Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un shake hands during their meeting in Vladivostok, Russia on April 25, 2019.

Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool, File/Associated Press

• Criticism from Russia’s allies mounted this week, with one Chinese official saying “Putin is crazy.”
• Some worry Russia may be “more of an albatross than ally,” a former US ambassador to NATO said.
• Others, like China, have criticized the war without meaningfully reducing ties with Russia.

Eleven months since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an attack on Ukraine, the longtime leader remains in a precarious position with growing discontent among his country’s few remaining allies.

“Nobody wants an ally who is a liability, and it’s hard to see Putin’s Russia as anything else,” Simon Miles, an assistant professor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and a historian of the Soviet Union and US-Soviet relations, told Insider.

“I think we can see the consequences already in that the most active support is coming from Iran and North Korea — hardly the top of anyone’s friend wishlist,” he added.

Russia’s relationship with some key allies appeared to be on even shakier ground this week. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Tuesday the country had canceled plans to host Russian military drills. Both Armenia and Russia are members of  the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a military alliance made up of six post-Soviet states that Putin has touted as NATO’s counterpart.

“At least this year, these drills won’t take place,” Pashinyan said, adding the drills would be “inappropriate in the current situation.”

Criticism from Beijing also appeared to intensify, as The Financial Times on Monday reported several Chinese officials tried to distance China from the Ukraine invasion and expressed mistrust in Putin himself.

“Putin is crazy,” one unnamed Chinese official told FT. “The invasion decision was made by a very small group of people. China shouldn’t simply follow Russia.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Chinese President Xi Jinping pose for a photograph during their meeting in Beijing, on February 4, 2022.

Photo by ALEXEI DRUZHININ/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images

The officials also said Beijing has come to believe that Russia may emerge from the conflict as a “minor power,” with their economic and diplomatic standing on the global stage greatly reduced.

Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has left Moscow increasingly isolated. The war prompted condemnation in the United Nations and saw Russia booted from the UN Human Rights Council. Since the invasion began last February, Putin has limited international travel to the dwindling list of nations with amicable ties to Moscow — skipping the G20 summit in Bali in November.

The US and its allies have issued unprecedented sanctions against Moscow. Finland and Sweden, two historically or militarily non-aligned neutral countries, moved to join NATO. The EU has taken steps to end its reliance on the Russian energy supply. Indeed, the war has united the West against Russia in historic ways.

Russia: An albatross or an ally?

Meanwhile, the war has also complicated Russia’s relationships with China and India, two vital trading partners that declined to institute sanctions and have continued buying up Russian energy products. When the UN Security Council voted in September to condemn Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territories as illegal, both countries abstained.

“Until February 24, Russia and China declared a partnership ‘without limits’ based on the idea that the west was divided, decadent, and in decline and that the east was rising in power and stature,” Ivo Daalder, a former US ambassador to NATO, told Insider. “The invasion changed all that.”

“China has been caught between its desire to align with Russia and the realization that it might be more of an albatross than ally,” he added.

While China has not offered a full-throated endorsement of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it also hasn’t significantly reduced ties with Moscow, despite the mounting criticism and recent comments by Chinese officials. Beijing has walked a careful line since the invasion began, at times exhibiting impatience with Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Putin in September acknowledged that China had “questions and concerns” about the war while meeting with Xi in Uzbekistan. However last month, China’s foreign minister said the country would “deepen strategic mutual trust and mutually beneficial cooperation” with Russia and defended Beijing’s “objectivity and impartiality” on the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Chinese President Xi Jinping gather for a group photo at the start of their summit in Goa, India, Sunday, Oct. 16, 2016.

Anupam Nath/AP Images

‘China may be trying to have it both ways’

The apparent mixed messaging from Beijing could ultimately come down to diplomatic strategy.

“China may be trying to have it both ways,” Robert English, a professor at the University of Southern California who studies Russia, the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe, told Insider.

English said the war benefits Beijing by distracting the West from confrontation with China, while also providing the country with discounted Russian energy. But in order to avoid jeopardizing its trade partnerships with the West, China may want to give the appearance of distancing itself from Russia.

“The key is appear to criticize Russia, in words, but what about their deeds? Their economic support for Russia has not flagged, nor have they altered their official position blaming NATO for the conflict,” English said of China. “I’m afraid some analysts are thinking with their hearts, not their heads.”

