Hi everyone we hope you're having a good break and a great end to your year the on team is off so we wanted to play you an episode from a colleague and friend preak barra's podcast stay tuned here he is in conversation with author Mark Chisano, taking stock of George Santos and

why there's so much grift in politics.

From Cafe in the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is stay tuned in brief.

I'm Preet Barara.

George Santos' time in Congress came to an end on December 1st, after he was expelled

over ethics violations. Santos still faces 23 charges in federal court, including for

wire fraud, identity theft, and money laundering.

As we all now know, he has lied over and over and over again about, well, everything. In a new book called The Fabulist, The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and very American legend of George

Santos, Arthur Mark Chiosano does a deep dive on Santos and the life he built on lies. This didn't just start when he

eyed a bid for the U.S. Congress. It's been a lifelong habit. So why does he lie?

And what does Santos' election to such a powerful position

say about our political system?

Mark joins me to talk about his reporting

and the stories about George Santos

he uncovered along the way.

Mark, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

So I guess my first question is, and maybe it's an obvious answer,

what drew you to this story such that you decide

to spend all the time and energy it takes to write a book?

You know, Santos was always kind of a strange figure and I sort of encountered him in 2019

when I was writing for News Day and I was just doing kind of a very short little

...