As if New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner hadn’t already shown the world his disrespect of women. Here Weiner is, making fun of Lucy Watson, a New York correspondent for UK broadcaster ITV, as she attempts to interview him regarding his latest scandal.
Weiner dismisses Watson’s question about his “resilience” at first, attending to those around him before turning back to her. “What do you mean?” he finally replies. “If you want to be the mayor of the city of New York, you gotta work hard.”
Weiner continues to give little attention to Watson; he interrupts her to greet someone else. Then, he blatantly says, “It’s hard to take you seriously,” before answering another one of her inquiries.
The mayoral candidate even goes so far as to mock her accent before dismissively telling Watson to visit his website, anthonyweiner.com.
Watson continues to press on with questions about his eagerness to remain in the race and help the middle class, but Weiner remains less than serious. He replies to her, laughing, “I just have a feeling I’ve, like, stepped into a Monty Python bit.”
This sure doesn’t sound like the behavior of a man trying to repair his image after the “Carlos Danger” scandal. In fact, it sounds like the behavior of a man who has a history of insulting female reporters.
Back in May, the Washington Times’ senior editor of opinion Emily Miller urged the people of New York not to give Weiner another chance. She went on to explain how Weiner subjected her to “humiliating sexual comments” when she attempted to interview him in the Speaker’s Lobby after the 2011 scandal.
Among other comments fraught with sexual innuendo, Weiner told Miller, “If you can take a step back — not literally — you can step as close as you like.” Miller also described Weiner as “mov[ing] in very closely” when he began to speak with her.
Miller also mentioned that Weiner gave the middle finger to Washington Times White House correspondent Susan Crabtree, now at the Washington Examiner, when she was covering Congress about a year before his 2011 sexting scandal. Apparently, Weiner didn’t like a story Crabtree wrote regarding his alleged defense of Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.
Miller said of Weiner back in May, “he does not claim to have learned to respect women in his brief absence from public life. He is solely focused on regaining power and fame.” Perhaps Miller would say the same today.
Watch the exchange below.
(h/t Washington Post)
