Anthony Weiner: Sexting 'Remarkably Meaningless'

Former Rep. Anthony Weiner calls sexting "meaningless" but regrets the effect of his texting scandal on his wife, Huma Abedin, one of Hillary Clinton's top aides.

"You ask about the higher meaning of sexting, but it was remarkably meaningless,"
Weiner told GQ in an interview shortly after placing last in September's New York Democratic mayoral primary. "It was almost like a video game you played. One that didn't have too much connection to reality."

The Democrat's poll numbers plummeted during the campaign after revelations surfaced that he continued sexting with at least one woman even after his resignation from Congress in 2011 for his suggestive phone messages.

"I realized, 'Wait a minute. It's not very significant to me. But it's significant to Huma. It doesn't really matter what I think about it. It kinda matters, the impact it's having on her," he said.

Weiner also acknowledged how much Abedin's reputation has been damaged by her staying with him.

"I duck it as best I can, but her reputation has become the Woman Who Married an Idiot and Stuck with Him."

"More of it rolls off my back, because that's the way I am constitutionally," he added. "I'm just an empty, soulless vessel, so it doesn't hurt me as much."

As for flipping his middle finger at the press after his concession speech, Weiner said, "I was really fried that night. It was such a taut moment, and the campaign was coming to an end, and I had tried not to lose my composure in what might be the last political speech of my life."

"My family was there," he continued. "Huma's been kind of traumatized by this whole thing. So I was just completely frayed at the edges. But I knew immediately it was a mistake."

Weiner didn't directly respond when asked if he and Abedin would be staying together now.

"I will say this," he told GQ while still on the campaign trail. "I have no desire to walk into a bar and pick up a woman. I love my wife."

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