“Putin’s allies are not ‘turning on him,’ only expressing dissatisfaction at the difficulties his war in Ukraine is causing them,” he added. “There’s a big difference.”

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland named a special counsel on Thursday to probe the improper storage of classified documents at President Joe Biden’s home and former office, an echo of a wider-ranging inquiry directed at former President Donald Trump.

The inquiry is a distraction for the Democratic president, who has criticized his Republican predecessor’s handling of classified material, and could cast a shadow over Biden as both men gear up for a possible 2024 election rematch.

Garland said Robert Hur, who served as the top federal prosecutor in Maryland under Trump, will act as a quasi-independent prosecutor to determine whether classified records from Biden’s time as vice president had been improperly stored at his residence in Delaware and a think tank in Washington.

Garland said Hur will examine “whether any person or entity violated the law.”

The White House said some material was found in a garage at Biden’s home and an adjacent room. It pledged to cooperate with the probe.

“We are confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced, and the President and his lawyers acted promptly upon discovery of this mistake,” White House lawyer Richard Sauber said in a statement.

Asked by a reporter on Thursday about the wisdom of storing important material next to his Corvette, the self-declared ‘car guy’ president said both were in a locked garage.

“It’s not like they’re sitting out in the street,” he said. “People know I take classified documents and classified material seriously.”

Biden and Trump now each face inquiries from special prosecutors, who are typically appointed to politically sensitive cases to ensure a degree of independence from Justice Department leadership.

But their cases are not the same, legal experts say.

The White House said Biden’s attorneys found a small number of classified documents and turned them over after discovery. Trump resisted doing so until an August FBI search turned up about 100 classified documents, raising questions about whether Trump or his staff obstructed the investigation.

“The facts cannot be more different. The only similarity is there were classified documents that were taken out of the White House to somewhere else,” said Kel McClanahan, head of National Security Counselors, a law firm.

The special counsel investigating Trump’s handling of documents is also leading inquiries into the Republican’s attempts to overturn his November 2020 election defeat to Biden.

As a sitting president, Biden faces less legal risk than Trump. He has broad latitude to declassify documents and will likely be shielded from prosecution, as the Justice Department has a long-standing policy of not bringing criminal charges against the occupant of the Oval Office.

Trump, by contrast, lost those protections when his term ended in January 2021.

Garland said he decided a special counsel was necessary in the Biden case after an initial investigation conducted by John Lausch, a Trump appointee who serves as the top federal prosecutor in the Chicago region.

“This appointment underscores for the public the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law,” Garland said at a news conference.

Hur, in a statement, said he would conduct the investigation impartially.

Some Republicans in Congress said they would be in a better position than the Justice Department to handle the investigation.

“When special counsels are appointed, it limits our ability to do some of the oversight investigations that we want to do,” said Representative James Comer, who will head the House Oversight Committee.

Garland named a special counsel, Jack Smith, in November to oversee investigations of Trump, shortly after Trump said he would seek the Republican nomination to run again for president in 2024.

About 100 documents marked as classified were among thousands of records seized during an August search at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Biden called Trump’s behavior “totally irresponsible” in September.

Biden, 80, is expected to formally begin a re-election campaign in the coming weeks.

The White House said Biden does not know what is in the documents.

Sauber, the White House lawyer, said Biden’s personal attorneys found “a small number” of documents with classified markings in a locked closet in November when they were packing files at an office Biden formerly used at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a University of Pennsylvania think tank.

Those lawyers gave the material to the U.S. National Archives, the agency responsible for the preservation of government records.

The White House revealed that discovery to the public on Monday. Hours before Garland’s announcement, Sauber said classified papers from that time were found at Biden’s Delaware home.

Garland revealed on Thursday that the Delaware documents were found on Dec. 20, meaning that the White House knew about them and did not mention them when it made its initial Jan. 9 disclosure.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre suggested that the “process” that was ongoing prevented the administration from telling the public more.

Trump during his presidency faced a special counsel, Robert Mueller, who found insufficient evidence to conclude that contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia in the 2016 presidential race amounted to criminal conduct. Mueller did not exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice but then-Attorney General William Barr, a Trump appointee, subsequently cleared him.

