Anthony Weiner sat down with Daily News columnist Denis Hamill for a free-ranging one-on-one interview on Monday. Here are some excerpts of that conversation.
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Q. So what kind of summer have you been having?
A. Wild. To some degree it's been exactly what I expected. To some degree, it's been the most surreal experience of my life. The great unknown when I got into the race was whether I'd ever get the chance to talk to the citizens about the issues. I knew what the guys who write the wood (front page headlines) would want to talk about. What the late night comics would want to talk about. And I launched this campaign on a gamble that I'd get to talk to the citizens about what they wanted to talk about. And the stuff I wanted to do as mayor. What immediately became clear, immediately, was that there was a disconnect. Citizens care about their own lives. They want to talk about what will make their lives better. They were not interested in all the other stuff in my personal life.
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Q. You were making traction, discussing issues, ahead in the polls - until the second sexting wave hit.
A. Yeah, but even that wasn't such a surprise in retrospect. As inartfully as I did it, I told anyone who would listen that there might be another issue coming up from my past. People wrote headline stories about more to come. He doesn't know how many there are. I knew it would happen but I didn't want to lead a conversation about that. That was a mistake. I handled that part of my announcement wrong.
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Q. The second wave of sexting headlines has affected you in the polls. How has it affected you at home, your marriage?
A. It's hard, because remember that what's at the foundation of all this is something that I did to my wife. So it's very hard to have it come back no matter how much we might have expected it. It's hard to be reminded how much dishonor I brought upon not just myself but especially my wife.
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Q. Does it come up at the dinner table, at breakfast, in private moments with Huma?
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Andrew Savulich/New York Daily News
Weiner admits that dealing with the resurgent sexting scandal has been difficult, even though he and wife Huma Abedin had moved on from it.
A. You must remember this isn't something that happened yesterday. For us, this is an issue that's over a year old. And we'd gotten to this really great place with each other and we'd put it behind us to a place where we felt comfortable enough to move ahead to run for mayor. For us, this was a distant event. That doesn't change the fact that it's very hard to have it come up again.
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Q. To see this woman (Sydney Leathers) you were sexting with get her 15 minutes in public must have hurt Huma, no?
A. Well, we look at less of that stuff than you might imagine. It's not as if we sit around leafing through the tabloids. But we don't have to. The level of venom directed at Huma has been so misdirected and unfair. Look if someone thinks I did something wrong, and a lot of people do, and I'm one of them, then I think it's perfectly reasonable to say I will never vote for that bum again. But to somehow make this something that Huma did is just not fair.
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Q. What's your reaction to Christine Quinn who is now the front runner saying on "Meet the Press" that you should get out of the race?
A) Let the record show I laughed at that. I would happily compare my political record to her record. I hope the irony isn't lost on people that one of my opponents voted to overturn term limits so Mike Bloomberg could have a third term would say that. This is after the voters voted twice in separate referendums to pass term limits.
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Q. Do you think there is a double standard for you?
A. Nah, I don't have a beef about the standard. Look I conscientiously try to lead those 200 reporters who follow me around to see some of the issues they need to see. In the midst of this entire craziness I want to let them meet a group of women in Corona who have come out against violence. Let them see a guy in Tottenville, Staten Island whose house was wrecked in Sandy who got $150 from an insurance company. I understand that people that are following the other part of my campaign are just doing their jobs. But they are not going to decide who wins this election. They accuse me of turning this campaign into a media circus, but it is the media that dwells on this aspect of my personal life and then accuses me of making a circus. Cover the real issues I address every day and there will be no circus.
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Q. How do you react to stories like the one about Huma's relationship with the Clintons being affected by your campaign?
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Andrew Savulich/New York Daily News
Weiner asserts that weathering these storms during his campaign will make him a better mayor.
A. I don't pay much attention to outsiders who want to say what this campaign should be about. There are going to be maelstroms, controversies, and crises when I'm mayor. That doesn't mean I'm going to curl up in a corner and not go out that day. I'm going to lead. If you want to run this town you have to be prepared to have people say tough things about you.
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Q. The Daily News reported on Sunday that you spent campaign cash on hiring a private investigator and a lawyer to look into the hacking of your Twitter and email account when you knew there was no hacker. That it was you who'd sent the sexual tests. Care to respond?
A. It was after. I told the reporter it was wrong that I'd done it after.
Q. After what?
A. After I'd left Congress. After I had admitted I had sent the texts. We needed to hire lawyers. We needed to hire other professionals to gather up information. Remember the House speaker had initiated an Ethics Committee investigation. We needed to secure all our hard drives and everything else. So that story is wrong. Well, 85% of it was after I left Congress anyway.
Q. You didn't hire a private investigator to see who'd hacked your account?
A. No, the lawyers hired the investigator.
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Q. Most so-called experts think you can't rebound from this latest round of sexting headlines. Do you?
A. I do.
Q. Why?
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Andrew Savulich/New York Daily News
Weiner says his sexting days are behind him.
A. Because I have a sense I'm different than the other people running. I'm running a different type of campaign. I believe at that end of the day New Yorkers want to make this decision for themselves. They are more interested in ideas that affect their lives than my private life.
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Q. There is no one you are sexting now?
