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Obama On Anthony Weiner: If I Were Him I'd Resign

Obama Anthony Weiner Resignation

First Posted: 06/13/11 07:16 PM ET Updated: 08/13/11 06:12 AM ET

President Barack Obama tells NBC's Ann Curry in an exclusive interview scheduled to air Tuesday that if he were Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), he'd resign from congress.

Weiner has thus far resisted calls to step down from his post amid intense controversy surrounding inappropriate interactions he admitted to engaging in online and lewd photos surfacing of the congressman.

Here's an excerpt of the exchange between Curry and Obama on the matter:

ANN CURRY: Should Congressman Anthony Weiner resign?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, obviously what he did was highly inappropriate. I think he's embarrassed himself, he's acknowledged that, he's embarrassed his wife and his family. Ultimately there's going to be a decision for him and his constituents. I can tell you that if it was me, I would resign. Because public service is exactly that, it's a service to the public. And when you get to the point where, because of various personal distractions, you can't serve as effectively as you need to at the time when people are worrying about jobs and their mortgages and paying the bills, then you should probably step back.

The AP reported earlier in the day that White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president feels that the embattled congressman's actions have been "inappropriate." However, he stopped short of signaling Obama thinks Weiner should resign.

Over the weekend, Democratic party leaders urged Weiner -- who is currently on a temporary leave of absence from his job and seeking treatment -- to resign. HuffPost's Sam Stein reported on Saturday:

In successive statements, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) urged Weiner to conduct his rehabilitation outside the confines of public office. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) the ranking member of the Budget Committee and former DCCC head, followed with the same request 45 minutes later.

“Congressman Weiner has the love of his family, the confidence of his constituents, and the recognition that he needs help," said Pelosi, whose word carries the most weight of the group. "I urge Congressman Weiner to seek that help without the pressures of being a Member of Congress.”

The AP relays background on the controversy:

Weiner has acknowledged exchanging messages and photos that ranged from sexually suggestive to explicit, with several women online. The latest to surface appeared on the gossip website TMZ.
...
The photos posted Sunday were purportedly taken in the House members' gym and show a shirtless Weiner with a towel around his waist and his hand on his crotch. TMZ said the photos were sent online to at least one woman.

Weiner has said that he would wait to determine his next step in facing calls to step down upon the return of his wife, Huma Abedin, who is a close adviser to Hillary Clinton and currently on a trip with the secretary. It was reported last week that Abedin and the congressman are expecting a child.

The New York Daily News reported on Sunday night that a source indicated Weiner is now considering stepping down.

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President Barack Obama tells NBC's Ann Curry in an exclusive interview scheduled to air Tuesday that if he were Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), he'd resign from congress. Weiner has thus far resisted...
President Barack Obama tells NBC's Ann Curry in an exclusive interview scheduled to air Tuesday that if he were Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), he'd resign from congress. Weiner has thus far resisted...
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12:51 PM on 06/16/2011
Jeez. Why are Americans so hung up on sex stuff. Can't even see an exposed nipple without going into meltdown. Yeah Weiner was a complete idiot for doing this and he got caught out. More fool him for being an idiot.

12 years ago a study of nearly 10,000 men and women who'd said they used the internet at least once for adult content found that men were spending 77% of their internet time on adult sites. Bet that's increased a bit over 12 years! Face it - men are generally driven by the organ between their legs and not the one in their craniums. (Cooper, A., et al., Sexuality on the Internet: From Sexual Exploration to Pathological Expression. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice Vol. 30(2), 1999, pp. 154-164.)
09:49 PM on 06/14/2011
Why should Weiner have to resign and David Vitter stay.
12:43 AM on 06/15/2011
Because Weiner is a D**k.........
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Olethea
Life may be sweeter for this- I don't know.
09:00 PM on 06/14/2011
Weiner is the reason the Zadroga bill passed.