Democratic President Bill Clinton was likewise dogged by an independent prosecutor, Ken Starr, who uncovered evidence of an extramarital affair with a White House intern, which led to Clinton’s impeachment.

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LIMA (Reuters) – Thousands took to the streets of Peru’s capital Lima on Thursday in a peaceful protest against the new government and president, after weeks of bloody clashes triggered by the ousting of former President Pedro Castillo left at least 42 dead.

“Why are you turning your back on the people, there are so many deaths, for God’s sake, stop this massacre,” said protester Olga Espejo, calling on President Dina Boluarte, previously Castillo’s vice president, to resign.

“Ms. Boluarte, they are using you,” she said.

Protesters shouted “Dina asesina!” (Dina is a murderer) as they carried cardboard coffins, photos of the victims and anti-government slogans down the streets of Lima in the capital’s first mass protest since New Year.

The march, organized by trade unions and leftist groups, took place without incident. The clashes that started in early December mark Peru’s worst outbreak of violence in more than 20 years.

While Thursday’s protest was underway, Labor Minister Eduardo Garcia announced his resignation on Twitter, saying the country needs an apology for the deaths and urged the government to recognize that “mistakes have been made that must be corrected.”

Garcia said the situation could not wait until April 2024, when elections have been proposed, two years earlier than required.

The crisis has touched tourist hub Cusco, which again closed its airport on Thursday, and the country’s key mining sector, which saw a large copper mine struck by attackers and a tin mine shuttered in solidarity for the dead.

Prime Minister Alberto Otarola said earlier on Thursday that Boluarte would not resign, citing constitutional requirements to consolidate the succession, “not because she does not want to.”

“Leaving the presidency would open a very dangerous floodgate for anarchy and misrule,” he said.

Peru’s top prosecutor’s office on Tuesday launched an inquiry against Boluarte and some top ministers. The same day, Peru’s Congress – which fiercely opposed leftist former leader Castillo – passed a vote of confidence in the new government.

The peak of China’s COVID-19 wave is expected to last two to three months, and will soon swell over the vast countryside where medical resources are relatively scarce, a top Chinese epidemiologist has said.

Infections are expected to surge in rural areas as hundreds of millions travel to their home towns for the Lunar New Year holidays, which officially start from Jan. 21, known before the pandemic as the world’s largest annual migration of people.

China last month abruptly abandoned the strict anti-virus regime of mass lockdowns that fuelled historic protests across the country in late November, and finally reopened its borders this past Sunday.

The abrupt dismantling of restrictions has unleashed the virus onto China’s 1.4 billion people, more than a third of whom live in regions where infections are already past their peak, according to state media.

But the worst of the outbreak was not yet over, warned Zeng Guang, the former chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a report published in local media outlet Caixin on Thursday.

“Our priority focus has been on the large cities. It is time to focus on rural areas,” Zeng was quoted as saying.

He said a large number of people in the countryside, where medical facilities are relatively poor, are being left behind, including the elderly, the sick and the disabled.

The World Health Organization this week also warned of the risks stemming from holiday travelling.

The UN agency said China was heavily under-reporting deaths from COVID, although it is now providing more information on its outbreak.

China’s foreign ministry said the country’s health officials have held five technical exchanges with the WHO over the past month and have been transparent.

Health authorities have been reporting five or fewer deaths a day over the past month, numbers which are inconsistent with the long queues seen at funeral homes and the body bags seen coming out of crowded hospitals.

The country has not reported COVID fatalities data since Monday. Officials said in December they planned to issue monthly, rather than daily updates, going forward.

Although international health experts have predicted at least 1 million COVID-related deaths this year, China has reported just over 5,000 since the pandemic began, one of the lowest death rates in the world.

Concerns over data transparency were among the factors that prompted more than a dozen countries to demand pre-departure COVID tests from travellers arriving from China.

Beijing, which had shut its borders from the rest of the world for three years and still demands all visitors get tested before their trip, has said it strongly opposes such curbs, which it finds “discriminatory” and “unscientific.”

Tensions escalated this week with South Korea and Japan, with China retaliating by suspending short-term visas for their nationals. The two countries also limit flights, test travellers from China on arrival, and quarantine the positive ones.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Friday Tokyo will continue to ask China to be transparent about its outbreak, labelling Beijing’s retaliation as one-sided, unrelated to COVID, and extremely “regrettable.”

