Republicans Have a Replacement for George Santos—and She’s a Doozy

Republicans believe that their pick to replace recently expelled Representative George Santos could be a rising star on the national stage, despite her thin political résumé.

Mazi Melesa Pilip, a local legislator who was born in Ethiopia and served in the Israel Defense Forces, was tapped in a secret meeting on Thursday to run as the Republican candidate for New York’s 3rd congressional district. So far, she’s curried the favor of the traditionally white Long Island Republican caucus and the endorsement of another former Long Island representative and 2016 GOP presidential candidate who once claimed there were “too many mosques in this country”—Peter King.

“She is the American success story,” King told The New York Times. “Some people have superstar capacity. She walks into the room, people notice her, they listen to her.”

In many ways, Pilip is an unlikely candidate for the Long Island seat. She is a 44-year-old mother of seven who first ran for office just two years ago. According to the Times, she has almost no experience raising money and has yet to foster relationships with the national party. She also lacks a strong platform, having yet to weigh in on issues that have decided other races, including abortion rights, gun laws, and Donald Trump’s numerous criminal trials.

This all makes Pilip a pretty bold pick, given that Democrats already have a very good chance of retaking the House seat. Santos was one of 18 Republicans representing districts that voted for Joe Biden in 2020.

It remains to be seen if voters in the Queens-Nassau County district have been turned off the GOP. After all, it’s thanks to the local Republican officials that Santos was pushed through inauguration, even after several bombshell reports revealed that the fabulist congressman had lied about everything from his résumé to his lineage, resulting in the third expulsion in U.S. history in the post–Civil War period.

She’ll be pitted against the Democrats’ pick, former Representative Tom Suozzi, in a special election scheduled to take place February 13.

The man leading the Biden impeachment inquiry has apparently engaged in nearly identical behavior that he has hounded the president over.

In a scathing new report, the Associated Press found that a shell company held by the chair of the House Oversight Committee James Comer functioned “in a similarly opaque way” as the Biden family’s own companies.

For months, Comer has harangued the Biden family for leveraging their name to conduct business deals and for using shell companies to cloud their transactions with foreign parties and shady figures, indicting the president’s son Hunter Biden on nine tax charges related to the shell companies.

But a series of interviews and records searches conducted by the AP showed that the Kentucky Republican did something remarkably similar, transferring a six-acre parcel of land co-owned with one of his major campaign donors, Darren Cleary, to a shell company he created in 2017 with his wife.

The property has grown in value since its original purchase, jumping from a valuation of between $50,000 and $100,000 at the time of purchase to between $500,001 and $1 million, according to Comer’s financial statements obtained by the outlet. That flies in the face of not only Comer’s self-purported squeaky-clean reputation but also House rules, which require members of Congress to disclose all assets held by companies worth more than $1,000.

“This is actually a real problem that anti-corruption activists would love to get legislative reform on,” Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, told the AP. “It is hard to trace assets held in shell companies. His is a good example.”

Last month, Democrats railed on the Kentucky Republican following a Daily Beast report that revealed the first inklings that Comer had engaged in his own shell company, involving intra-family business dealings. At the time, Commer snapped back that it was the kind of thing “only dumb, financially illiterate people pick up on.”

Texas Senator Ted Cruz appears to be avoiding talking about the controversial abortion case in his state—by any means necessary.

The day after Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two with a fatal fetus diagnosis, was forced to leave the state to access abortion care, Cruz cruised past and skirted reporters, refusing to comment on the situation.

“Just call our press office,” Cruz told several reporters.

“I have, and I actually haven’t received an answer. So, is there anything that you’d like to say right now on this?” asked NBC News’s Kate Santaliz.

“Call our press office,” Cruz repeated.

Cruz has never been shy to hop into the abortion conversation before. After the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson, Cruz described the decision as a “momentous moment” and a “vindication for the rule of law.” His silence now could be a sign that the ruling might impact his chance of reelection next November.

He wouldn’t be the only Republican afraid of the political blowback. On Thursday, a slew of vulnerable House Republicans made their own stances on abortion bans abundantly clear in an apparent effort to save their own election chances in Biden-won districts, snubbing the Supreme Court’s decision to take up a case that could prohibit the abortion pill, which accounts for more than half of all abortions in the U.S., as “tone deaf.”

Cox has been at the center of the nation’s first major post-Roe lawsuit, riding out a legal challenge to the state’s near-total abortion ban after learning that her fetus had a fatal genetic condition that could jeopardize her health and future fertility if carried to term while being personally and repeatedly targeted by Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Last week saw a whiplash series of back-to-back decisions in the case, with a Travis County district judge ruling on Thursday that Cox could receive an abortion under the state’s medical emergency clause. But hours after the ruling, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the state’s Supreme Court to intervene and issued a statement promising to prosecute doctors performing the procedure with felony charges, even if a court permitted the procedure. On Friday night, the state’s Supreme Court blocked the lower court’s order and once again put Cox’s health in jeopardy.

Some Republicans are coming down hard on the Supreme Court for taking up a case on Wednesday that would challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill, fearing that a ban could create another vulnerability in GOP-held swing districts.

At stake is access to a drug called mifepristone, which, along with misoprostol, comprises one-half of a two-pill prescription jointly referred to as “the abortion pill.” Together, they account for more than half of all the abortions in the United States, according to a 2022 report by the Guttmacher Institute.

“I suspect they’ll rule in favor of prohibitions which is a mistake,” one vulnerable, unnamed House Republican told Axios. “The Court is tone deaf.”

New York Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican representing a district that President Joe Biden won in 2020, told the outlet that he didn’t support a national abortion ban, and that the court should stay out of issues better handled by states and the FDA.

“The Supreme Court needs to stand down,” Lawler said. “If it’s legal in a certain state, they shouldn’t be saying you can’t utilize that type of medicine.”

Other Republicans specified that they were concerned about the political blowback such a decision could have on upcoming elections.

“Quite frankly I would be concerned that the courts overly impose their will,” New York Representative Marc Molinaro told Axios.

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn abortion access at a national level proved disastrous for Republicans last November, resulting in major losses in districts where abortion was a key issue. Postelection, those raw numbers turned into some stunning platform reversals for the conservative party, with GOP consultants referring to the turning tide on the issue as a “major wake-up call.”

By and large, most Americans support abortion access. In a 2023 Gallup poll, just 13 percent of surveyed Americans said that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. Meanwhile, 34 percent said it should be legal under any circumstances, and an additional 13 percent said it should be legal in most circumstances.

A decision in the abortion pill case is expected by summer.

Elon Musk wants to create his own school in Austin, Texas—and he’d like you to pay to attend.

The Tesla CEO has donated $100 million to one of his charities, The Foundation, to get the venture up and running, according to a tax filing obtained by Bloomberg. The project will begin with a primary and secondary school and then move on to launching the university.

News of this filing comes after reports of X (formerly Twitter) having lost 13 percent of its users since Musk bought the platform in 2022, and of Tesla being forced to recall over two million of its vehicles over their autopilot software.

Musk’s university will seek accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges and will be in person and also use “distance education technologies.”

“The school is being designed to meet the educational needs of those with proven academic and scientific potential,” the filing states.

The university expects to increase enrollment after accepting its first 50 students. It aims to be funded primarily through donations and tuition fees, though it could also provide financial aid to select students.

Musk’s university is the newest addition of far-right activists seeking to influence higher education in the city. Earlier this year, the University of Austin, which is backed by conservative figures such as Bari Weiss, announced it is accepting students and will officially open its doors in 2024.