Anthony Weiner, former Democratic candidate for mayor of the city of New York, arrives at a mayoral debate in August 2013. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI |
License Photo
Feb. 12 (UPI) -- Former congressman Anthony Weiner, once considered a rising star in the Democratic party, is co-hosting a new radio show about politics with Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee who lost the 2021 mayoral election in New York City.
The radio show is an unexpected return to the public eye from Weiner, 57, who has shied away from publicity since he was ordered to register as a sex offender upon his release from prison after he was convicted of sending obscene messages and images to a 15-year-old girl in 2017.
The show, called The Left vs. The Right, airs on WABC-AM and broadcasted its inaugural episode on Saturday. Weiner addressed his numerous scandals during the episode.
"They say in 12-step programs that people have different bottoms. People have one close call and that's it, they run and get some help," Weiner said.
"My bottom was a particularly hard one. I lost my seat in U.S. Congress. I tried to come back, and I had more problems. I had an opportunity to be the next mayor, my lifelong dream. That became undone."
Weiner, who lived in a halfway house in Brooklyn after his release from a federal prison in Massachusetts, expressed criticism of the halfway-house system during the episode.
"Even Huma [Abedin] would have probably let me sleep on the couch in a pinch," he said.
Weiner is currently in the process of a divorce from Abedin, with whom he has one child. Abedin also has ties to politics as a longtime personal aide to Hillary Clinton.
Sliwa, a long-time radio host, first rose to popularity in the 1980s after founding the Guardian Angels -- a group that would patrol the streets of the Big Apple in a bid to prevent crime and help others.
He lost the general election in the mayoral race to Eric Adams, a Democrat, who had served as an officer with the NYPD then as the Brooklyn borough president.
"If you hadn't had your personal failings, there's no doubt in my mind and other peoples' minds that you would have been the mayor of the city of New York," Sliwa, 67, said during the broadcast.
"Everyone agrees, you would have beaten [Michael] Bloomberg who wanted to run for a third term. All the polls indicated that. You then crashed and burned a few times. You resurrected, crashed and burned -- resurrected, crashed and burned."
