Obama to Weiner: 'I Would Resign'

Obama reported told Ann Curry that he would step down if he were the congressman

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In an interview to be aired tonight, President Obama took a stronger position on whether Rep. Anthony Weiner should resign in an interview with NBC's Ann Curry for Tuesday's Today show. From a partial transcript released by NBC:

Well, obviously what he did was highly inappropriate. I think he's embarrassed himself, he's acknowledged that, he's embarrassed his wife and his family. Ultimately there's going to be a decision for him and his constituents. I can tell you that if it was me, I would resign. Because public service is exactly that, it's a service to the public. And when you get to the point where, because of various personal distractions, you can't serve as effectively as you need to at the time when people are worrying about jobs and their mortgages and paying the bills, then you should probably step back.

Oh, and the president also talked about the debt ceiling: "I am absolutely confident that we can move forward on a plan that gets our debt under control, gets our deficit under control but also makes sure that we're making the investments in the future that are going to help us put people back to work."

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.