Anthony Weiner is back.
In a long profile in The New York Times magazine, Weiner and his wife, top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, spoke about the scandal that ended Weiner’s congressional career in 2011. If you don’t remember — and if you have even a passing interest in politics, you must — Weiner was caught tweeting a picture of himself in his underwear to a woman on Twitter. Soon additional allegations of inappropriate communications with other women on social media surfaced. After initially alleging his Twitter was hacked, he finally fessed up and ultimately resigned from Congress.
At the time of the incident, Weiner was considered as a serious contender to be the next mayor of New York. Many believe The New York Times profile marks his return to the public stage.
Here are 10 interesting — and sometimes frivolous — facts that readers will learn from the profile:
10.) Anthony Weiner is still considering a run for mayor. He has spent $100,000 on polling. He still has a $4.3 million war chest and over $1 million more in matching funds if he runs this year. But the magazine reports that many of the insiders Weiner has talked to have told him he doesn’t have much chance of winning.
9.) Weiner’s childhood friend, comedian Jon Stewart, says he was compelled by the comedy lords to make fun of his friend’s scandal. “I may have been impeached by some sort of comedy board if I hadn’t made all those Weiner jokes.”
8.) But Stewart did provide Weiner advice during the storm. “As someone who is part of the process that does that to people, when I talked to him, it was more from that perspective than anything else, to say: ‘As low as you are, please understand that what’s happening to you right now isn’t really happening to you, it’s happening to whatever caricature we’ve all created of you. You have your own responsibility in this, but it’s not to us. I know it’s hard to separate yourself from that, but I hope you can at some level.”
7.) Weiner’s brother, Jason, wasn’t a super fan of at least some aspects of pre-scandal Anthony Weiner’s personality. “I wouldn’t stand for other people saying this about him, but there was definitely a douchiness about him that I just don’t really see anymore.”
6.) Weiner isn’t beyond promoting his brother’s two restaurants. In the piece, Weiner meets with The New York Times magazine reporter at both of Jason’s New York City establishments, Almond and L&W Oyster Co.
5.) Weiner sometimes likes to eat escargot and a cheeseburger for lunch. That’s what he ordered during a meal with the reporter at Almond.
4.) On their first date, Weiner says Huma left the table to go to the bathroom and never came back. “She never came back. She ditched me.” Huma disputes Weiner’s version of events, implausibly claiming that she ran into a bunch of people she knew on the way back from the bathroom and by the time she returned he had left.
3.) Before the scandal, Weiner and his wife hadn’t spent more than 10 consecutive days together.
2.) There are things about Weiner’s father that he would prefer not appear in print. The only time he went off the record during his interview with the magazine was to talk about his father.
1.) When out and about, Weiner is sometimes mistaken by New Yorkers for Eliot Spitzer, the other scandal-plagued New York politician.
