10 months ago
Being a member of a slim Republican majority in Congress is not an easy job in the best of circumstances.
But for Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.), the year was even more uphill. Elected in 2022, he was a freshman representing a congressional district that Joe Biden won in 2020, which meant D’Esposito had to navigate the GOP’s internal divide while also looking toward a tough reelection bid in 2024. And then there was George Santos, the disgraced former Republican representative from D’Esposito’s neighboring district in Long Island who was expelled from Congress in December after an ethics report found he had misused campaign funds and deceived campaign donors, among other financial misdeeds.
Within days of Santos being sworn into office, D’Esposito was the first congressional Republican to call on him to resign and eventually introduced an expulsion resolution to oust his colleague from Congress. In return, Santos has most recently claimed on X, formerly known as Twitter, that D’Esposito was copying his fashion sense.
D’Esposito spoke to POLITICO Magazine about how strange it was to spend his first year in Congress adjacent to the Santos sideshow, the frustrations it caused for him and how badly he wants to never have to talk about his former colleague — ever again.
This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Is this how you thought your first year in Congress was going to go?
No. I think that after the second day of voting for Speaker of the House [in January], I realized that this was going to be an interesting year to say the least.
How strange has it been to deal with all the Santos stuff?
A lot of the Santos stuff was self-inflicted. We really did attempt to just go about our business and conduct the work of the people who sent me to D.C. to deal with the things that mattered to them. The things that were important — like crime, securing the border, trying to make life more affordable on Long Island, focusing on restoring the SALT [state and local tax] deduction. Very often, we found ourselves finding success, but instead of focusing on those successes, having to talk about George Santos.
I think that the Ethics Committee did a thorough job and released their report, which convinced many members that Santos should be expelled. It’s something that none of us ever wanted to do. For me … you don’t want to see people expelled from Congress; you don’t want to see people having rough patches in their life. But this was a situation where people were duped. They voted for someone who was a complete fabrication. And it was made clear by the people of the 3rd District that they did want representation. [Within weeks of Santos’ scandals being made public, nearly 80 percent of voters in the 3rd District wanted him out of office.] And I hope that on Feb. 13, the date of the special election to replace Santos, they get the representation that they wanted.
How much did it make a difference when you had to deal with the burden of all the constituent services from the 3rd District?
It was really our staffs, those of us on Long Island, who dealt with the extra workload, whether it was people who did not want to communicate with Santos or elected officials who felt that they weren’t getting the answers that they needed.
And how much did that change things for you — that while having to deal with all the other issues that a new member of Congress deals with, you also had to deal with the Santos situation?
I’m a firm believer that when you’re home, you should be out in the district, attending events, going to things in the community. That gives you the opportunity to meet people and talk to people and hear their needs … the stuff that’s really making the communities tick. And instead of hearing about issues that we should be working on in the House, very often we were hearing about Santos and the situation that he was dealing with, especially me who had the district close to Santos and coming from the same county.
What were people saying to you about it?
You go to the barber shop, you go to the post office, you go get a cup of coffee, you come out of church on a Sunday morning, and depending on where the news cycle was, and what was coming out about him that week, that was very often the conversation. Not “You guys had a great week” and “You were able to pass HR2,” one of the most comprehensive border bills that we’ve seen. That’s the stuff that we want to talk about; that’s the stuff that we should be focused on, not George’s legal issues.
I imagine it became a bit strange that people were running after you on Capitol Hill to ask about George Santos when you’re a freshman member and not expecting that kind of media attention.
Of course. When you first get there, you look at all the reporters waiting, and they had their members that they wanted to talk to, and you suddenly become one of those members. And it’s not always because of the legislation that you’re voting on. It’s because of things that someone else, that’s out of your control, is doing.
At this point, how much will your job change next year given that, no matter who wins the special election, there will be, for lack of a better term, a normal member of Congress in the next district?
I really did my best to keep my head and keep looking forward and doing the work that people sent me there to do. I’ve always been an elected member — whether it was my previous position as a councilman in the town of Hempstead — and I always said that constituent work is paramount.
I mean, I think we saw it clearly during the speaker’s race in October. My opposition to Jim Jordan’s speakership bid wasn’t always popular in my party [D’Esposito was one of the Republicans to block Jordan’s bid.]. I know Jordan is a great legislator, and he’s a great member of Congress and he works hard on his committees of jurisdiction. He’s a great chairman. But there were some local issues in New York that we just didn’t see eye to eye on.
And I think it was clear that myself and [Rep. Andrew] Garbarino (R-N.Y.) and [Rep. Nick] LaLota (R-N.Y.) were sticking together to find someone who understood that if we’re going to say that New York was the majority-maker, then New York and Long Island should play a part in electing the next speaker. That was one of the conversations that we had with [House Speaker Mike] Johnson; we told him of four or five issues that were important to New York. And just recently, we saw a win on one of them: We were able to secure funding for 9/11 health care. And I think that’s the stuff that we need to work on and deliver. And that’s what our neighbors are expecting.
In terms of being able to do that next year, do you feel like you’re in better shape now because of everything else you had to deal with then? Was it like running with a 10-pound weight on your back?
Yeah. Now, instead of dealing with just our reelection and actually governing, there’s one less bump in the road, and I’m confident we’re going to win this special election. I’m confident that the week of Feb. 13, we’ll be introducing Mazi [Pilip] as our new member of Congress from New York, and I think that there is a lot that the four of us from Long Island can work on together in the next year.
Was it also frustrating that this distracted from all the electoral success that New York Republicans like you achieved in 2022?
I think it was lost in translation as we were going through the whole expulsion and the ethics report and all that, that on Election Day 2023, here in Nassau County and on Long Island, we had victories that we haven’t seen in well over 25 years. That really shouldn’t be not just the focus here locally, but, you know, reporters in D.C. should be focused on the fact that Long Island is a bright shade of red from the city line, where my district begins, all the way up to the tip of the East End in Montauk. Republicans control every bit of government. I mean, here in Nassau County, in my district in the city of Long Beach, we now have a majority of the city council. That’s a majority that we haven’t held in probably 30 years.
Just north of my district, in the third district, we now have a majority in North Hempstead. We haven’t had a majority there since I think I was four and the Mets won the World Series. So these are real wins.
When people try to argue that election day in 2022 was just a fluke, it’s not, because the wave is continuing. We have organization, we have ground troops, we have the issues. And I’m surprised that the D.C. outlets haven’t focused more on that. And I think it’s because the only thing that they wanted to write about on Long Island was George Santos.
How much do you think Santos will just fade away as an issue now that he’s out of Congress?
I think that’s already happening. The less that it is talked about, I think it’s better for the institution. And quite frankly, I think it's better off for George. I wish George the best in handling the situation that he has. And I think for us as elected officials, and as those in Washington trying to govern, we should put it in the past.
I imagine that one thing you’re not going to miss is the fact that you may be slightly less popular with reporters at votes now.
Yeah, that’s okay. We’ll find new things to get popular about.
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