Weiner Asks New Yorkers: 'Give Me Another Chance'

Amid reports on Tuesday that disgraced former Congressman and current New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner spent six months after resigning from Congress sexting under the nom de plume Carlos Danger, Weiner took to the podium today in New York. Weiner emerged smiling and walked to the podium next to his wife, Huma Abedin. He pulled a written statement out of his pocket. It turns out that it was the exact same statement he released earlier. 

He then added, “I’m surprised more things didn’t come out sooner…In many ways, things are not that much different than they ere yesterday.” He called his behavior “destructive” and said he was “pleased and blessed” that his wife had given him a second chance. He asked “New Yorkers to also give me another chance.” He said, “I’m glad these things are behind us…I want to bring my vision to the people of New York.” Again, he asked for a “second chance.” 

Then Huma Abedin took the podium. She said she was “very nervous,” then read a prepared statement. “When we faced this publicly two years ago, it was the beginning of a time in our marriage that was very difficult,” she said. “Our marriage, like many others, has had its ups and its downs. It took a lot of work and a whole lot of therapy.” She continued, “It was not an easy choice in any way but I made the decision that it was worth staying in this marriage. That was a decision I made for me, for our son, and for our family….I wanted to give it a try. Anthony’s made some horrible mistakes, but before he resigned from Congress and after, but I do very strongly believe that it is between us.” She added, “I love him, I have forgiven him, I believe in him, and as we have said from the beginning, we are moving forward.”

Weiner said, “This is entirely behind me.” Weiner admitted that the latest sexting chat was 14 months after he resigned. Then he stated, “When we went through this process and became closer and worked through some of these challenges, we put it behind us, and I put it behind me.” Weiner refused to say exactly when the last sexting incident was, but said it was after his People magazine interview in which he said he was working on his marriage. He said he would not drop out of the race. “One of the things I’m not going to do,” Weiner said, “is get into a back and forth whether they are true or not…I’m prepared not to dispute anything that is out there, but suffice it to say that people are out there saying things that are not true.”

Earlier today, Weiner explained:

“I said that other texts and photos were likely to come out, and today they have. As I have said in the past, these things that I did were wrong and hurtful to my wife and caused us to go through challenges in our marriage that extended past my resignation from Congress. While some things that have been posted today are true and some are not, there is no question that what I did was wrong. This behavior is behind me. I’ve apologized to Huma and am grateful that she has worked through these issues with me and for her forgiveness. I want to again say that I am very sorry to anyone who was on the receiving end of these messages and the disruption that this has caused. As my wife and I have said, we are focused on moving forward.”

Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).