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Out of Tongue, But Plenty of Cheek
Pastrami, ferries and talk of the Iraq war with Congressman Anthony Weiner

By Charlotte Eichna

Last year, Congressman Anthony Weiner took the Democratic Party by surprise when he moved from last place in polls to a second-place finish in the 2005 mayoral primary. Frontrunner Fernando Ferrer just missed the 40 percent mark needed to avoid a run-off, but Weiner conceded the race, citing a desire to forge a unified Democratic front against incumbent Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

It was a move that earned points from party leaders — and attention from political pundits, who have since speculated about Weiner’s prospects for the 2009 mayor’s race, when the seat will be open due to term limits.

In the meantime, Weiner says he’s been focusing on his district, which spans two boroughs and includes neighborhoods like Elmhurst, Kew Gardens, Howard Beach, Midwood and Sheepshead Bay. He sat down for lunch at Ben’s Best, one of the city’s top Kosher delis, which has yet to name a sandwich after him.

[Weiner orders tongue on rye and a root beer]

City Hall: When are you getting a specialty sandwich?
Anthony Weiner: I don’t know, I’ve been asking that for the longest time.

CH: What is yours, tongue on rye?
AW: I don’t know; that’s too simple. It’s got to be like one of these celebrity sandwiches.

[To the waitress]

AW: Does Mike Bloomberg have one?

Waitress: Maybe.

AW: His is probably like baloney and swiss cheese. [Reading the list of celebrity sandwiches on the menu] Nita Lowey, Gary Ackerman. What do I gotta do here to get a…? Ben’s Best was represented by Gary Ackerman in the 80s, Nita Lowey in the 90s and then me. They go through Congress people like a hot knife through butter.

CH: You’ve got a reputation for bring the ‘young guy.’ You were the youngest City Council person at one point. Do you find that you’re still the ‘young guy’?
AW: I find out of all the things to be known for, being ‘young’ is not a good one because sooner or later you’re not young anymore and you’d much rather be smart or energetic or something like that. Compared to some of these guys running around at City Hall, I’m downright age-ed.

Waitress: Congressman, we’re out of tongue.
AW: You’re breaking my heart. Really?
Waitress: Yes.
AW: I’ll take pastrami on rye.

CH: If not ‘young,’ what’s the label that you think you have, and what’s the label that you would want?
AW: Is ‘dashing and good looking’ taken by somebody already?
CH: I don’t know.
AW: No, I eschew labels.
CH: You eschew labels.
AW: I think you should, too. You decide. We have a good 24 minutes of lunch here, you’ll have a chance to label me however you want when we’re done.

CH: So you’re a bachelor. What is in your refrigerator? Do you have hot sauce and a couple of bottles of beer?
AW: I don’t have a lot. I got some beer, I got—I don’t know, I don’t like where this is going. [To press secretary] Aren’t you supposed to protect me from questions like this?

[Ben’s Best owner, Jay Parker, comes over to table]

AW [to Parker]: We wanted to come to the signature place in my district and it was closed, so we came here instead.
Parker: Well we’re going to get even because he’s been dying for us to name a sandwich after him.
CH: So I hear.
AW: It’s not necessary to do this joke right now.
CH [to Parker]: Any ideas for candidates for the sandwich?
Parker: It will consist of, if I get my way, tongue and baloney.
AW [to Parker]: Alright, you got even. I think I hear someone calling you.

CH: Do you like to cook?
AW: I guess I do. My brother is a chef. He owns two restaurants, so he’s the talented one in the family. He got those genes. They’re in the Hamptons. One called Almond and one called Almondito.

