Santos gets into shouting match with activist

International News | The Hill

Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) got in a heated exchange with an activist over Israel — and his holding of a baby — on Friday in one of the House office buildings near the Capitol that ended with him walking away while cursing and calling the activist “scum.”

The altercation took place in the Longworth House Office building, where House Republicans were gathered to pick their nominee for Speaker and which is open to the public.

The activists had been questioning various GOP members about retaliatory attacks by Israel in Gaza.

At one point, they approached former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), began filming him and questioned him.

“I support Hamas being killed,” McCarthy said, walking away with staff. The activists followed him, and the group walked by Santos — who was holding a young baby outside of his office.

“One of my staffers’ baby. Look at this baby Mr. Speaker,” Santos said to McCarthy, who then briefly acknowledged the baby, before moving on and ducking into another GOP member’s office.

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The activists then turned to Santos, asking him: “What are you doing to stop the ongoing genocide of Palestinians?”

“Do not record the baby. Do not record this baby,” Santos said.

The activists walked away and things seemed to dissipate, and the activists turned the corner back down where more members would be. But then Santos returned, talking to the activists, who were surrounded by police.

“Officer, officer, this is the gentleman that was accosting me when I had a two-month old baby in my hands,” Santos said.

He then turned his attention to one of the activists.

“You came in my personal space,” Santos said, pointing his finger at the activist.

The conversation between the two then began to devolve into a shouting match, with Santos at one point shouting that the activist is a “terrorist sympathizer.”

“You are human scum,” Santos continued.

He then stalked off, surrounded by cameras and irate.

“What’s happening in Israel is abhorrent, that’s what it is, and the next time he tries to accost me with a child in my hands I want him out of here,” he shouted.

“He’s an animal, he is a f****** terrorist sympathizer,” he added. “Nobody defending Hamas has any business in this building, whether you’re elected, whether you’re a civilian, it is a disgrace that we allow people to parade that kind of thought in here.”

One of the protesters, who identified himself as Shabd Singh, an American Jew who lived in Washington, D.C., said he wanted to question the lawmakers about what they were doing to stop the “ongoing murder of civilians by the Israeli army in Gaza.”

He was detained by Capitol Police.

“My ancestors, entire branches of my family were killed in the Holocaust,” he said. “And I’m here to say, you cannot weaponize Jewish pain to continue the mass murder of civilians in Gaza.”