George Santos to compete on Fox's 'Special Forces: World's Toughest Test'

Add your own punchline to this one: George Santos has joined the cast of Fox reality competition series "Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test," which launches its fifth season Sept. 24.

According to Fox, Santos, 37, will join 14 other "recruits" who must "adapt to uncomfortable conditions, unpredictable terrain and harsh [Malaysian] jungle warfare tasks, including a claustrophobic, high-pressure search of an underground bunker to find crucial military weapons; a supply load retrieval while suspended 300 feet above the jungle floor [and] endure a barrage of chemical gassing while retrieving coordinates of an enemy vessel."

The news release added, "Go hard or go home."

Life at home continues to be complicated for the disgraced former congressman from the 3rd District who, according to NPR, is under investigation by the Justice Department after announcing on X he would be going to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this year, but also had bet against his own attendance. A day later, he posted on X as Trump was delivering his address, “Watching SOTU from an airport tv was not part of the plan! ...”Kalshi, an online prediction marketplace, referred Santos to the DOJ after detecting suspicious trades made by him ahead of Trump’s Feb. 24 speech.

The fifth season's other contestants of "Special Forces" (described by IMDb as "16 celebrity contestants battle through a set of emulated special forces training challenges ... [while] they are removed from society") include actual athletes like former NBA player Matt Barnes, boxer Alycia Baumgardner and ex-NFL player LeSean McCoy. Others include former "Real Housewives" star Brandi Glanville and Candace Cameron Bure, originally of "Full House."

Santos, who was elected to the 3rd Congressional District in 2022, expelled from the legislative branch in 2023, and later convicted of campaign finance fraud, identity theft and related schemes, was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison in 2025. He served nearly 3 months in prison before Trump commuted his sentence in October.