Parts of China were returning to normal life.

In the bigger cities in particular, residents are increasingly on the move, pointing to a gradual recovery in consumption and economic activity this year. Still, traffic data and other indicators have not yet fully recovered to levels of just a few months ago.

Many economists remain cautious about the pace of revival following the faster-than-expected reopening.

Consumption, in fact, is a perennial concern, reinforced by 2022 trade data released on Friday, which showed exports rising much faster than imports.

Data next week is expected to show China’s economy grew just 2.8% in 2022 under the weight of repeated lockdowns, its second-slowest since 1976, the final year of Mao Zedong’s decade-long Cultural Revolution that wrecked the economy, according to a Reuters poll.

Growth is then seen rebounding to 4.9% this year, still well below the trend of recent decades.

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Lisa Marie Presley, a singer-songwriter, Elvis’ only daughter and a dedicated keeper of her father’s legacy, died Thursday after being hospitalized for a medical emergency. She was 54.

Her death in a Los Angeles hospital was confirmed by her mother, Priscilla, a few hours after her daughter was rushed to the hospital after having a medical emergency at home.

“It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us,” Priscilla Presley said in a statement. “She was the most passionate, strong and loving woman I have ever known.”

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Presley, the only child of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, shared her father’s brooding charisma — the hooded eyes, the insolent smile, the low, sultry voice — and followed him professionally, releasing her own rock albums in the 2000s, and appearing on stage with Pat Benatar and Richard Hawley among others.

Read More: Elvis Still Has Not Left the Building

She even formed direct musical ties with her father, joining her voice to such Elvis recordings as “In the Ghetto” and “Don’t Cry Daddy,” a mournful ballad which had reminded him of the early death of his mother (and Lisa Marie’s grandmother), Gladys Presley.

“It’s been all my life,” she told The Associated Press in 2012, speaking of her father’s influence. “It’s not something that I now listen to and it’s different. Although I might listen closer. I remain consistent on the fact that I’ve always been an admirer. He’s always influenced me.”

Her birth, nine months exactly after her parents’ wedding, was international news and her background was rarely far from her mind. With the release last year of Baz Luhrmann’s major musical feature “Elvis,” Lisa Marie and Priscilla Presley had been attending red carpets and award shows alongside stars from the film.

Perry Aycock—APLisa Marie Presley in the lap of her mother, Priscilla, and with her father, Elvis, on Feb. 5, 1968.

She was at the Golden Globes on Tuesday, on hand to celebrate Austin Butler’s award for playing her father. Just days before, she was in Memphis at Graceland — the mansion where Elvis lived, and died — on Jan. 8 to celebrate her father’s birth anniversary.

Presley lived with her mother, an actor known for “Dallas” and the “Naked Gun” movies, in California after her parents split up in 1973. She recalled early memories of her dad during her visits to Graceland, riding golf carts through the neighborhood and seeing his daily entrances down the stairs.

Read More: The True Story Behind Elvis and Priscilla Presley’s Relationship

“He was always fully, fully geared up. You’d never see him in his pajamas coming down the steps, ever,” she told The Associated Press in 2012. “You’d never see him in anything but ‘ready to be seen’ attire.”

Elvis Presley died in August 1977, when he was just 42, and she 9 years old. Lisa Marie was staying at Graceland at the time and would recall him kissing her goodnight hours before he would collapse and never recover. When she next saw him, the following day, he was lying face down in the bathroom.

“I just had a feeling,” she told Rolling Stone in 2003. “He wasn’t doing well. All I know is I had it (a feeling), and it happened. I was obsessed with death at a very early age.”

She would later make headlines of her own. Struggles with drugs and some very public marriages. Her four husbands included Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage.

Jackson and Presley were married in the Dominican Republic in 1994, but the marriage ended two years later and was defined by numerous awkward public appearances, including an unexpected kiss from Jackson during the MTV Video Music Awards and a joint interview with Diane Sawyer when she defended her husband against allegations he had sexually abused a minor.

Her other celebrity marriage was even shorter: Cage filed for divorce after four months of marriage in 2002.

“I had to sort of run into many walls and trees,” she told the AP in 2012. “But now I can also look back at it and tell you all the stuff that was going on around me and all the different people around me and all the awww — and it was not a good situation anyway. That wasn’t helping. Either way, it was a growing process. It was just in a different way. It was just out in front of everybody all the time. Because it’s all documented of course.”