CH: Your campaign for mayor: is there a big lesson that you learned from it?
AW: It confirmed to me a lot of the things I’ve known about the city, and that it is still a place that is for the most aspirational people in the world. But there are challenges that we face that we have to confront: how costly it has become for people in the middle class if you’re striving to get there, how hungry people are for specific, concrete ideas about how to do things differently in the city

CH: Do you have any regrets about conceding to Freddy Ferrer?
AW: No.
CH: Even with people criticizing the way he ran his campaign against Bloomberg and the way it sort of fizzled out?
AW: Look, if I didn’t concede, I would have been in the run-off, I would have won the run-off, and I would have defeated Mike Bloomberg. And there’s no way I would have lunch with you—you wouldn’t be big enough. You know, New York Times, Time magazine…

CH: Did you earn a lot of gratitude from Democratic party leaders for bowing out of the run-off? Do you feel that you have a better relationship with them now?
AW: No. I mean, I think I introduced myself to a lot of New Yorkers in that campaign and I’m gratified that a lot of people responded well to it. As for how the campaign ended? We tried to, every single day on the campaign— including the last day—to play the hand we were dealt as well as we could and to think about the future of the city and the future of the party, not just what served our interest at the particular moment. And I learned a lot in watching the way candidates have self-immolated at the end of campaigns. And I was committed not to do that. I said throughout the campaign that I would rather lose than have a divisive race. And I didn’t just say it, I meant it.

CH: When you run in 2009 are you going to make a tax cut a big part of your platform?
AW: I haven’t decided if I’m going to run in 2009.
CH: Really?
AW: Really.
CH: I don’t believe that.
AW: Your job is to be a skeptic.
CH: What things will you factor in when making that decision?
AW: My view is that the way you run for higher office is by doing a good job in the job now. The last thing I’m going to do is engage in a four-year campaign. I’ve got to get re-elected this year, Democrats have to try to win the House this year. 2008 is the presidential campaign—I haven’t ruled out that office.

CH: Neither have I.
AW: Exactly, right? You must get pestered with that question. CH: All the time.

CH: You compiled a number of Homeland Security’s questionable funding projects from various states. Is there one in particular that sticks out in your mind as the most ridiculous?
AW: In addition to what’s not getting the money we should be getting, we’re find that money is going to places that are wasting it because they simply don’t have the needs. So when you have a mushroom festival in Texas that is using Homeland Security funds to buy a trailer, that’s bad, but they’re all bad…We found a town in Alaska that bought like 50 surveillance cameras and they had like 1,600 people in the whole city.

CH: Does the Mark Foley page scandal mark the end of Republican control of Congress?
AW: I think so. I think it undermines what is left of their last remaining strengths with the electorate—this notion that they were the more moral and upstanding party. Although that was never true, now it’s going to be hard for them to make that argument. And also, it has them playing defense at a time when you’d expect them to be trotting out their October surprises.
And so beside the politics of it, it’s outrageous—classic ‘what’s wrong with this Republican Congress.’ They don’t accept responsibility for things, they put politics above all else, and they put the good of their narrow group of incumbent Congressman ahead of protecting these young people who are pages and it’s just outrageous.

CH: Is this the straw that broke the camel’s back for the electorate, or is it specifically because it’s a moral issue Republicans really sought to make their own?
AW: I think that there were some voters who are hardcore Republican voters that don’t care about the mismanagement of the country, who believe with a religious fervor that Republicanism is the way to go. I think they’re going to lose a good deal of that fervor now that they realize that this party’s bankrupt morally as they are in every other way.

CH: What’s your relationship been with pages? Do you use them in your office at all?
AW: I haven’t had the chance to. It’s only when you gain a certain amount of seniority that you get to sponsor them. But they are one of these largely anonymous cogs that make life on Capitol Hill go round. They’re very, very talented. To become a page is not easy. You’ve got to really be sharp, and they work very, very hard. I started out my career in politics as an intern with [former] Congressman Schumer, so on the pecking order interns and pages are probably compatriots because they’re doing a lot of the lifting involved in politics.

CH: Does the page program need more oversight?
AW: No, Members of Congress need more oversight. The Speaker of the House should resign because he failed to do what he needed to do.

