Anthony Weiner’s Spokeswoman Stays After Crude Remarks
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A spokeswoman for scandal-ridden New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner said on Wednesday she would remain in her job despite a political news website’s publication of profane comments she made about a former campaign intern.
The remarks were the latest hiccup for former Democratic U.S. Rep. Weiner as he tries to resurrect his political career after resigning from Congress two years ago over lewd pictures he sent of himself on Twitter.
Weiner, 48, had surged into the lead in polls for the Democratic Party primary before revelations last week that he had sent more sexually explicit messages to at least one woman after he resigned and promised to change his behavior.
A poll released on Monday had him in fourth place for the Sept. 10 primary but he is vowing to stay in the race.
“Quit isn’t the way we roll in New York City,” he said in a video released on Tuesday night.
The general election is on Nov. 5 to find a successor to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who will finish his third four-year term at the end of the year.
Weiner’s spokeswoman, Barbara Morgan, in a profanity-laced conversation during an interview with Talking Points Memo website, referred to a former campaign intern as a “slutbag” who was not good at her job and was working with the campaign because “she wanted to be seen.”
The website said on Tuesday night that Morgan was being interviewed on an unrelated topic when she started discussing, unprompted, a Daily News story that day in which the intern, Olivia Nuzzi, was quoted as saying “there were a lot of short résumés around the office” and that “the candidate sometimes seemed inexperienced, too.”
The Daily News reported that Nuzzi said many in the campaign were working for Weiner only to make a connection with his wife, Huma Abedin, a senior adviser to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a potential 2016 presidential candidate.
Morgan said on Wednesday, “I will be staying in my role.” She has also apologized to Nuzzi.
Last Sunday, Weiner’s campaign manager, Danny Kedem, quit his job without releasing a statement.
Nuzzi has also left the campaign and she wrote on Twitter on Wednesday, “As to Barbara Morgan’s apology, of course I accept it.”
One of the other Democratic Party candidates on Wednesday called the Weiner campaign a “horrible distraction” in the race.
“We’re not talking about the issues that are going to impact this city for decades to come,” Democratic rival Bill Thompson said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. “What the media is talking about is Anthony Weiner, and it has become a horrible distraction.”
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