George Santos Says He's a 'Terrible Liar,' but 'Got Away with It' During 2020 Campaign

Alejandra Villa Loarca/Newsday RM via Getty George Santos

Rep. George Santos admits that he's "a terrible liar," though the embattled House Republican — who is currently under investigation by both local and federal agencies — also acknowledges that he's "gotten away" with lies for some time now.

In an interview released Monday and aired on the Fox News streaming service FOX Nation, 34-year-old Santos was asked about the many portions of his resume and backstory that he has since admitted to "embellishing," such as working at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, as he previously asserted.

Santos also revealed to host Piers Morgan that he had lied about his education while campaigning for his current office, noting that he did not attend Baruch College or New York University, as he earlier claimed.

RELATED: Fact-Checking the George Santos Claims: From Goldman Sachs Employee to College 'Volleyball Star'

"To run for Congress of the United States and to just tell blatant lies about even your academic record — I'm just struck, not necessarily that a politician would lie, but that you would think no one would find out," Morgan said to Santos on his show, Piers Morgan Uncensored.

"Well, I'll humor you this: I ran in 2020 for the same exact seat for Congress and I got away with it then," Santos, who lost his 2020 bid for Congress but won after his second bid in 2022, replied.

"So you thought, actually, that they're not gonna find out?" Morgan asked.

"No, I didn't think so," Santos answered. "But to that effect, it's embarrassing, it's humbling to have to admit your faults as a human being."

Even still, Santos has not fully come clean about his personal history. While Santos has previously said that his grandparents were Jewish immigrants who fled persecution during World War II, a report from Jewish newspaper Forward claimed that both of the New York representative's maternal grandparents were born in Brazil before the war.

Speaking to Morgan, Santos stopped short of saying the claims about his Jewish heritage were a lie.

"I never claimed to be Jewish," he said. "I've always made a party-favor joke. I've done it on stages across the country."

Asked by Morgan, "What's funny about falsely claiming you're Jewish?" Santos responded: "Not falsely claiming I'm Jewish. I'd always say I'm Catholic but I come from a Jewish family so that makes me Jew-ish. It's always been a party favor, everybody's always laughed, and now that everybody's cancelling me, everybody's pounding down for a pound of flesh."

"Because you're not Jewish," Morgan said.

RELATED: Incoming Rep. George Santos Apologizes for 'Embellishing My Resume': 'I Said I Was Jew-ish'

Elsewhere in the interview, Morgan asked Santos about previous claims that his mother was inside the World Trade Center during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Noting that "There's no record that [his mother was in the building] at all that day," Morgan asked Santos if he could be mistaken.

"Are you telling me that I got wrong what my mother told me? She wasn't one to mislead me," Santos said, adding: "I stay convinced that that's the truth."

RELATED: George Santos' Mother Wasn't in New York — or the United States — on 9/11, as Lawmaker Claimed

Santos recently told colleagues he would temporarily resign from his assignments on the Small Business and Science Committees while various investigations into his past play out.

Among those is an investigation by the House Ethics Committee, the Nassau County District Attorney's Office and the Department of Justice.

Most of the investigations reportedly center on the source of Santos' campaign funding.

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In 2020, when he launched his first run for the House, he stated in a financial disclosure that he had no assets and no earned income. But his financial situation appeared to have markedly improved by the time he decided to launch a second run for the House in 2022, with Federal Election Commission filings showing he lent at least $700,000 to his campaign, and $27,000 to his political action committee.

Federal investigators are also reportedly looking into claims that Santos once scammed a Navy veteran out of $3,000 meant for his ailing service dog, CNN and Politico reported earlier this month.