The U.K. Daily Mail reports that CNN was allegedly having talks with the late conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart and Anthony Weiner, the former New York Congressman that left office after a sexting scandal was revealed… by Breitbart.

While it makes for a good story, a source familiar with Weiner’s plans tells TVNewser that it is utter fiction. Weiner–who has been laying low since leaving office, and just became a new father–has not been talking to CNN about hosting a show, and would “never” host a program with the man that helped remove him from office, the source says.

CNN also told Politico’s Dylan Byers that the story was “totally false.” The author of the Daily Mail story defended himself to Byers, saying that he was just reporting what Breitbart was telling friends.

While the Weiner-Breitbart “Crossfire-esque” program wasn’t realistic, the possibility of Breitbart joining CNN in a paid capacity may have been. A source at the channel says that Breitbart was believed to be having discussions about joining in a paid role, though it would likely have been as a political analyst.

Update: CNN tells me that it was not considering Breitbart for a paid position at the network.

On Monday Megyn Kelly will return to Fox News Channel after coming back from maternity leave. In advance of her return, she spoke to USA Today about being a mom, her roots, and former Rep. Anthony Weiner.

Kelly has hosted Weiner on her daily program many times, and despite the sometimes confrontational tone of the appearances, she seems to hold him in high esteem… at least until his recent actions that cost him his career as a member of Congress.

Sympathy for a friend. Disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner “sent me a nice note after Yardley was born. I feel sorry for his family. His wife doesn’t deserve this. I have been in the position, not with my current marriage, where I’ve been betrayed. In the beginning, the instinct is very powerful to hang on.”

ABC News is planning to cut down significantly on the number of interviews it gets via the paying of license fees, according to The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz.

According to Kurtz, the decision to limit the license fees came after new ABC News chief Ben Sherwood decided that the practice was something of a black eye on the news division. ABC paid more than $200,000 to the family of Casey Anthony during the trial, and more recently paid money to a woman who corresponded with Anthony Weiner. An ABC News spokesperson tells TVNewser that Sherwood had been thinking about implementing the change for some time.

When asked for comment, spokesman Jeffrey Schneider confirmed the new policy, saying: “We can book just about anyone based on the strength of our journalism, the excellence of our anchors, correspondents and producers, and the size of our audience. These licensing deals had become a crutch, and an unnecessary one.”

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You knew this wasn’t going to end smoothly. With dozens of cameras broadcasting live on more than a half dozen networks Rep. Anthony Weiner announced he was leaving his seat in Congress following a sexting scandal.

Midway through his announcement — hard to call it a news conference since he took no questions — a writer and performer from the Howard Stern show, Benjy Bronk, did what performers on the Howard Stern show do: he interrupted the news conference, yelling mostly inaudible comments directed at Weiner — specifically about the parts of his body that have been at the center of this sordid story from the beginning. Also, his last name.

“We could hear the heckling and the disgusting things quite frankly that were yelled,” said MSNBC’s Tamron Hall. “And maybe this is why he had to end this at this point,” she added.

“A lot of anger in that room,” said Martha MacCallum, asking her Fox News audience, “Did you hear the heckling?” Only CNN zoomed out to Bronk during the live announcement. Fox News replayed some of the heckling a few minutes after its conclusion.

Bronk’s done this before. Here he was at Weiner’s news conference earlier this month.

• Video of today’s resignation announcement, after the jump…

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Moments after the The New York Times broke the news that Rep. Anthony Weiner would be stepping down — around 9:35amET — the cable channels went into rolling coverage. It appears our weeks-long national nightmare is about to be over. Weiner is holding a news conference at 2pmET.

CNN’s Dana Bash was the first TV correspondent to report the news citing her own sources at 9:40amET.

We’re told Bash, who is 36 weeks pregnant, had an off the record heads up last night that this would be happening (that’s enough to make you go into labor) and did not report the news until after her sources confirmed it this morning.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer will anchor special coverage of the 2pm news conference, joined by John King and CNN’s Gloria Borger.

The Rep. Anthony Weiner scandal was the most reported story last week, filling 17% of the newshole on TV, radio, newspapers and online.

Most of Weiner-gate, or as the Project for Excellence in Journalism labels it on their fancy graph “Congressional Scandals” — as if there was another last week — was on cable news. One third (33%) of cable news last week was spent on the scandal. Just 7% of newspaper coverage tracked devoted space to Weiner.

The Weiner saga is the fourth-most covered scandal involving elected officials since PEJ began tracking news in January 2007.

Fox News analyst Kirsten Powers, a former girlfriend of Rep. Anthony Weiner, who at first defended the New York congressman, says Weiner should step down. Powers was on “America Live” today with Martha MacCallum. Watch Powers grimace as she’s introduced as Weiner’s former girlfriend.

Of all the reporters and hosts on cable news, there is probably only one that has any real first-hand knowledge of what Rep. Anthony Weiner is going through right now. Last night, that person, CNN’s Eliot Spitzer weighed in on the matter on “In the Arena.”

“The decision to resign is a deeply personal one, and let me be very upfront about this. As most folks probably know, I made the other decision. I did resign,” Spitzer said.

This afternoon, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) acknowledged that he had sent inappropriate photos and messages to various women through email, text and social messaging sites. ABC News’s Chris Cuomo had been requesting an interview with Weiner all day as he has an interview with one of those women, Meagan Broussard.

How that interview came to pass, however, is almost as interesting as Weinergate itself. The news is buried toward the bottom of the first page of ABCNews.com’s story:

Broussard said she confided about her experiences with several close friends, including one with Republican political ties. The man, whom she declined to identify, encouraged her to share her story with Matt Drudge and conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart.

Breitbart, who first published details of Broussard’s story on Biggovernment.com, shared her identity with ABC News.

ABC News then contacted Broussard and licensed a handful of photos from her.

How much did ABC News pay?

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U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) is opening an investigation into TV gold dealers… and cites hosts like Glenn Beck who he says “drive a false narrative.”

Specifically, Weiner seems to be targeting Goldline, which is a regular sponsor of Beck’s TV show, radio program, and web properties.

A press release announcing the investigation states:

Goldline employs several conservative pundits to act as shills for its’ precious metal business, including Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee, Laura Ingraham, and Fred Thompson. By drumming up public fears during financially uncertain times, conservative pundits are able to drive a false narrative…

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