If you’re going to have someone defending the record of New York City’s Democrats on crime, it would probably help if that individual wasn’t one of New York City’s most famous convicted Democrats.
But, 12 years after a sexting scandal ended his time in Congress and seven years after he was arrested for lewd online conduct with a minor, Anthony Weiner — now working as a talk-show host at WABC in NYC — went on with Fox News’ Jesse Watters to insist all was good on the crime front when it came to things in his hometown.
The appearance comes as the media continues to wallpaper over New York City’s crime problems by failing to acknowledge a massive spike in the city’s crime rate caused by a multitude of factors — pandemic shutdowns, taking power away from police, bail reform, etc. — noting that offenses are nowhere near the highs of the 1980s and 1990s in the city.
Indeed, data shows that New York City was safer than it had been in recent memory — before the long, hot summer of 2020 and the fallout from that. Mayor Eric Adams won the office on a law-and-order campaign in 2021, although he’s been stymied in part by the city’s progressive factions — particularly Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
During Tuesday’s interview, Watters got straight to the point with Weiner: “Why do the Democrats have such a problem with crime?” he asked.
“We don’t like crime,” the convicted sex criminal responded.
“It doesn’t seem like you don’t like it,” Watters said. “It seems like you love it.”
Not sure whether he was talking about Weiner or Democrats at large here. I’m going to assume Democrats at large, although it’s again worth pointing out Weiner spent 21 months in prison starting in 2017 for sexting with a 15-year-old and watching her strip on social media apps, according to the U.K. Daily Mail.
The confiscation of his laptop in the course of that investigation is also blamed, by some Democrats, for Hillary Clinton’s loss in the presidential election; he was married to (and technically still is, somehow, even if the two are very separated) close Clinton aide Huma Abedin, and then-FBI Director James Comey announced he was reopening the investigation into her handling of classified emails based on materials found on the computer just weeks before the election.
Clinton has publicly blamed Comey’s decision to reopen the investigation as one of the reasons she lost to Trump, although she’s conspicuously avoided blaming Abedin’s taste in men for having anything to do with it. But I digress.
Weiner went on to say that Democrats “are the ones who created the COPS [Office of Community Oriented Policing Services] program to [get] more cops on the street — crime came down dramatically.”
Yes, but that was back in 1994 as part of what became known as the “Clinton Crime Bill” — which modern progressives have mostly disavowed. Now, as Watters pointed out, the Democrats have “defunded the police.”
“It’s a disaster everywhere,” Watters said.
“You mean reduce the funding of police?” Weiner said.
“Yeah, you defunded the police in a bunch of these metropolitan areas. It’s a mess,” Weiner said.
Weiner — who, in the 12 years since he left Congress, apparently hasn’t managed to ditch the stoat-like persona that forbids him from answering a question in anything but the most evasive terms — pretended to be clueless about major cities that defunded the police and then either refunded the police or saw major crime spikes.
Instead, he said that lots of departments took cuts. Education, for instance! Money’s tight, you know? I mean, except for those massive stimulus packages both the Trump and Biden administrations heaped upon America during the coronavirus pandemic, meaning there was no shortage of money for anything.
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Watters tried a redirect here: “Crime’s up. It’s crazy out here,” he asked. “Would you go in the subway here?”
“Crime’s actually down in New York,” Weiner shot back. And yes, it’s down from the highest of highs during the spike, but again 1) you’ll notice no answer to the question and 2) it’s still historically high compared to the low crime rates that Mayors Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg managed to get the city down to (and, until the very end of his progressive remake of New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio somehow managed to maintain).
And it still doesn’t answer the question: Would you ride the subway when incidents like this are more and more common?
WARNING: The following videos contain graphic footage that some viewers will find offensive.
A 60-year-old woman was beaten with her own cane on a Manhattan subway platform on Friday, police said on Tuesday.
The two-minute attack was captured on video. It happened inside the subway station at 116th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem, according to the NYPD. pic.twitter.com/KrRIJ3hBBl
— PIX11 News (@PIX11News) September 5, 2023
Man Stabbed Repeatedly Throughout Body at Train Station
BRONX – Police are looking for two people who repeatedly stabbed a subway rider throughout his body on a Bronx train platform. Still no word on what was behind the vicious attack.
See More…https://t.co/sxPEgX9n0Y… pic.twitter.com/lE8YT31Zy5
— Bronx Voice (@Bronxvoice1) September 7, 2023
An elderly man was shoved onto the New York City subway tracks in an unprovoked attack, police said. https://t.co/zu5xGExQVr
— Action News on 6abc (@6abc) September 13, 2023
Weiner did finally say “I do it [ride the subway] all the time” and said this wasn’t “a very substantive critique.”
Yes, a serious uptick in random attacks on the subway isn’t a “substantive critique.” Keep in mind that Weiner had attempted his political comeback in 2013 by mounting a run for New York City mayor until news broke that he had continued sexting with women who were not his wife under the pseudonym (you can never make this stuff up with Weiner) “Carlos Danger.” The fake Mr. Danger lost to the real Mr. Danger, Bill de Blasio, whose policies (and those of his acolytes) led us down the primrose path to where we are now.
Look, I understand that political media is Weiner’s grift now — and perverts with felony records are generally not considered good candidates for electoral comebacks — but, in the 12 years since his first self-induced disgrace, has Weiner not picked up a shred of self-awareness? Did he not think, “Hey, you know who would be a good person to defend NYC Democrats’ record on crime? Literally anyone but a sex criminal.”
Apparently not. Carlos Danger, along with the rest of the New York City progressive battalion, seems utterly clueless about how thoroughly they’ve wrecked their own city. Nice work.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