CH: You’ve got a pretty conservative district. Is that hard? Has there been one issue in particular that’s been difficult for you to navigate as somebody who’s a little bit more liberal than a lot of your constituents?
AW: I would dispute that. There are some issues, but I think I’m a pretty good reflection of the values of my district. Now, that doesn’t mean that there are issues that are more controversial than others. I mean the war, for example.

CH: Which you voted for.
AW: But gay marriage is a difficult issue because it’s something that I believe in and I have many constituents who disagree with me. And I think what my constituents value and honor is someone who gives the issue thought, who has a certain set of core beliefs that he relies upon and frankly I’m gratified that for the most part, they’ve been very supportive. But I don’t think I’m ever going to be at a point where all of my constituents agree with all of my positions.

CH: There’s been criticism that Democrats haven’t come up with a united front and a viable agenda for our policy in Iraq. Do you agree with that, and what do you think the policy should be?
AW: We should remove our troops.

CH: When?
AW: Immediately.

CH: Are you concerned about deterioration into a major civil war?
AW: There’s major civil war there now. The only difference is both sides are unified, Shia and Sunni are unified in shooting at our troops. I think we should move a portion of the troops to the Iraqi-Iranian border, A) to be a buffer against Iran exporting their worst problems, and also to keep presence in the area. We should have some troops on the Syrian border to prevent troublemakers from coming in from Syria. And we should remove the troops out of the middle of this firefight between Shia and Sunni. There’s more violence this month than last month, there’s more violence last month than the month before, there’s more violence in July of 2006 than there was in July of 2005. This notion that the situation could decay into chaos ignores the fact that it is at this point. We didn’t sign up to be in the middle of a sectarian war. We opposed a dictator and arrested him. We built hospitals and schools and roads and bridges. We helped set up a civilian government there. We’re training police there. Our troops have done a remarkable job. Now, we should bring them home. That should be the position of my party, and that’s my position.

CH: Playing devil’s advocate, you could argue that even though Iraqis were living under a horrible dictatorship, at least they had a basic sense of general safety more than what currently exists. Do we owe it to them to now make sure that they at least have that basic security?
AW: We’ve provided them with more than a basic freedom. This is the responsibility, at the end of the day, of the Iraqi people. Our presence there hasn’t allowed them to avoid that responsibility. Look, a poll came out last week…showing that the Iraqi people overwhelming believe it’s okay to attack United States troops. In that same poll, it said that the Iraqi people wanted us to leave. We have an obligation to the Iraqi people, sure, but they have a responsibility for their own sovereign state at this point. And they have to decide. If they decide what they want is to have sectarian violence, the dissolvement of three states, there’s only so much to do. The question… I’ve got to decide is, what is the best use of our military and are they able to accomplish their goals? And the answer is, they should now, having accomplished so much, we should bring them out before we have any more funerals.

CH: Do you regret your vote for the war?
AW: Yes.

CH: One of your favorite topics I understand is ferries. Are they something you think the government should fund like subways and trains?
AW: Yes, it should be part of the mass transit infrastructure like it is in other waterborne communities.

CH: Where, specifically, would you like to see ferries?
AW: There should be ferry service from western Queens across the water to Manhattan. Three should be ferry service from the Rockaways into Lower Manhattan. There should be ferry service from Lower Manhattan, Midtown Manhattan, the West Side of Manhattan to Shea Stadium this evening [the night of a playoff game]. There should be ferry service that connects all of the assets of the National Parks in New York Harbor. There should be ferry service going to Kennedy Airport. There should be ferry service going to La Guardia. We live in a city that has a couple of things going for it: one, we’re absolutely at capacity in terms of the number of cars that can fit on the road. The amount of time that we’re in our cars waiting, the congestion that we have, the environmental impacts—we’re pretty much maxed out. And the second truism: the waterways are empty. Unlike the turn of the century when there were dozens of ferry services, we have virtually none and so it seems like an obvious solution. If we’re going to have a livable city for the next generation, we’re going to have to do more transporting of goods and people on the waterways.

CH: What’s the problem? Why is there resistance to ferry service?
AW: There hasn’t been the type of outside-the-box creativity on the part of city planners that there should be.

