:00:00. > :00:17.American politics currently has more unlikely storylines than anything
:00:18. > :00:19.you might see in New York's Broadway theatre district.
:00:20. > :00:21.The rise of Donald Trump is one illustration
:00:22. > :00:26.of the depth of public frustration with politics as usual.
:00:27. > :00:29.My guest today is Anthony Weiner, who was a rising star
:00:30. > :00:37.He had his own role in bringing US politics into disrepute.
:00:38. > :00:45.His career was destroyed by not one but two bizarre sex scandals.
:00:46. > :01:07.Why did he push the self-destruct button?
:01:08. > :01:20.Thank you. I want to begin by asking you to reflect and look back five
:01:21. > :01:24.years. If you think about the way you were then in the way you are
:01:25. > :01:30.today, do you think you are pretty much still the same guy? I'm
:01:31. > :01:39.animated by many of the same things, the things I cared about
:01:40. > :01:45.when I ran for office and served in the House of Representatives. I
:01:46. > :01:53.still care about the city. I have a four-year-old that I spend a lot of
:01:54. > :01:57.time with. It is hard to tell whether I are many different. My
:01:58. > :02:01.life is different, but it is hard to tell. Let's go back and talk about
:02:02. > :02:09.your political career before it came to an end. You were a very noisy
:02:10. > :02:14.politician. You were playing hardball politics you got to the US
:02:15. > :02:20.Congress. You seemed to revel in the sort of no mercy Patterson fight.
:02:21. > :02:25.Would that be a fair characterisation? -- Patterson. I
:02:26. > :02:32.recognised that politics are changed. I realise that now there
:02:33. > :02:36.are ways you can advance policy and things you care about within outside
:02:37. > :02:42.strategy as much as any inside strategy. You can be there for 20
:02:43. > :02:45.years becoming an expert in the machinations of legislative
:02:46. > :02:50.procedure, but since that was not really happening much any more in
:02:51. > :03:00.the modern Congress, getting legislation passed, nobody did that.
:03:01. > :03:06.I saw the value and the benefit of developing a strategy of pushing
:03:07. > :03:10.issues by sabre rattling from the outside, using people like you to
:03:11. > :03:15.get my message across. You had a high media profile. And you pulled
:03:16. > :03:19.stunts. One only has to go to YouTube to see some of the Anthony
:03:20. > :03:25.Weiner stance of days gone by. I don't like the sound of stunts. You
:03:26. > :03:31.brought things onto the floor. I had fun. And I had fun with myself. And
:03:32. > :03:37.you rented and raved. People will recall the sort of figures
:03:38. > :03:41.passionate speeches you made and the rows you got into on the floor of
:03:42. > :03:46.the house. Do you think yours on reflection was the kind of politics
:03:47. > :03:51.that people today are deeply alienate it from? I forget is the
:03:52. > :03:57.other way around. I find people don't like the phoniness. They don't
:03:58. > :04:02.like the notion that it is not on a level. That was a lot of what my
:04:03. > :04:09.mentor was when I was in Washington, that I would go on Fox and literally
:04:10. > :04:14.look into the camera and sell how phoney it sounded -- mantra. I would
:04:15. > :04:18.take down the interviewers as much as they did the people I was often
:04:19. > :04:24.arguing with because I believed it was necessary that people like you
:04:25. > :04:29.are fundamentally in on the problem we have today, which is this split
:04:30. > :04:38.screen shouting economy of political ideas. I would disagree. I think in
:04:39. > :04:45.fact the moment is that I found most residents in whether things when I
:04:46. > :04:49.was pushing back against the conventions -- resonance. You were
:04:50. > :04:55.on television a lot. When you ran into your crisis, your personal
:04:56. > :04:59.crisis, you were high profile, and plenty of people in politics and the
:05:00. > :05:05.media wanted to take you down. I will take your word for it, yes,
:05:06. > :05:09.perhaps that is the case. It also didn't help that I was not honest
:05:10. > :05:18.about it, journalists are not like that. Hang on. The people I was
:05:19. > :05:21.dishonest to whether journalists asking the questions, so yes, there
:05:22. > :05:29.were not happy. That is not their fault. You can be any level of
:05:30. > :05:35.politician and pursue any level of any style that you want, but if you
:05:36. > :05:38.were going to be dishonest at the beginning of a scandal, journalists
:05:39. > :05:42.would want to take you down. We have to talk about the specifics of the
:05:43. > :05:46.scandal to make sense of it. You will not get too far with that line
:05:47. > :05:50.of questioning, but go for it. I'm not interested in mitigating. For
:05:51. > :06:00.those who do not know, and there will be plenty. You accidentally
:06:01. > :06:04.publicly tweeted pictures that were indicative of the fact you had been
:06:05. > :06:10.sexting various women it turned out over a period of years. When this
:06:11. > :06:14.was exposed, you lied about it. If you had not lied about it, do you
:06:15. > :06:27.think your political career would have survived? No. Why? It wasn't
:06:28. > :06:35.the lie. It was the pictures and why name and the fact it was a slow news
:06:36. > :06:40.period. Newspaper guys could write headlines and John Stewart could
:06:41. > :06:43.make fun of it. I should have, but it would not have changed anything.
