(CNN) – Staten Island Congressman Michael Grimm – who threatened to hurl a reporter off a Capitol Hill balcony earlier this week – has received some unsolicited crisis management advice from a fellow New Yorker who knows a thing or two about life in the glare of an unfriendly media spotlight.
Former Rep. Anthony Weiner – aka “Carlos Danger” – offered the advice in an op-ed published Thursday in the New York Daily News.
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"I don't want to belabor this one incident, because stuff happens, but I do think – as someone who has had his own share of tension with local media about, ahem, different subjects – I may have something to add to the conversation," said Weiner, a failed Democratic mayoral candidate who resigned from Congress in June 2011 after lying about sending lewd photos and messages to multiple women.
First of all, don't do interviews or public events, Weiner wrote.
"Better yet, if you don't want to talk about your fund-raising scandal, maybe just maybe don't have one to begin with," he added, referencing allegations of campaign finance abuse in the congressman's 2010 campaign.
Grimm threatened a NY1 reporter during an interview after Tuesday's State of the Union address. The two-term GOP congressman said he was anticipating only talking about the President's speech when the reporter slipped in a question about the alleged improprieties. When the reporter asked the question at the end of the interview, Grimm threatened to toss him off a rotunda balcony.
Weiner suggested that, in the future, Grimm should use reporters' questions about the alleged scandal as an opportunity for explanation.
"A few pols under investigation have handled such challenges with real poise. I was not one of them,” Weiner wrote. “I did a terrible job following these rules. I did embarrassing things and made them so much worse by being dishonest about them."
Weiner praised Grimm’s subsequent apology and offer to treat the reporter to lunch.
That was "a classy touch after Rep. Michael Grimm came to his senses," Weiner wrote.
Grimm explained that his emotions got the best of him in an "unfortunate incident.”
Weiner’s final piece of advice to his embattled former colleague?
"You roll with the punches."