Despite facing 23 federal charges for a litany of crimes, including the kind that involve stealing — wire fraud, credit card fraud, and aggravated identity theft — people, including at least one sitting US Senator, cannot give former Rep. George Santos money fast enough.

Since his expulsion from Congress, Santos has found a home on Cameo, a service that allows regular people to pay more famous people, usually of the reality television or character actor variety, to record video messages for their personal use. For a small fee, you could ask Santos to tell your mom that you love her or “roast” one of your friends. Santos initially charged $75 but, after serious demand, upped his price to $400, according to Cameo (Real Housewife of New York City Ramona Singer charges $125 per video). According to Semafor, Santos has made more money in four days of Cameo appearances than he would have in one year ($174,000) as a member of Congress.

A man who is facing possible prison time for theft and who got thrown out of Congress is now being given cash, hand over fist, to be that ex-congressional, money-stealing grifter on camera.

What is happening? Is there no better way for people to use their wallets? Is inflation not a problem? Perhaps we have too much money?

While we may never fully understand what would compel a person to send Santos $200 of their hard-earned cash, his final form as a Cameo star is a little easier to explain. Anyone who has followed Bravo’s “Scandoval” or The Bachelor could point out that this man’s career arc is that of a reality TV star. Those people, Santos’s Cameo cohort, go on TV with the aim of getting famous enough to launch a business, do social media influencing, or generate income via Cameo. Real Housewives Jen Shah and Teresa Giudice, like Santos, faced federal charges and are doing or have served prison time.

The only difference between Bravo celebrities and Santos is that the latter’s reality TV show was Congress. Perhaps there’s no difference at all.

“He’s obviously going to have to go on hiatus for a bit,” Vox senior politics reporter and Bravo watcher Christian Paz told me, humoring me with TV speak. Paz and I sat down to discuss the man on everyone’s minds from our respective fields of expertise — politics for him, reality TV for me. But as Paz explains, while Santos might seem like an anomaly, one of the best ways to succeed in government is to act like a reality TV star. It’s actually designed that way.

The conversation below has been edited for length and clarity.

Christian, on the Jen Shah scale of prison time, how much prison time is George Santos possibly facing? Is it more or less time than Jen Shah? [Editor’s note: Shah was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison.]

He has the potential to serve even more time. The big embarrassing stuff came out from this ethics report, but that’s just the House........

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