Long Island’s serial fabulist former GOP Rep. George Santos evoked Jesus Christ on the cross as he hit back at critics of President Trump’s decision to commute his sentence and free him from federal prison.

“There’s always going to be critics,” Santos told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday in one of his first televised interviews since his release.

“People are going to hate me. It doesn’t matter whoever gets clemency in the future, whoever that person might be. I’m pretty confident that [if] President Trump had pardoned Jesus Christ off of the cross, he would have had critics. So that’s just the reality of our country.”

Santos refrained from firing back at some of his outspoken critics, including Reps. Nick LaLota (R-NY) and Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), both of whom railed against President Trump’s decision on Friday to commute Santos’ seven-year sentence for federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

The disgraced Long Island rep also took on lefty critics who denounced Trump’s decision to grant him clemency, reminding them of former President Joe Biden’s decision to grant a sweeping, “unconditional” pardon to his troubled son Hunter for all actions over a roughly 11-year period. 

“I say this and I hate that we have to go down this road,” Santos shot back. “There’s a lot of people who were upset with President Biden, who pardoned his entire family before he left office in an unprecedented move. So pardon me if I’m not paying too much attention to the pearl-clutching of the outrage of my critics.”

Santos also fired off an array of apologies to the many people he had wronged over the years, though he didn’t name the donors he was convicted of swindling. “I was in a chaotic ball of flame two years ago. I was my own worst enemy. And I’m sorry to the American people. I’m sorry to the people in the third Congressional district of New York. I’m sorry to the Republican Party who invested their time in me,” Santos said, listing off various names of people to whom he feels remorse.

The former Long Island rep declared that he’s “all politicked out” and doesn’t see himself running for Congress anytime soon. Though he did tease plans to get involved in pushing for bipartisan criminal justice reform.

Santos also demurred on whether he would pony up the $374,000 he owes in restitution to the victims of his wire fraud conviction. He claimed that 85% goes to the national Republican Congressional Committee’s investment in his campaign. 

“The investment was made to win a race. I won that race. There was no fraud there. This is a case. We argued with the prosecution, but they needed to inflate the numbers in order to make it a more appealing case for them in federal court,” he argued.

“I can do my best to do whatever the law requires of me. So I don’t know what that is,” he continued. “If it’s required of me by the law, yes. If it’s not, then no. I will do whatever the law requires me to do.”

The fabulist had been charged with 23 counts but ultimately pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft last year. Prosecutors accused him of racking up tens of thousands of dollars on donors’ credit cards without their authorization. 

In one instance, he funneled the vast majority of a $12,000 charge into his coffers, prosecutors alleged. A scathing House Ethics Committee report accused him of splurging campaign cash on OnlyFans subscriptions, Botox, spa treatments, and a jaunt to Atlantic City, among other expenses.

But a big focus of prosecutors was how the truth-challenged former pol conspired to qualify for a Republican National Committee program to give candidates financial resources and logistical support if their campaigns raised at least $250,000 from donors in one quarter.

To qualify, Santos’ team falsely claimed that he had 10 family members make big donations to his campaign, knowing full well that they didn’t and that he loaned his campaign $500,000, despite having less than $8,000 in his personal and business accounts, prosecutors said. 

Santos ultimately became the sixth rep expelled from the House in December 2023 over the wire fraud accusations. Looming large over that was the scandal of him lying about vast swaths of his personal life, such as claiming he was “Jew-ish,” falsely claiming he worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, saying he got an MBA from New York University, and more. 

Going forward, Santos wants his former fundraiser, Sam Miele, to get clemency and stressed that he is now a “humbled” man. Santos also revealed how he found out he was commuted. 

“I had no expectations,” he recounted. “I didn’t see it [the news he was commuted]. Other inmates saw it and called me over to see it. I was not in the room at the time, and then I made my way to see it. I called my family and they told me it had happened, but I was not aware. It was a surprise.”

A big goal of his will be to push for prison reform. 

“I told this to the president, that I’d love to be involved with prison reform, and not in a partisan way, in a real human ways,” he said. “It helps society, it helps these individuals rebuild their lives and we have a better system with less incarcerated people.”

“America today has 250,000 federal inmates, approximately. And I think it would be much nicer to look at reducing that number. And if I can be a part of helping that, I think that would be a great road to follow in the future.