- Rep. George Santos compared himself to civil rights icon Rosa Parks during a podcast appearance.
- He said he refuses to "sit in the back" like some politicians want him to.
Rep. George Santos compared himself to civil rights icon Rosa Parks in a recent interview, saying that he refuses to "sit in the back" like some people want him to.
Santos, who was indicted by a federal grand jury on 13 criminal charges in May, made an appearance on conservative talk show host Mike Crispi's "Unafraid" podcast last week.
In the interview, Santos took aim at what he called "sellout" Republicans, singling out Sen. Mitt Romney in particular.
—PatriotTakes (@patriottakes) July 9, 2023
Santos told the podcast: "Mitt Romney goes to the State of the Union of the United States wearing a Ukraine lapel pin, tells me a Latino gay man that I shouldn't sit in the front, that I should be in the back."
He continued: "Well, guess what, Rosa Parks didn't sit in the back, and neither am I going to sit in the back."
In 1955, Parks famously defied a bus driver's order to vacate a seat in the "colored" section of the bus in favor of a white passenger. Her act of resistance against racial segregation inspired the Montgomery bus boycott — a 13-month protest that played a significant role in the fight for civil rights for Black people.
The suggestion that Santos move to the back, however, occurred in very different circumstances.
In February, Romney told reporters that he had confronted Santos, telling him that he did not belong in Congress after being caught out in a web of lies.
Romney later told the media that he said to Santos: "Given the fact that he's under ethics investigation, he should be sitting in the back row and staying quiet."
Santos is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy saying he would be removed from Congress if the committee found that he had broken the law.
Several other federal bodies, as well as Brazilian authorities, are also investigating potential wrongdoings by the embattled first-term congressman.