At this point, one would guess that Anthony Weiner’s campaign had run out of new ways to surprise us. (It seems to have perfected the old ways, after all.) But Tuesday night, the disgraced-congressman-turned-disgrace-mayoral-candidate’s team managed to do it again when the Democrat’s communication director, Barbara Morgan, unleashed a string of obscenities when talking to a reporter about a former intern who had written a pair of unflattering articles about the campaign after her departure. Morgan’s choice of words included such gems as “cunt” and “twat,” and the less-used “slutbag.”
Little, if any of ex-intern Olivia Nuzzi’s from-inside-the-campaign reporting—first in a blog post on NSFWCORP and then in a front-page-hyped story in the New York Daily News—was particularly damning. Certainly not when compared to Weiner’s more well-known political sins. The big takeaways from Nuzzi’s pieces were that the ongoing staff exodus was greater than previously reported, and that most of those who worked for the campaign in the first place were really just doing it to win points with Weiner’s Clinton-connected wife, Huma. Not good press for a NYC mayoral candidate by any means, but barely a drop in the bucket at this point. Nonetheless, Morgan had a few thoughts about the whole thing, which she shared—apparently unprompted—when TPM’s Hunter Walker called yesterday to discuss an unrelated story:
… [Morgan] went off on a curse-filled rant about Nuzzi, describing her as a fame hungry “bitch” who “sucked” at her job. Morgan also called Nuzzi a “slutbag,” “twat,” and “cunt” while threatening to sue her. …
“I’m dealing with like stupid fucking interns who make it on to the cover of the Daily News even though they signed NDAs and/or they proceeded to trash me,” Morgan told TPM, referring to a non-disclosure agreement. “And by the way, I tried to fire her, but she begged to come back and I gave her a second chance.”
Morgan went on to suggest Nuzzi would be unable to get a job in New York City’s political scene as a result of her actions. “Fucking slutbag. Nice fucking glamour shot on the cover of the Daily News. Man, see if you ever get a job in this town again,” said Morgan.
Oh, the PR professional wasn’t done there. Here she is weighing in on the veracity of Nuzzi’s claims:
“It’s all bullshit,” she said. “I mean, it’s such bullshit. She could fucking — fucking twat.”
And here she is describing Nuzzi’s general job performance:
“She sucked. She like wasn’t good at setting up events. She was clearly there because she wanted to be seen. Like it was, like, terrible and I had to like - she would like, she would just not show up for work,” said Morgan. “For the four weeks she worked there — she didn’t work weekends, so twenty days total. Of those twenty days, she missed probably five because she would just like not show up and not tell me she wasn’t going to be there. So, yeah, so there’s that.”
Shortly after the TPM post went live, Morgan released a statement apologizing to Nuzzi and claiming she had thought her earlier rant wasn’t for publication. “In a moment of frustration, I used inappropriate language in what I thought was an off the record conversation,” Morgan said. “It was wrong and I am very sorry, which is what I said tonight when I called and emailed Olivia to apologize.”
You can read the full TPM story here, and the rant-prompting NSFWCORP and NYDN stories, here and here. Nuzzi, for her part, hasn’t commented publicly just yet, although judging from her Twitter profile it certainly looks like she’s decided to have some fun with it. (h/t AtlanticWire)
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This post has been updated for clarity.
