George Santos threatens journalist, Kalshi probes continue

Former Rep. George Santos is under investigation tied to Kalshi trading around his claimed attendance at President Trump’s State of the Union in February. In the middle of that reporting, Santos contacted a journalist by phone and issued a violent threat, then

It was 5:37 p.m. in Los Angeles when the call came in from a blocked number.

The voice on the other end was former U.S. Rep. George Santos—boiling with rage. The day before, a story had been published saying the Justice Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission opened investigations into Santos’ trading activity on the prediction market site Kalshi.

The trigger, the reporting said, was how Kalshi-style bets appeared to line up with what Santos posted online. Officials at the company detected that he was betting against his appearance at President Trump’s State of the Union in February. even as he posted a video on X telling followers how excited he was to attend. The story further said Kalshi referred the matter to federal authorities in the Southern District of New York and Washington.

Before that article ran, the journalist said she emailed Santos and he called back from a blocked number. When his second blocked-number call came that evening, she said she knew who it likely was. Santos then claimed the story was riddled with errors and told her. “my lawyers have been calling the Department of Justice all day. and they can’t find any investigation.”.

The conversation quickly turned to a question of access and proof. The journalist asked if she could record the call. Santos said no. She kept typing anyway, she said, furiously jotting down every word. When she asked who his lawyers are, he refused to answer. When she pressed whether he really had attorneys. he replied: “I’m George f*cking Santos. of course I have a legal team.”.

Santos then moved to name-calling and attacks on the reputation of NPR—invective the journalist said is common when people try to discredit reporters and news organizations.

Then came the line that stopped her.

“This story is going to get you a gun in your face,” Santos said.

The journalist asked what he meant. “You know what I mean,” he responded.

The journalist said it did not immediately feel like a straightforward, imminent threat—because she was not physically close to him. But the call did not end there. She said she tracked down Santos’ cell phone through a public records search and sent him a text message confirming it was him.

He responded by denying the wording.

“I NEVER SAID ‘this story would get a gun in your face, I said ‘it’d blow up in your face,” he wrote in a text.

In that same exchange, she said, Santos called her “an insane person,” “a clown,” and launched into more broadside statements.

What she described as especially striking was the order of events: Santos, in her account, was denying the violent threat before she had publicly revealed what he said.

Soon after, Santos took to X, her account said, to tell the world the threat never happened. He claimed she “was now making things up,” even though she had not yet published what he said.

In the post, he wrote: “I’ve interacted with hundreds of reporters in my life… not once was I ever threatening or aggressive… sassy? Sure but aggressive and threatening? NEVER!”

He also claimed she was “demanding I disclose the names of my lawyers ‘or else’ (only God knows what that means.)” The journalist said that description was false: she had asked who his lawyers are, but the “or else” she attributed to Santos’ version of events.

Threats against journalists. she wrote. are “unnervingly common.” She said they often come from online trolls or aggressive legal and public relations tactics. Even so, she described struggling with whether to call this out publicly. She said the decision was driven by what she viewed as Santos’ mischaracterizations and his effort to cover his tracks quickly.

In the middle of that dispute, there were additional developments tied to the underlying allegation Santos is facing.

After the publication of the story about the federal investigations into Santos, the Associated Press reported that Polymarket cut ties with Santos. The reporting said Santos had been paid by Polymarket—a rival to Kalshi—to boost social media posts featuring some of its prediction markets.

Santos, the journalist added, also appeared to be trying to drum up new business on Cameo. She said he was offering 55% off his Cameo videos, meaning for $150 he would record himself saying just about anything, while acknowledging there was no guarantee he would not later deny it on X.

Santos’ threats. his denials. and the federal investigations over trading tied to prediction markets remain part of the same story arc: a former lawmaker under scrutiny for how he allegedly profited while publicly projecting a different reality around the State of the Union in February—while he simultaneously pushed back hard against the reporting that put those questions in the public eye.

George Santos Kalshi prediction markets DOJ investigation CFTC State of the Union Donald Trump NPR Associated Press Polymarket Cameo X