Weiner Defends Latest Catfight With Heckler

Politico calls it a meltdown; Anthony Weiner says he "stood up to a heckler." Ahead of the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, the mayoral candidate visited a bakery in New York's Borough Park, where he had a heated exchange with a man in a yarmulke. It appears to begin with the man calling Weiner a "scumbag" as he begins to exit the bakery. "That’s a charming guy right there," Weiner notes. The man apparently follows with, "You’re married to an Arab," Slate notes. "That’s very nice, in front of children, you use that language," Weiner says. It's there that the edited video, which made the rounds before Weiner's camp released the full clip, begins, per Slate.

The pair have a lengthy argument. The man—one Saul Kessler, according to Politicker— calls Weiner "disgusting," prompting the candidate's "takes one to know one, jackass." "You have a nerve to even walk around in public?" asks Kessler. Weiner replies, "Oh yeah, and you're a perfect person? ... What rabbi taught you that you're my judge?" Kessler says Weiner is "fine," but should "stay out of the public eye"; Weiner notes that he has "fought very hard for this community and delivered more than you will ever." Weiner later tweeted:

• "Stood up to a heckler. Yep. Did that. That’s what Mayors have to do sometimes."

(More Anthony Weiner stories.)