Hate his behavior, dislike the man. But he was the NUMBER ONE champion of our first responders. And if you live in or near NYC, you must respect that.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Mustangallee
What you write here will be in cyberspace forever!
08:39 PM on 06/14/2011
Whether Weiner resigns or not should be up to the people in his district who elected him! Obama is being a hypocrit, he lets Bill Clinton be active in his Government. Bill clinton did not resign and he did his deed in the oval office!
Maybe the girls involved should resign their jobs, too!
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Olethea
Life may be sweeter for this- I don't know.
09:16 PM on 06/14/2011
First of all, BC is not a representative of the government.

Second, he is not calling for Weiner's resignation, he's expressing what he would do.

Meanwhile, you're more gleeful about a scandal than you should be. Care to discuss what the GOP said about Vitter? Of course not.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
patches12
10:10 PM on 06/14/2011
You really are going to assert this is not call for him by Obama to resign.....

even you are smarter than that.......

if you weren't such and Obamabot, you could read between the lines

duhhhhh
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
jeffp26
08:38 PM on 06/14/2011
According to the headline on the front of the NYPost:

Obama Beats Weiner.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
patches12
10:11 PM on 06/14/2011
and Weiner explodes
08:35 PM on 06/14/2011
Here's proof that the media's agenda is to get rid of Congressmen Weiner. CNN reported last Sunday that Delaware had Dropped their investigation of Weiner's tweets to the 17-year old because there was nothing sexual or indecent about them and they have "nothing to pursue." YET - No Other Network to My Knowledge has Repeated this Story, --- -Including CNN. A lot of people still haven't heard this. Why is the media not reporting it? Because their major corporate advertisers Can't Stand It when Rep. Weiner beats up on Republicans.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
patches12
10:13 PM on 06/14/2011
meida agenda to get rid of Weiner??????

you must be kidding....!!

Weiner LIED to the media for over a week, seeking out the media to get his lies out to the public and you say they are out to destroy him...
01:00 AM on 06/15/2011
Ok let's all try to imagine Weiner in high school....the total nerd who couldn't get any chicks if he had a fistful of dollars.......fast forward to the past few years as a congressman, he has all this power --in his blackberry- and just was thinking with his little head instead of the one between his shoulders...and poof he is the nerd in High school again, the laughing stock of the world!, oh how the mighty do fall!!
01:57 AM on 06/15/2011
Well, Muammar.....Conservative Republicans seek out the media to lie all the time:
Bush lying about Iraq and sacrificing hundreds of thousands of innocent lives just so we could get Iraq out of OPEC and control their oil,
lies about how Obama "death panels" are gonna kill granny,
ridiculous crap about Obama stopping oil drilling,
Republicans who say Obama is conspiring to put his enemies in concentration camps (Michele Bachmann) get to run for President while the media fawns over them admiringly;
But when Congressmen Weiner dares to lie to the media about his sex-tweets while we are Still Waiting for One Woman to accuse him of sexual harrassment - THEN the Media absolutely Must have his head on a platter ! Just more proof of the moral bankruptcy of the media - just another symptom of a dying democracy.

Here's my new favorite symptom: Glenn Beck just asked "why would you get a gun"? and then pointed to a picture of President Obama and smiled. If someone had done that as recently as 20 years ago, they would've been immediately fired and never worked in broadcasting again. But TV and radio don't have standards anymore...............morally bankrupt media.........dying democracy.
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baddunion
Federalist for the Republic!
08:25 PM on 06/14/2011
In the last two
> years we have accumulated national debt at a rate more than 27 times as fast
> as during the rest of our entire nation's history.
> Over 27 times as fast. Metaphorically
> speaking, if you are driving in the right lane doing 65 MPH and a car
> rockets past you in the left lane.
> 27 times faster, it would be doing 7,555
> MPH!
So it is time for you to resign President and take that weiner with you!
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Olethea
Life may be sweeter for this- I don't know.
09:17 PM on 06/14/2011
Where did you copy and paste that nonsensical post from?
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
patches12
10:14 PM on 06/14/2011
fanned... stick around ... ...
08:17 PM on 06/14/2011
Wiener is one of the few decent Dems out there (imho). And by decent I'm referring to the work he's done.

