A feminist group is taking a stand following mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner’s spokeswoman’s angry tirade against a former intern.
“The circus that is the Weiner campaign has crossed the final line: Sexist name-calling and slut shaming is outrageous, unacceptable, and has no place in any campaign,” UltraViolet co-founder Nita Chaudhary said in a statement Wednesday.
Tuesday, Weiner spokeswoman Barbara Morgan offered a profanity-laced interview with Talking Points Memo about Olivia Nuzzi, a former campaign intern who wrote an unflattering article about the Weiner campaign for the New York Daily News, in which she claimed people only joined the campaign to curry favor with his wife, Huma Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Clinton.
In her rant against Nuzzi, Morgan called the intern, among other things, a “slutbag,” “twat,” “cunt,” fame-hungry “bitch” and threatened to sue her.
“Fucking slutbag. Nice fucking glamour shot on the cover of the Daily News. Man, see if you ever get a job in this town again,” Morgan said to TPM.
Morgan later apologized for her language.
“In a moment of frustration, I used inappropriate language in what I thought was an off the record conversation,” Morgan said in a statement reported by the New York Observer. “It was wrong and I am very sorry, which is what I said tonight when I called and emailed Olivia to apologize.”
According to UltraViolet, which boasts an online community of 450,000 women and men united against sexism, Morgan must go and New York can “do better” than Weiner.
“Barbara Morgan should be fired immediately. Adding fuel to the flames, the disturbing revelations that Anthony Weiner thinks it’s somehow hilarious to refer to female interns as ‘Monica’ leads us to believe that his days in therapy are far from over,” Chaudry said. “New York can do better than this, and quite frankly women everywhere deserve better than this.”
The Weiner mayoral campaign has already been under fire from women’s groups following the revelation that candidate Weiner continued to engage in online sexting with women even after his humiliating resignation from Congress in 2011 for similar transgressions.
Last week, the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women called for Weiner to withdraw from the race.
“As if we didn’t already have enough evidence of Anthony Weiner’s utter lack of judgment, impulse control and honesty, these latest revelations show the degree to which his candidacy distracts us from the important business of choosing the next leader of New York City,” Sonia Ossorio, President of NOW-NYC, said.
“He is clearly and compellingly unfit for public office and the sooner comes to this realization, the better for the people of New York,” she added.