How George Santos, Anna Delvey, and Other Grifter Greats Became a Popular Obsession

On July 8, 1849, James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald introduced readers to William Thompson, a man of “genteel appearance”—and, apparently, endless charisma—who had been arrested for relieving strangers of their watches. “Have you confidence in me to trust me with your watch until tomorrow?” Thompson would ask his marks after striking up a conversation and beguiling them with his charm. So it was that a mass-market, 19th-century broadsheet coined the term “confidence man,” which the Herald began to employ rather liberally in its pages. (And which you might have noticed more recently in the title of Maggie Haberman’s aptly named Donald Trump biography.) As a Herald editorial subsequently proclaimed of Thompson, “He is a cheat, a humbug, a delusion, a sham, a mockery!”

Those words could just as easily describe George Santos, the fictional-résumé maestro, alleged Burberry scarf thief/dying-dog swindler, and all-around preternatural fabulist who lied his way into the halls of Congress last November, only to be exposed as a brazen scammer. In a headline-making moment at Tuesday’s State of the Union, the freshman representative from Queens was met with disgust during a run-in with Mitt Romney. “You don’t belong here,” Romney reportedly barked, no doubt speaking on behalf of a large swath of America’s electorate.