Weiner to address media at 4 p.m. ET; Report: Weiner won't resign; Update: Breitbart takes over Weiner presser; Update: Weiner admits to sending photo, not resigning; Update: Apologizes to Breitbart; Update: Woman who received Weiner pics speaks to ABC

I’d like to tell you that you can watch live on the cable news net of your choice, but the big three have kept their distance from the story thus far today — including Fox News, which was told by Roger Ailes to “move on” unless there were new developments. A live presser possibly announcing his resignation from Congress would qualify as a new development, but given how fearless (some) CNN reporters were in confronting Weiner about the original pic, they’re probably your best bet.

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Most people on Twitter think he’ll resign. I don’t. He’s too ambitious to fall on his sword this early, too arrogant to believe he can’t survive it, and too beloved by the left not to think they’ll rally behind him if he refuses to bow before the Evil Wingnuts. As Matt Yglesias recently noted, plenty of politicians have survived sex scandals and thrived afterwards; the key is simply to hang in there, endure a week or two of humiliation, and hope your partisan pals come to your aid. The one hitch for Weiner is that there could be tons more pics, sexts, and e-mails still out there and waiting to surface. If he hangs on, he invites more revelations. In fact, as I write this, ABC is apparently getting ready to broadcast an interview with the woman who received the bare-chested pics of Weiner. If he lies low for, say, a month, maybe he can hang on. That’s how I’m going to bet — that he walks out there a half hour for now, admits to “lapses in judgment,” and asks for privacy while he seeks “counseling” and tries to rebuild his marriage.

While we wait, via Breitbart TV, here’s Barbara Walters speculating — before Breitbart released the barechested pic this afternoon — that maybe the underwear pic was intended for … Weiner’s wife.

Update: Told ya.

Sources tell NY1 that Congressman Anthony Weiner will not resign, following new allegations that he sent shirtless pictures and sexually explicit messages to women over the Internet.

A conservative website today posted photos that appear to show the Brooklyn-Queens congressman with his shirt off. Another site, RadarOnline.com, says a young woman has come forward with 200 sexually explicit messages she says were sent from Weiner.

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Update: Politico thinks he’ll try to hang on too: “One senior House Democratic staffer told POLITICO that Weiner is expected ‘to try to explain what happened’ but will not resign. He has not spoken to Democratic leaders since the new photos were released, the source said.”

Update: Somehow the drama ratchets up even further: Andrew Breitbart will be in the room when Weiner walks out.

Update: I’m hearing that Breitbart is actually at the podium, fielding questions from the press, while everyone waits for Weiner.

Update: Confirmed — CNN is airing live footage of Breitbart at the podium. “Surreal,” says their correspondent at the scene.

Update: Fox News is airing Breitbart’s comments live. It’s basically now a Breitbart press conference.

Update: Cavuto was so stunned by seeing Breitbart up there, he wondered aloud whether the whole “Weiner press conference” announcement was a hoax. It isn’t, they’ve now confirmed. Weiner’s team called the presser; he’s still set to speak as I write this.

Update: Weiner admits to having sent the photo — as a joke, he says — and says “I’ve made terrible mistakes.” He’s visibly shaken. Now he’s admitting to “inappropriate conversations” with six women online over the past three years (some after he was married). And no, as expected, he says he won’t resign.

Why would he admit to having inappropriate chats with other women but insist that the underwear pic was sent as a joke?

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Update: A reporter asks whether he can say that Breitbart’s claim of having an as-yet-unrevealed explicit photo is false. Weiner: No, I can’t say that that’s false.

Update: Asked whether he wants to apologize to Breitbart, who was attacked by the left for supposedly framing him with the underwear pic, Weiner says only that he apologizes to everyone in the media.

Update: Asked again whether he wants to apologize to Breitbart, Weiner finally does so. The left can forgive him for everything else, but given their rabid hatred of AB, I’m not sure they’ll forgive him for that.

Update: Asked whether he knows the ages of the women he chatted with, Weiner says no, he doesn’t. He says he had no intention to have chats with underaged women, but of course can’t be certain that they represented their ages correctly. Gulp.

Update: People are speculating now whether New York Democrats might put Weiner out of his misery by redistricting him into oblivion.

Update: As expected, here’s ABC’s story on Meagan Broussard, the woman who allegedly received the photos of Weiner.

“I just chuckled,” Broussard, a nursing student, said of her reaction to the story that unfolded in the media last week. “It would be one thing if he came out and said, ‘Hey, so what?’ But now he’s saying he got hacked.”

Broussard said she received the same photo of a man’s crotch on May 18 [as was sent to Gennette Cordova] in an email from a man who she then believed was Weiner…

[Another] message included an image of a man, who appears to be Weiner, sporting a tie and a wedding band, holding up the message “me” on a piece of white paper.

“I didn’t think it was him,” she says. “I thought for sure, ‘why would someone in that position be doing this?'”

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Allegedly, when she told him she was uncomfortable with the online relationship, he told her “you are not stalking me….I am stalking you.”

Update: No joke: The last question shouted at a Weiner as he left the podium was “Were you fully erect, Congressman?”

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David Strom 5:20 PM | May 01, 2024
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