Lisa Marie became involved in numerous humanitarian causes, from anti-poverty programs administered through the Elvis Presley Charitable Foundation to relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina. She would receive formal citations from New Orleans and Memphis, Tennessee for her work.

Presley had two children, actor Riley Keough and Benjamin Keough, with her former husband Danny Keough. She also had twin daughters with ex-husband Michael Lockwood.

Benjamin Keough died by suicide in 2020 at the age of 27. Presley was vocal about her grief, writing in an essay last August that she had “been living in the horrific reality of its unrelenting grips since my son’s death two years ago.”

“I’ve dealt with death, grief and loss since the age of 9 years old. I’ve had more than anyone’s fair share of it in my lifetime and somehow, I’ve made it this far,” she wrote in an essay shared with People magazine.

“But this one, the death of my beautiful, beautiful son? The sweetest and most incredible being that I have ever had the privilege of knowing, who made me feel so honored every single day to be his mother? Who was so much like his grandfather on so many levels that he actually scared me? Which made me worry about him even more than I naturally would have?” the essay continued. “No. Just no … no no no no …”

Lisa Marie became the sole heir of the Elvis Presley Trust after her father died. Along with Elvis Presley Enterprises, the trust managed Graceland and other assets until she sold her majority interest in 2005. She retained ownership of Graceland Mansion itself, the 13 acres around it and items inside the home. Her son is buried there, along with her father and other members of the Presley family.

Lance Murphey—APA picture of Elvis with a young Lisa Marie Presley was part of an exhibit titled, “Elvis Through His Daughter’s Eyes,” which opened at Graceland in Memphis, Tenn., Feb. 1, 2012.

Lisa Marie Presley is a former Scientologist — her son was born in 1992 under guidelines set by Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, according to an AP story at the time — but later broke with Scientology.

Lisa Marie and Priscilla Presley would make regular trips to Graceland during huge fan celebrations on the anniversaries of Elvis’ death and birthday. One of the two airplanes at Graceland is named the Lisa Marie.

After her first album “To Whom It May Concern,” in 2003, some fans came out to see her perform just out of curiosity given her famous family, she told the AP in 2005.

“First I had to overcome a pre-speculated idea of me,” she said of the barriers to becoming a singer-songwriter.

“I had to sort of burst through that and introduce myself, and that was the first hurdle, and then now sing in front of everybody, and then that was the second one, and I’m the offspring of — you know, who I’m the offspring of — I had a few hurdles to get through, no doubt about it,” she continued. “But the scales never tipped in the other direction too much.”

At least 11 fighters have been killed during clashes in northeast Colombia between dissident former members of the now-demobilized FARC guerrilla movement and National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels, the army said on Thursday.

President Gustavo Petro has pledged to end the country’s nearly six-decade conflict between the government, rebels and crime gangs founded by former paramilitaries, which has killed at least 450,000 people.

His government is holding peace talks with the ELN and has declared a bilateral ceasefire with dissidents, who reject a 2016 peace deal signed by the FARC.

The fighting over territorial control in Puerto Rondon municipality in Arauca province, near the border with Venezuela, began on Tuesday, the national army said.

Soldiers were in the area to restore order and allow residents to return to normal activities, it added in a statement.

Confrontations between armed groups competing for territory are not uncommon in Arauca, where past incidents left hundreds dead or displaced, or in neighboring Venezuela, where the groups also operate.

Some 352 people were murdered in Arauca in 2022, according to the human rights ombudsman’s office, many as a consequence of combat between the ELN and dissidents.

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The governors of Wisconsin and North Carolina on Thursday signed orders banning TikTok on government devices due to cyber security concerns, joining other states and the federal government in prohibiting the use of the popular video app.

In addition to banning Chinese-owned TikTok from state devices, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said he was banning vendors, products and services from other Chinese companies including Huawei Technologies, Hikvision (002415.SZ), Tencent Holdings (0700.HK) – the owner of WeChat, ZTE Corp (000063.SZ) as well as Russian-based Kaspersky Lab.

“In the digital age, defending our state’s technology and cybersecurity infrastructure and protecting digital privacy have to be a top priority for us as a state,” Evers said.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper signed an order directing officials to develop a policy within 14 days that prohibits the use of TikTok, WeChat and “potentially other applications” that present cybersecurity risks on state devices.

