Rep. George Santos of New York appeared to equate himself to Rosa Parks when he criticised Sen. Mitt Romney, a fellow Republican, after the Utah senator told him he shouldn’t be in Congress.
Santos brought up the analogy while criticizing Romney for a statement he made prior to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech in February during an interview with talk show host Mike Crispi on his podcast.
Prior to Biden’s address, the two Republicans were seen talking together. When the senator later discussed the encounter with reporters, she called Santos a “sick puppy” who “shouldn’t have been there.”
Romney also suggested that Santos should have been “sitting in the back row and staying quiet,” because an ethics complaint had been filed against him.
“I don’t think he ought to be in Congress, and he certainly shouldn’t be in the aisle trying to shake the hand of the president of the United States and dignitaries coming in,” Romney said following the incident. “It’s an embarrassment.”
Santos explained to Crispi, “I mean, Mitt Romney—the man goes to the State of the Union of the United States wearing a Ukraine lapel button and tells me, a Latino gay man, that I shouldn’t be in the front, that I should be in the back.”
“Well, what do you know? I won’t be sitting in the back, just like Rosa Parks wouldn’t,” Santos continued. “That’s just how it actually operates. It will be a rocky trip for Mitt Romney since he lives in a totally different universe than the rest of us.”
Ever since, Santos has been trolled for his remark on social media.
A 13-count federal indictment accusing Santos of fraud during his 2022 campaign received his not guilty plea in May.
Santos was already under pressure to resign from Congress before he was charged with a crime, with both Republicans and Democrats accusing him of lying about his career background and claim to be the “grandson of Holocaust refugees.”
Parks, a symbol of the civil rights movement, is renowned for her refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 even though the white part of the bus was completely full. Her civil disobedience was a turning point in the fight for civil rights and the abolition of segregation.