A. You can quibble about beginnings, middles and ends but what we're talking about is over a year ago.
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Q. Is Huma going to continue campaigning for you?
A. Yes, I think so. You guys in the press kept asking "When is Huma gonna come out to campaign?" Then she did and gave a statement in a press conference. Then she had to go out of town on business and you ask when she's coming back. Look, Huma is committed to the campaign and she's been an enormous asset to it and I am sure she will continue to be.
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Q. Before we started the interview, you received a call from Huma. Do you two talk a lot during the day?
A. All the time. We're married. We have a baby together. She's in Washington DC today and was concerned because the baby hasn't been eating properly. Something called a coxsackie infection of the throat. We talk about that. I'm running for mayor. She calls to ask how that's going. We talk all the time.
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Q. Can you give me a blow by blow about what happened with your campaign manager resigning?
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Andrew Savulich/New York Daily News
Weiner isn't interested in talking about his campaign manager's resignation.
A. No, I'm not interested in talking about that. We're not talking much about hiring people. We have an amazing staff of people. My campaign manager did a great job and I wish him well.
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Q. Can you tell me who might be the new guy or woman?
A. We're not announcing staff right now.
Q. Have you talked to anyone about it?
A. No. We have an amazing crew of people.
Q. Are you gonna do it yourself?
A. No, I have too much stuff going on in my life right now. Listen, the voters don't give a s-t how my campaign is organized. Who the campaign manager is. Leave that for Politico.com.
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Q. Did you think the second shoe dropping would cause so much uproar?
A. I knew it would be bad. It's too easy this stuff. The puns. The jokes. The institutional frustration that I was doing well in the race. Look at the tenor of the editorials before this second wave. Shaking the voters by the lapels and saying "Why are you voting for this Weiner guy?" They couldn't understand that my message was reaching people. So now that they have something on which to hang their righteousness. I guess I'm not surprised. I've been in this business too long not to know it would be bad. It's not like some outside force did this to me. I did this to myself. This is my private life that is now public. Sometimes that happens when you're in public life. Voters know more about me than they know about any of the candidates. If the press wants to continue to talk about this stuff it will make it harder for me. But if I wanted it to be easy I wouldn't be running for mayor.
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Andrew Savulich/New York Daily News
Weiner admits that he isn't sleeping well, but says he views the challenges he has faced as tests.
Q. How much of this is fake outrage? Sex and politics is nothing new. Isn't it a little like the scene in Casablanca where the corrupt official is "Shocked, shocked," that there is gambling in Rick's?
A. I'll leave that to others to decide. I did these things. I did them to my wife. We have put them behind us. People have a lot of ways to judge my life. Thousands of votes in Congress. Sixty four ideas in my keys to the city book. This stuff. But I can tell you this: No other candidate in this race is getting tested like this. But I'm still talking about important issues no matter how difficult it is to get them out. I'm fighting for the middle class every day. Having 200 cameras around me in a senior center is not going to stop me from saying what I have to say. People can see how I can deal with pressure as mayor. I'm under pressure now and I'm gonna show them that I handle it head on.
Q. You look rested. Do you sleep well at night?
A. Not great. You learn to turn off your Google alert at night. I'm doing okay. You guys are tough. Look, this is hard. And I'd much rather that all this didn't happen but I'm doing my best to treat it as a test. I think in an odd way, this is a great test for the kind of mayor I will be. I will not quit on my stool. Just as I will answer the bell of every round as mayor for the middle class in this city.
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Q. What about this idea that your campaign might hurt Hillary Clinton's political future because of her relationship with Huma?
A. Those people chattering about bank-shot implications of my campaign don't matter to me. And I bet most citizens when they get up in the morning and feed their daughter breakfast, send her off to a failing local public school, and go off to a job site where he's now a part-time worker so the boss doesn't have to give him benefits, and he comes home and the neighborhood shopping isn't what it used to be...I don't think that guy, when he tunes into politics for five minutes he or she can spare a day, I don't think he cares about my private life. I think he's saying which of these guys is gonna fight for me. So I don't think this other stuff really matters that much. I'm betting the house that it doesn't.
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Q. Take this opportunity to answer that teacher in Staten Island who asked you how you could have the moral authority to lead as mayor.
A. Yeah, I don't want to be a mayor who sees it as his job to poke into the private lives of people who work for the City of New York. I want to know that someone is going to do a good job. I want someone who when he sets out to fix potholes, he's doing it. I want someone who figures out why a catch basin is overflowing in south east Queens. And when a cop is out pounding a beat in a tough precinct he's doing it to the best of his ability. You can say that I don't like what Weiner did in his private life. If you think that's important to your calculation for mayor then don't vote for me. I get that.
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Q. What's the biggest issue out there on the trail?
A. The inability to buy a starter house for 50 grand like my parents did. Affordable rentals. Good jobs with benefits. In the communities of color the abuse of stop and frisk is an enormous issue. But it's rare that people come up to me and say they want to talk to me about a scandal in my personal life.
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Q. Is there yet another woman's shoe about to drop in this campaign?
A. I have no idea. These are people who I thought were friends, people I trusted when I communicated with them. But who knows what they might do now. But none of it is new. It's all old stuff. So I'll be in this race for at least the next 44 days. And I think I can win.
