Yes, that’s it. For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen him do anything worse than the umbrella thing.
Are there anecdotes that you haven’t been able to fit into a story?
There’s nothing like the salad, ‘cause that was amazing. There was this moment on the campaign trail with Huma that I thought was kind of telling about both her and him and maybe their relationship. We were in Harlem, and they were walking up Frederick Douglass Boulevard and popping into different restaurants and shops. And they had a couple staffers with them and this volunteer whose only job is to hold up this “Anthony Weiner for Mayor” sign behind him. There’s always this guy holding up this sign. And I swear, I’ve never seen him say, “Hey, thanks for holding the sign.” I’ve never seen him even talking to the guy.
So we’re walking up the street and [Huma’s] like, “Seriously Ben’s [the sign guy] hand must be killing him by now,” and Anthony didn’t even respond. And she’s like, “I feel bad.” And Anthony was like, “It’s not a hand thing, it’s like a shoulder thing.” And she’s like, “It’s a whole arm thing.” And meanwhile, the guy is standing there. And then—oh, this is why I didn’t use this, because I got involved. I was like, “Well, why don’t you ask him?” And then [Ben] was like, “Actually, it’s a circulation thing.” But just the fact that Huma would care about this guy that Anthony doesn’t usually talk to when they’re out, and then that they would fight about what part of his hand is hurting.
Is it normal for a candidate to walk around in front of a sign?
I don’t know. Maybe? The consistency with which Anthony walks around the city with a guy holding his name up behind him is impressive. He’s always there.
When the Carlos Danger thing broke, there were a whole lot of salacious things you could’ve run, but you didn’t. Why is that?
I just did a profile of Huma that I worked on for several weeks, and the timing of it was such that we published it on Tuesday, amidst the latest sexting scandal. That was something I was happy with, because this is an incredibly private person, that you never hear from or see, but there’s so much fascination with her—or I have fascination for her. Because she’s in the middle of the two most interesting stories: Anthony Weiner and Hillary Clinton, and she’s incredibly smart and incredibly adored but completely press adverse. And I thought, okay, how am I going to do this? She’s not going to give me an interview, clearly.
I had a feeling she was going to come out in Harlem to this jerk chicken festival, and she did. And I kind of had a feeling from his campaign she was going to come out again soon. And each time she came out I got a little more color for the piece. I filed a draft on the Friday before the [Carlos Danger] story broke, and I had first edits back to me that night and spent the weekend retooling the piece. I was basically a wreck; I hadn’t slept the night before. Sometimes I very stupidly think I can be most productive by doing all-nighters, which is a self-destructive college habit.
On Tuesday I was supposed to go on vacation; I did go on vacation. We put the Huma piece for Tuesday online, because it felt like now or never. My editors have a really good sense of timing—I don’t. I was thinking of coming back to the city, and I was in Bradley Beach in New Jersey with family friends, and they were kind of like, “Why are you at your computer half the time when you’re supposed to be at the beach?” So I was following the crazy circus very closely.
