge on this effort for 2024,” he said, stressing that this comes independently from the “work being done by our nearly 80 chapters in 40 states around the country.”
Last week, he said, LCR announced that the group had “pulled in the leadership of the ‘gays for Kennedy’ folks to build out the outreach to Independents and disaffected Democrats.”
“For months, we’ve been building our messaging and ground team,” Moran said. “On the communications side, we have Outspoken, our long-running digital messaging campaign running at full intensity putting out original content, fact-checking Democratic and media lies, and engaging our voters in the digital realm.”
He continued, “On the ground, we have 9 state-based field directors in the targeted swing-states organizing and coordinating with our chapters and campaigns and party committees on the ground. This team has over 250 events already executed or on the books through Election Day. Finally, we have 9 Trump Unity rallies, our broader campaign coalition name, in swing states. These are full-production events with hundreds of people at each, with high-profile surrogates for each. The first one is actually a week from now in Philadelphia.”
“Democrats want to pretend like nothing is going on, but this couldn’t be further from the truth,” Moran added. “This year, we have the most inclusive GOP platform that welcomes LGBT voters to the table, because we all have an equal stake in the future and prosperity of the nation. Log Cabin Republicans is prepared to take the mantle and run the most comprehensive campaign we ever have.”
Garcia, who agreed with Alleman that the Trump campaign is “not interested” in reaching out to LGBTQ constituents, had an even more pointed take: “I think their base hates them,” he said. “I mean, you see the homophobia.”
From “the attacks on trans people,” to “the attacks on gay history” and “the attacks on gay rights in the workplace,” the congressman said, “there’s nothing to connect with” for LGBTQ constituents.
Homing in on conservative LGBTQ voters who might be inclined to support Trump, Garcia suggested there are not very many of them — apart from “some loud personalities out there” and “a lot of those quote, unquote, Log Cabin Republicans,” who “I think are, you know, more interested in holding power in some cases than helping our own community.”
The congressman added, “I don’t know why they’d be reaching out to gay conservatives when there’s nothing to offer them,” because “what are they going to talk about?” He suggested that maybe some right-leaning LGBTQ folks “are excited about tax cuts for billionaires.”
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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