George Santos threatens to quit Congress if GOP works with Dems on speaker deal: reports

Embattled Rep. George Santos, the New York Republican who is currently under indictment for alleged fraud, reportedly threatened Saturday to resign from his position if Republicans reach a deal with Democrats to elect a speaker of the House.

Santos has been a supporter of Jim Jordan as speaker, and admitted he felt spurned by the earlier GOP nominee, Steve Scalise, who Santos said never called him to jockey for the congressman's support in a vote.

After Scalise dropped out of the race, Jordan became the nominee, but there are serious doubts as to whether he can unite the conference in such a way that he gets the necessary votes for becoming speaker.

On Saturday, Santos reportedly took his position a step beyond what he's previously proclaimed. Despite resisting calls to resign based on his indictment (and superseding indictment), Santos apparently offered his resignation in exchange for a mere compromise.

Azi Paybarah of the Washington Post listened in on an X "Spaces" audio update on Israel and Hamas. During the event, Santos reportedly said, "It's about time we end our membership in the U.N."

Santos also said, "We need to call out the fake stuff," according to Paybarah.

Finally, according to the report, Santos threatened to quit.

"Rep. George Santos, who has resisted calls to resign for lying about his background and credentials, said he would resign from congress if Rs and Ds work together to elect a House Speaker," Paybarah wrote.

The report was also confirmed by Talking Points Memo publisher Josh Marshall.

Santos "just threatened that he’ll resign from Congress if there’s a deal to elect a Speaker with the Dems," according to Marshall's account.