More than 20 other states have also banned TikTok, owned by Chinese technology conglomerate ByteDance, from state devices including Ohio, New Jersey and Arkansas earlier this week.

TikTok said it was “disappointed that so many states are jumping on the political bandwagon to enact policies that will do nothing to advance cybersecurity in their states and are based on unfounded falsehoods about TikTok.”

The Democratic governors of Wisconsin and North Carolina joined mostly Republican governors who have led the charge to ban TikTok from state devices.

Calls to ban TikTok from government devices gained steam after U.S. FBI Director Christopher Wray said in November it poses national security risks.

Wray flagged the threat that the Chinese government could harness the app to influence users or control their devices.

For three years, TikTok – which has more than 100 million users – has been seeking to assure Washington that the personal data of U.S. citizens cannot be accessed and its content cannot be manipulated by China’s Communist Party or any other entity under Beijing’s influence.

Last month, President Joe Biden signed into law a government funding bill that included a ban on federal employees from using or downloading TikTok on government-owned devices.

The law gives the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 60 days “to develop standards and guidelines for executive agencies requiring the removal” of TikTok from federal devices. OMB declined to comment Thursday.

When you hear the term “evil under the sun,” you might think of a horror movie or a mystery set in a tropical place. You’d likely be correct as well. My “evil under the sun” has all the ingredients. The location is the sultry and tropical state of Florida.

The mystery involves evil. The protagonist is an incensed and wrathful man, a traitor, a madman, and a seething maniac. Evil under the sun sits holed up in Mar-a-Lago, fuming over the fact that he is a loser, a has been and is under criminal investigation. Evil.

Trump’s latest wretched outburst came in the form of Truth Social. Trump is infuriated that nobody has raided the home of President Joe Biden. Of course, nobody needs to. Unlike Trump, when President Biden was made aware of classified documents, he let the right people know. That’s what adults do — at least those with a conscience.

But because Trump is evil and does not have one of those, he can’t understand that. For him, what he goes through, Biden must go through as well. That is not going to happen, and once again, Donald will likely rage long into the evening.

Perhaps he will rage for months. Maybe he will carry on until the tree frosts depart. Over and over, evil will rage. But the fact is that Biden again showed he is the adult in the room while Trump once again showed he is a traitor. That’s just the way it is.

The post Evil under the sun appeared first on Palmer Report.

U.S. Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY) watches proceedings during the fourth day of elections for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 06, 2023 in Washington, DC.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

• Rep. George Santos lied about key details of his life, education, and background.
• Former GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Santos should resign.
• “I can’t imagine the guy is going to stay very long,” Ryan told Tapper.  

Former GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan doesn’t believe Rep. George Santos of New York will be able to hold onto his seat in the House of Representatives.

Before the midterm elections, The North Shore Leader published a story questioning Santos’s source of income and real estate holdings. And Before being sworn into Congress last week, The New York Times published a report revealing that he fabricated a large chunk of his resume. Reports continued to trickle out revealing he was dishonest about his life experiences, background, and more. 

The revelations have led to calls for his resignation.

Ryan, who decided not to seek reelection in 2018 after serving as House Speaker, was asked about Santos by CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday.

“Congressman George Santos, he’s lied about apparently everything on his resumé,” Tapper said to Ryan Capping off a 12-minute interview. “At least six House Republicans have said he should resign, including five New York Republicans. Do you agree?” 

“Sure, I agree,” Ryan responded. “My guess is they’ll probably let the Ethics Committee run its course.”

Reps. Daniel Goldman and Ritchie Torres of New York filed an official complaint to the House Ethics committee seeking an investigation into Santos, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

“It’s a fraudulent candidacy. This isn’t an embellished candidacy, it’s a fraudulent candidacy,” Ryan added. “He hoaxed his voters. So, of course, he should step down.”

Santos is the subject of campaign-finance-related complaints and is under investigation by New York prosecutors. He is also being investigated in Brazil on allegations that he used stolen checks. Still, Santos has made it clear on multiple occasions that he has no interest in stepping down.

“He doesn’t strike me as an honorable person, though. I don’t know the guy,” Ryan said before the close of the interview. “I can’t imagine the guy is going to stay very long.” 

Santos did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.