Anthony Weiner campaigning at the Marcy Houses in August 2013. Credit: Bess Adler
After pulling in just 5 percent of the vote on Primary Day last month, Anthony Weiner says he’d be mayor if it weren’t for the Internet.
“And maybe if the Internet didn’t exist?,” he said in an interview with GQ Magazine. “Like, if I was running in 1955? I’d probably get elected mayor.”
In the lengthy profile entitled “The Year of Living Carlos Dangerously,” Weiner said it pains him to see what his actions have done to his wife, Huma Abedin, and her reputation.
“It pains me because I deserve it. She doesn’t,” he said.
“I duck it as best I can,” he added, “but her reputation has become the Woman Who Married an Idiot and Stuck with Him. More of it rolls off my back, because that’s the way I am constitutionally. She’s more sensitive. I’m just an empty, soulless vessel, so it doesn’t hurt me as much.”
Weiner said that he and his wife had a “very rough time” following revelations about his sexting relationship with Sydney Leathers last fall, but one thing he is grateful for is that he is no longer under obligation to answer questions from the media about their marriage.
On the topic of sexting, the former congressman said it was “remarkably meaningless.”
“It was almost like a video game you played. One that didn’t have much connection to reality,” he said.
He realized, however, that even though it was not significant to him, it was significant to Huma.
“And that switch going off made the game no longer interesting,” he said.
