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The Daily Santos: A 2020 campaign intern speaks out
Abdullah Hassan says Santos forced him to lie for a campaign ad.
A former intern for George Santos’ 2020 campaign made the decision Tuesday to share a story from his experience working with the now-notorious congressman.
I was forwarded a tweet of Abdullah Hasan’s in which he claimed Santos made him lie to a local energy company as part of a planned political ad. The ad was eventually scrapped, but since Santos’ many lies have been exposed, the 23-year-old GW Law student is seeing the incident in a whole new light.
I messaged with him Tuesday evening after he shared his experience via a Twitter thread, which read, in part:
I interned for George Santos during his 2020 congressional bid. I didn’t realize how valuable the information I have is until now. His lying, narcissism, and incompetence goes deeper than what is currently publicized. Read below:
1) He told me to lie for a political ad he was making. We recorded the advertisement outside PSEG’s (Long Island’s electric company) office. He told me to say on camera that my power is out and has been for 8 days, even though my power never went out.
2) The advertisement was in support of abolishing PSEG and privatizing the electric grid on Long Island. He no longer holds this view because he is a flip-flopper. I don’t think he ever went public with this view.
3) He kept on referring to Con Edison (NYC’s power company) instead of PSEG. I thought it was just a mistake in speech, but once we arrived at the PSEG headquarters, he was confused as to why it didn’t say Con Edison on it and thought we had arrived at the wrong building.
4) We also recorded him speaking to the front desk worker, demanding Long Islanders get cheaper electricity. As soon as he got to the desk he got nervous and the interaction was cringe. I’m sure they deleted all of the footage.
Hassan shared screenshots of texts and an email with me to confirm his involvement with the campaign. And this series of events was confirmed to me by another Santos 2020 campaign volunteer.
I’d been in touch via Twitter DM with Hassan before he posted the thread. After he shared it, he gave me some more background. Read our conversation below, which has been lightly edited for content and clarity.
On the record
MK: How did you end up interning for santos?
AH: Signed up on his website first and then a phone call
MK: And what attracted you to his campaign?
AH: He was the republican running in my district. That's the only thing that attracted me. Never did a political internship before and wanted to at that time
MK: Got it. So when did your internship begin and end?
AH: Ended election day technically, but last event I went to was in August. Started end of July.
MK: What was your impression of Santos while you were working on the campaign? or at least until the negative interaction you described?
AH: He was nice enough at the start but my number one impression of all three was incompetence. They didn't come off as the brightest. He knew very little about Long Island, which surprised me.
Came off as untrustworthy too. Willing to lie to get things. And obviously that has now proven to be true lol
MK: The incident you describe with PSEG, did Santos tell you initially why he wanted you to come along that day?
AH: Yes. Or at least his manager.
MK: And was he trying to pretend you were just a constituent and not someone who worked for you?
AH: I guess I was pretending to be a random constituent
MK: What was your reaction when he won the election in November?
AH: Somewhat surprised. I had a feeling there would be somewhat of a red wave in NY, but his whole campaign was incompetent. Santos's win wasn't due to his political skills, he just rode the wave. Even Zeldin who didn't get much coverage did pretty good.
MK: And what made you decide to speak out now?
AH: I didn't realize how big his story got until recently. And then a few days ago it clicked that I had experience with him that could give insight to reporters and the public, so thought why not?
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