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.