CH: Don’t they need more federal help?
AW: I provided them with federal help and they said, ‘We don’t even want to take it.’ It comes down to one thing: coming up with new and creative ideas, not getting locked into the old paradigm about how we do things…Thinking creatively about getting people around and goods around in the city hasn’t been what the MTA’s been particularly thinking about and hasn’t been what the city’s been particularly thinking about.

CH: You’re a funny guy and you’ve often used your sense of humor publicly to your benefit. Have there been times when you’ve regretted that, when a joke hasn’t gone over?
AW: Yes.

CH: Can you give me a specific example?
AW: This meeting has several occasions for that.

CH: No, this is great material.
AW: Great material is not what I’m shooting for here. Impolitic things are never my problem. My problem is saying what’s probably true and everyone knows is true but people don’t usually say…Someone asked me what the toughest thing about being mayor would be, and I said, ‘Acting happy at a Yankee parade.’ Now, it’s funny and it’s true, but I probably shouldn’t say it.

CH: You’re not running against Mayor Bloomberg, you will never do that again, presumably.
AW: Correct, thank God.

CH: Can you give him a grade?
AW: I still want to give him an incomplete…I obviously didn’t think he did a good job the first term. I’m prepared to say that he shows signs that he got the message from his first term. He’s started to take a more expansive view of his role as being mayor and getting involved in these federal issues he should…I think he took an important step in appointing that commission on poverty and need in the city. I thought the report itself wasn’t particularly good, but it’s an important step that he took. But there’s still many of the challenges the city faces…Housing has become prohibitively expensive for many middle class New Yorkers, our schools aren’t the gateway to the middle class for those that are struggling to make it like they should be, we’re still hemorrhaging good teachers. There are still many challenges that we face, but we only have one mayor at a time and I’m working as hard as I can to make him successful and to help in any way that I can. So I’m going to say ‘incomplete,’ and probably the mayor would give himself that same grade, too, because there’s a lot that he wants to get done yet.

CH: What are the chances of New York getting hit with a hurricane and are we ready for it?
AW: 1 in 5 in the next 10 years. If there’s a category 3, the ocean would probably meet the bay in Rockaway.

CH: So we’re not ready is what you’re saying.
AW: Yes, that’s what I’m saying.

CH: What needs to happen?
AW: We need to invest in infrastructure. Create jetties and groins in places like the Rockaway peninsula, the waterfront in Sheepshead Bay, Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. Places like City Island in the Bronx, Orchard Beach in the Bronx—these areas that are exposed that get really ravaged even in a run-of-the-mill nor’easter—we’re not prepared. And again and again we’re hearing warnings from meteorologists who say it’s just a matter of time.

CH: Why isn’t anything happening?
AW: The Republican Congress and the Republican President just refuse to invest in army corps projects. The same era of neglect that contributed to the man-made disaster of Hurricane Katrina is keeping us in place for being vulnerable to a similar thing.

CH: Can we do something without the federal government?
AW: It’s very hard. This is a classic federal role to protect the waterfronts. The Army Corps of Engineers does remarkable work if they’re funded to do it. We have to remember that Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster, but the ravaging of those communities…was really a man-made deal.

CH: So we’ve got our hands tied at this point.
AW: No, we don’t. Our hands are not tied. We have to win back the House and the Senate. In 2008 we have to win the presidency. There is accountability here.

CH: Who would you like to see run as the Democratic candidate for president in ‘08?
AW: Hillary Clinton is our candidate.

CH: And that’s who you want?
AW: Oh sure.

CH: Do you think she can get elected?
AW: I want it if she wants it. I want her to be happy. I just want my junior senator to be happy. And if it’s not Hillary, then it should be Chuck [Schumer]…Hillary and Chuck on a bad day are better than John McCain on his best day.

[After finishing off several slices of tongue, which the waitress brought out after the kitchen was restocked]

AW: Make a mental note: 10 slices of tongue on top of your sandwich…disgusting. [In a British accent] Get me a bucket. One more wafer-thin mint. Come on, one more mint. How could it hurt?

