Former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner says Donald Trump’s claim to be a successful businessman is “baloney.”
“For those of us in New York … we know the foundation of his argument is bull,” Weiner said Sunday on MSNBC’s “Politics Nation” with Al Sharpton.
Weiner said has not built anything in his hometown “forever.” Trump would have more money today if he had put his inheritance from his father into an IRA account, Weiner noted.
Weiner called the Republican front-runner a “phony” who has funded Democrats in the past, including his own. He said Trump has supported policies favored by Democrats, like single-payer healthcare.
“He says he speaks straight. No he doesn’t. He changes his position literally within a news cycle all the time,” Weiner said, adding that while Trump claims to be a conservative, he is “whatever he needs to be” to get elected.
Weiner, a Democrat who resigned from Congress in 2011 following a sexting scandal, supports Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. Weiner’s wife Huma Abedin is a longtime Clinton aide who currently works as vice chair of Clinton’s campaign.
Weiner called Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s attack on “New York values,” an example of rhetoric long popular among Republicans. The remarks received condemnation from New York leaders and helped Trump win former Mayor Rudy Giulliani’s endorsement. Many of the 2016 candidates are campaigning in the Empire State before its primary on April 19.
Weiner said Cruz targeted New York for the “political value in doing it.” Republicans actually have a longtime secret love affair with the city, he said.
“New York has been a pejorative for Republicans for a long time … I mean he said it out loud, but we would hear whisper behind closed doors in Congress all the time,” Weiner said. “‘Oh you fancy New Yorkers?’ New York this, New York that. There was always this dichotomy.”
“They would love to come here to New York, raise money,” Weiner continued. “They would always call us up and say ‘hey can you help us get tickets to Broadway, can you get us a reservation at this restaurant?’ And then they would go back to Congress or go back to their states and talk badly about New York.”
But Cruz is special, Weiner said. The Texan has waged his entire political career “triangulating against New York, communities of color, people of disparate incomes, people that have disabilities, even veterans,” Weiner argued.
