Anthony Weiner says female politicians ‘judged much more harshly than men’

Anthony Weiner says politicians such as him and Donald Trump can survive scandals while qualified candidates like Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton lose elections because “women get judged much more harshly than men do”.

“I do believe that,” Weiner said Friday on ABC’s The View amid his run for a New York City council seat years after he crashed out of Congress in the wake of a sexting scandal that some argue aided Trump in clinching his first presidency in 2016.

Much of Weiner’s appearance on the talkshow involved his addressing the various scandals that set the stage for one of the most spectacular falls from grace in US politics. As he has done before, Weiner asserted that he was in “recovery” after sexually messaging a teenaged girl led him to serve 18 months in prison.

That came after a sexting scandal drove him out of the US House in 2011 after 13 years representing New Yorkers there. A 2013 run for New York mayor failed after he became ensnared in another scandal over sexual texts sent under the moniker Carlos Danger.

Then, in 2016, as former secretary of state Clinton ran for the White House against Trump with the help of Weiner’s then wife, Human Abedin, federal authorities opened a criminal investigation into the ex-congressman’s exchange of lewd photos with a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. Investigators involved in that inquiry found emails on Weiner’s personal laptop that prompted them to re-examine a private email server used by Clinton.

Agents did not find any incriminating evidence against Clinton. But many Democrats to this day believe the unflattering media coverage that surrounded the private email server investigation had a hand in Clinton’s decisive electoral college defeat to Trump despite his having lost the popular vote.

Trump then lost the 2020 presidential race to Joe Biden before retaking the Oval Office in 2024 against vice-president Harris, overcoming – among other things – having been convicted of criminally falsifying business records in connection with payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels and having been held civilly liable for sexually abusing former Elle magazine columnist E Jean Carroll.

All of which prompted The View co-host Joy Behar to tell Weiner it seemed that men like him were held to a different standard in politics than “qualified women”. Beside him and Trump, she also mentioned other figures who had faced notorious, sex-related scandals, including Clinton’s husband – Bill Clinton – as well as the ex-New York governors Eliot Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo.

Weiner replied by arguing that he, Clinton, Spitzer and Cuomo all did “pay a price” to some extent. The ousted congressman said Clinton was impeached during his second term as US president while Spitzer and Cuomo both resigned New York’s governorship.

“I mean, I hate to correct you,” Weiner said. “The question is … how do you judge their record in totality?”

Nonetheless, Weiner added: “I do believe that women get judged much more harshly than men do. I do believe that.”

The Democratic primary election for the New York City council seat that Weiner is eyeing is on 24 June. Cuomo is signed up to run in the Democratic primary election for mayor that same day. The general election for both races is set for 4 November.