Former Secretary of State and scorned political wife Hillary Clinton increasingly sees Anthony Weiner’s campaign for mayor as “an embarrassment and a political liability,” according to a report from ABC News.
Up until recently, the Clintons have distanced themselves from the Weiner scandal, despite the scandal’s parallels to Bill Clinton’s serial infidelity and Hillary Clinton’s close ties to Huma Abedin.
Abedin served as Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff at the State Department when Clinton served as U.S Secretary of State, and before that as Clinton’s traveling chief of staff and “body woman” during her 2008 Presidential nomination campaign.
One Clinton associate said that both Bill and Hillary Clinton are “bristling at comparisons” between Weiner and Bill, as well as comparisons between Hillary and Huma, despite the fact that both powerful women choose to stand by their husbands after public cheating scandals with younger women, and subsequent embarrassment.
It is unclear whether or not the Clintons have had any contact with Weiner or Abedin since the most recent Weiner scandal surfaced, but some sources have reported that Hilary sent Huma greetings for her 37th birthday this past Sunday.
Former White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers reportedly said that the Clintons would prefer to see Weiner leave the race.
“This isn’t a story that anybody, particularly the Clintons, are happy to see splashed over the front pages and all over the news relentlessly – and I think they, as much as anyone, would like to see this go away,” Myers said. “If they could choose, they would certainly have Weiner get out of the race and Huma to get on with their life.”
Although the Clintons have not publically condemned Weiner, other prominent democrats have. Last Thursday, House minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called Weiner’s behavior reprehensible.
“It is so disrespectful of women. And what’s really stunning about it is that they don’t even realize it,” the first woman speaker of the House told reporters at a press conference Thursday. “They don’t even have a clue. If they are clueless, get a clue. If they need therapy, get it in private.”