So he sent a few "racy" (I use the word very lightly) pictures to a few different women. So? Sh*t happens.
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baddunion
Federalist for the Republic!
08:41 PM on 06/14/2011
What? OMG, he is like a tool of Karl Marx!
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Olethea
Life may be sweeter for this- I don't know.
09:18 PM on 06/14/2011
And Vitter?
12:51 AM on 06/15/2011
A few "racy" pix??are you kidding me? The guy is a first class idiot.....you really want him to make decisions for the rest of the country when he is a closet sleaze ball and could have faced a bribery scandal if he wasnt busted by his own camera.. He is obsessed with his own weiner, and then spent days denying and lying to the media and the rest of the country. The man deserves to go away for good.
08:59 AM on 06/15/2011
Closet sleaze ball or not the man get's things done. He's one of those rare Dems with a spine and a 'Weiner' of steel.

Besides...I would have a hard time trying to trust a man with no character flaws.
06:25 PM on 06/14/2011
He's probably not the only one who has done that....ohhhh....that's right Clinton had a cigar and........."I did not have sex with that woman"! Well, he didn't resign either and plenty more perverts in our political system. Money..money...money..money...greed...greed...greed...sex...sex....sex...power...power...power...Don't all of you be distracted by these sexual clowns.If they really care about this country they all should be working 24/7 to help get the budget in order.Get real..put pressure on Obama and all the president's men to stop spending our money when our country is broke!!!!
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05:54 PM on 06/14/2011
I never seen a face on a weiner like this one.
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baddunion
Federalist for the Republic!
08:29 PM on 06/14/2011
Oscar Meyer
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
lochnessmonster
05:53 PM on 06/14/2011
But Obama is not so he won't
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manntxs
I opted out cause I don't need no stinkin badges.
05:18 PM on 06/14/2011
Does anyone know when his wife is to return from her trip with Hillary?
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baddunion
Federalist for the Republic!
08:30 PM on 06/14/2011
Tonight
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manntxs
I opted out cause I don't need no stinkin badges.
10:18 PM on 06/14/2011
Thanks. With his two week stay, of what appears to be his political execution, I reasoned that he would do nothing without her being here. I do believe he even made a reference to that end but I am not certain of that. So if it was a week then you could sit back till then. Again, thanks.
05:10 PM on 06/14/2011
actually he said "if I had a weiner I'd resign"
04:37 PM on 06/14/2011
Dem's and their double standards. Why wasnt their mass calls for Clinton to resign after Lewinski?
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Olethea
Life may be sweeter for this- I don't know.
09:19 PM on 06/14/2011
Speaking of double standards, what say you about Vitter? You know, a guy who actually broke the law....


Grow a pair and answer.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
patches12
10:26 PM on 06/14/2011
I'll answer.... his name came out on Madam's black book.. he visited a prostitute..

Vitter did his prostitute thing in 98 or 99 then got caught in 2007 when the prostitute ring was exposed, the cops got a little black book that had Vitters number years later

He never lied about it, begged forgiveness from his wife and constituents, and since it was a crime over 7 years old was beyond legal limits of prosecution.

If Weiner wasn't so arrogant with his bold face lying the whole week before he was exposed, he might elicit more sympathy and would have more allies.....
10:20 AM on 06/15/2011
He should have resigned too
sonofsonoflars
Theres a 99% chance you can't afford to vote R.
04:29 PM on 06/14/2011
One has to wonder if an "unnatural obsession with serving wall-street" qualifies as a personal distraction for the president and whether perhaps he should take his own advice. GDit, man. Grow some ball$ and call this non-story out for what it is. An attempt to distract people from the R plan to destroy medicare and the middle class.


"And when you get to the point where, because of various personal distractions, you can't serve as effectively as you need to at the time when people are worrying about jobs and their mortgages and paying the bills, then you should probably step back."
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baddunion
Federalist for the Republic!
08:35 PM on 06/14/2011
Actually whe asked Obama said he has no plan for medicare as his Obamacare folds Medicare & Medicaid into Obamacare with an appointed( by Prez) a panel to approve procedures, if you are 69 and need a knee it is a big NO!
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Olethea
Life may be sweeter for this- I don't know.
09:19 PM on 06/14/2011
Shennanigans.

Any proof of this BS?