CH: Do you have a comic idol?
AW: Eric Idle?

CH: You said you had no personal life during the mayoral campaign. Have you gotten a personal life back?
AW: No. Is there a place I can go rent one, though?

CH: Maybe on Craigslist.
AW: No, I’ve got a rather exciting personal life.

CH: Mets games?
AW: Yes.

CH: Newspapers love your last name. Was that a liability on the playground at all?
AW: Not after about the fifth grade…By the fifth grade I’d pretty much heard it all. Nothing original has been said or written about my name since P.S. 39 so there’s no pun you can do that I haven’t already heard.

CH: Howard Beach, a community that you represent, has had some problems with racial relations. Are there things that could be done—not just there, but in other parts of the city—to improve race relations?
AW: I think the mayor gets a lot of credit for improving the tenor of our discussion around race and I think also Sept. 11, if there is a silver lining to that horrible event, is it made us realize we have a lot more in common with one another. I have to push back on the notion that Howard Beach has more problems than anywhere else. Unlike years ago where it seemed like some in the community were supporting racists, this time the community to a person came together after the events of last summer and spoke loudly as a community that they weren’t going to tolerate that kind of stuff in the community. But I think that we all have to develop a sense that the main place that we overcome these types of biases is in our public schools, which are places that kids from all walks of life come together and frankly are raised very comfortably with the idea of the diversity of New York as a strength, not a liability. I really think the city has become a much more copasetic place and I think the mayor deserves credit for it. [Police] Commissioner Kelly’s done a very good job as well…

CH: From a legal or moral standpoint, do you think it’s appropriate to prosecute crimes that are hateful because of something somebody has said or thought?
AW: Yes.

CH: How is that not then infringing on freedom of speech?
AW: My right to speech carries with it certain responsibilities. And doing harm to the fabric of a community is what you seek to prevent. Your right to free expression doesn’t extend to painting a swastika on the door of a synagogue. Your right to free expression doesn’t change the fact that society has a right to decide that certain crimes are more egregious than others. A simple assault is bad. An assault that’s part of a gay bashing, or an assault on someone because they’re a Sikh does harm more to just that person. It does harm to our ability as a community to live together. That’s why I believe it should have higher penalties.

CH: You went to Israel this past summer to show solidarity with the bombing victims. Do you think that Israel’s response to Hamas attacks was of the appropriate magnitude?
AW: I don’t know. I think that they’re a sovereign country that’s having hundreds if not thousands of rockets fall on its citizens. It’s hard for me to fathom what an appropriate response is, except to fire back. I can’t help putting myself in the situation of having rockets flying from Canada, for example, and whether or not I’d be expecting my government to shoot at them to make them stop. I think that there is no country on earth that has ever fought warfare the way that Israel does. Just going to the most extreme lengths to prevent civilians from being harmed, and dropping leaflets in areas that they’re about to try to hit enemy. They always give up the element of surprise. They’re dealing with an enemy who is, to this day, as we sit here and speak, is still raining armaments down on their citizens…I think whatever the Israeli government does to protect its citizens is the right of a democracy.

CH: My question wasn’t so much, ‘Should they have fired back?’ It was more, ‘Was the extent to which they fired back appropriate?’
AW: They’re a sovereign nation. They have to make a calculation about what is appropriate to defend themselves. It’s really not, my job is not to—they have their own legislature, they have their own Knesset, they have their own military, they have their own democracy there. I believe that anything that a government does that their people believe is appropriate to defend themselves is de facto appropriate. They had about a million of their citizens, of the Israeli citizens, were refugees—couldn’t live in their own homes. They had thousands of rockets falling on things like hospitals. I think almost anything’s appropriate under that type of bombardment. I know that we as Americans would believe that. So I didn’t see anything that struck me as being inappropriate. How a democracy defends itself from attacks from terrorists is pretty much its own business.