First, I just want to clarify that this is not a politics site. It’s a site about cars. But sometimes those two entities collide a bit, like orange cones and anything I’m driving at an autocross. A collision like this happened about a year ago, and it had to do with gas mileage, gas prices, fuel tank sizes, and a New York congressional candidate named George Santos. Back then, I happened to notice that he seemed to be, oh, full of shit, and now the news is slathered with stories about how this dipshit seems to have lied about, well, pretty much everything on his resumé. So, I’m going to gloat, because I called this guy out over a year ago, because he lied about gas usage. And you can never trust anyone who lies about how much gas they use.
Here’s what happened: Last December, then-candidate George Santos tweeted this (the original tweet has been deleted, but this was the text):
My full gas tank is $83 and I fuel on average 3 times a week.
83×3=249
249×52=12,948Last year my gas tank was $54.
54×3=162
162×52=8,424Joe Biden’s policies made my expenses go up $4,524.00 and that America is only on gas!
America can’t afford Joe and his socialist agenda.
— George Santos (@Santos4Congress) December 11, 2021
He then followed that up with some more explanation, and that tweet somehow still exists:
Here’s some more math…
My car requires premium gas. I live in the most congested city on the east coast, I travel into Manhattan daily and then campaign into Long Island for my congressional race 7 days a week.
I’m paying about 3.90-4.10 a gallon and get about 13-15 MPG.— George Santos (@MrSantosNY) December 13, 2021
This all seemed weird to me at the time, and we later, with the help of readers, were able to determine that Santos drove a Nissan Pathfinder, which has a 21.1 gallon gas tank and gas mileage of 13 city/18 mpg highway for the V8. So, if this dude really filled up his tank three times a week, like he claimed, he’d be driving, oh, about 260 miles per tank, so 780 miles per week. That’s on the low end of the mpg scale. At 15 mpg, full tank three times a week is close to 900 miles.
Santos lives in Long Island. There’s 780 miles of road on Long Island. So, if what this guy was saying is true, he’d have to drive every inch of road in Long Island every week, plus a bit extra.
[Editor’s Note: I’d just like to pop in here and say that “Politician lies” is kinda obvious and I’d rather keep our articles away from politics, but JT really, really wanted a victory lap, here. And I can’t tell him no, so just bear with us please. -DT].
But, it’s clearly not true. He’d never leave his car!
Anyway, I called this jackass out way back then, and he won his race anyway, so good for him, except now everyone is noticing that his resumé and records of his past works seem to be full of fabrications and lies, ranging from a fake animal charity to all this stuff mentioned by the BBC, who I picked because, you know, they don’t have skin in this game:
The initial New York Times report indicated key parts were either contradicted or not supported by evidence. He claimed during his campaign that he had worked at high-profile Wall Street firms Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and had received his education at New York City’s Baruch College.
But when contacted by the newspaper, and later other outlets including CNN and NPR, these entities found no record of the 34-year-old.
Mr Santos also issued campaign statements in favour of landlords and claimed his family was being shirked by renters during the pandemic, but his financial disclosure forms reportedly did not list any properties in his possession.
In his financial disclosure forms this year, he reportedly listed his salary as $750,000 (£617,000) and said it was paid by the Devolder Organization. There is little public detail about the company, which is registered in Florida and was recently deemed “inactive”.
Yeah, that’s a lot. And, let me remind you of the whole point of this post, I’m gloating because a year ago this guy was being skeevy about his fuel usage in his Pathfinder, and I told you about it. Shouldn’t someone have maybe followed up on the bigger stuff?
Santos did issue a statement via his attorney about all this:
“George Santos represents the kind of progress than the Left is so threatened by – a gay, Latino, first generation American and Republican who won a Biden district in overwhelming fashion by showing everyday voters that there is a better option than the broken promises and failed policies of the Democratic Party. After four years in the public eye, and on the verge of being sworn in as a member of the Republican led 118th Congress, the New York Times launches this shotgun blast of attacks.
It is no surprise that Congressman-elect Santos has enemies at the New York Times who are attempting to smear his good name with these defamatory allegations. As Winston Churchill famously stated, ‘You have enemies? Good. It means that you’ve stood up for something, sometime in you life.'”
As has been pointed out, Winston Churchill didn’t say that quote. Victor Hugo said it, only in French. Come on, dude, at least try.
So, yeah, pay attention to what people say about their gas mileage. If they’re lying about that, don’t vote them into congress.
I was googling to find an up-to-date list of all of Santos’ lies and found your auto website from that search. I’m an car enthusiast so it was a good find as you can never have too much car websites!
There’s no way a Pathfinder requires premium.
A better Victor Hugo quote for this guy is … actually not Hugo, it was Honore de Balzac, who said “The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, for it was properly done”
Valid post. This politics is not off limits, IMHO. If a DEM did this, we would need to call them out too. (The) one thing Trump was right about was to drain the swamp, Democrats or Republicans.
Only problem is, Trump replaced the ‘swamp’ (aka ‘wetlands’… which are actually a good thing, ecologically-speaking) with a toxic tailings pond.
Hey now, there are good uses for toxic tailings. Don’t run them down by comparing them to that disaster.