:06:44. > :06:47.The common wisdom about these sort of things is it is not the act
:06:48. > :06:53.usually kills the politician. You just asked the question and I
:06:54. > :06:57.answered it. I answered it and I disagree with that. You didn't do
:06:58. > :07:08.anything illegal. Visualise if you want to give go down this power. I
:07:09. > :07:12.suggest that was me. My name is Anthony Weiner. It is a slow news
:07:13. > :07:18.period. I have John Oliver, John Stuart, New York tabloids, which
:07:19. > :07:30.tabloids. You think it just goes away, the pictures? -- Jon Stewart.
:07:31. > :07:35.Bill Clinton survived a scandal. He obviously had tools at his disposal
:07:36. > :07:38.to change the subject as the President of the United States that
:07:39. > :07:43.an individual member of Congress does not have. But you are working
:07:44. > :07:48.to draw the conclusion you would like. The narrative is more complex
:07:49. > :07:53.than you realising after the first break of the scandal that your
:07:54. > :08:00.political career was dead. There was a period after the summer of 2011
:08:01. > :08:04.when you quit the Congress would you might be able to make a comeback.
:08:05. > :08:08.Because you decided to run for New York City mayor. There was a time
:08:09. > :08:11.when people believed to have a shot of winning. It would have been
:08:12. > :08:17.difficult, but yes. So you did believe you could come back? I would
:08:18. > :08:21.not have run if I thought there was no chance. It was an uphill battle
:08:22. > :08:24.from the word go, and it did not work out. But yes, I do not run
:08:25. > :08:31.because they thought it was impossible. I ran because I thought
:08:32. > :08:35.I would give it a try and in some ways around the campaign well in
:08:36. > :08:39.some ways disastrously. But yes honestly I thought I could win.
:08:40. > :08:44.There are very few people who run for office, especially for mayor of
:08:45. > :08:50.the city of New York, who think they won't win. To be brutal about it, it
:08:51. > :08:56.wasn't that you had the exposure and a tough time, the crisis in marriage
:08:57. > :09:00.that you had come through. It wasn't that first face of it that
:09:01. > :09:03.completely killed any idea in your head of continuing a political
:09:04. > :09:10.career, it was the second time. When he ran for New York City mayor, you
:09:11. > :09:15.carried on sexting. I have lost track of the question. What is your
:09:16. > :09:19.question for me? My question for you this time, to be simple, what
:09:20. > :09:25.possessed you when you had suffered this meltdown crisis to decide to
:09:26. > :09:31.resurrect your political career they keep on sexting. Firstly, it was in
:09:32. > :09:37.the past. It was before the campaign began. I thought I had expressed
:09:38. > :09:41.clearly to every interviewer that there was other stuff out there and
:09:42. > :09:49.I had done other things. You can say I should have said I did it with
:09:50. > :09:52.this person this particular time, but the question is fundamentally
:09:53. > :09:58.whether I thought I could run having that stuff in my background, and the
:09:59. > :10:02.answer is no. It seems like we discussion to be having. Yes, you
:10:03. > :10:09.were right, it was not successful to come back. I suppose what I'm trying
:10:10. > :10:14.to do is get inside your head. Maybe in politics there is a belief that
:10:15. > :10:19.you can fix things, that you live in a bubble in you live in a world
:10:20. > :10:25.where there is a lot of affirmation, a lot of people who want a piece of
:10:26. > :10:28.you, who want to tell you what a great job you were doing, and maybe
:10:29. > :10:34.you believed you could get away with it. I don't understand what you are
:10:35. > :10:37.asking. I obviously do not believe I could get away with it, because I
:10:38. > :10:43.resigned. You are asking me whether or not giving the voters, this time,
:10:44. > :10:48.rather than me, the opportunity to decide whether it was it
:10:49. > :10:52.disqualified me. I gave them that opportunity and they said yes, it
:10:53. > :10:55.disqualifies me. I left it to the voters in the voters decided
:10:56. > :11:00.resoundingly yes, it disqualifies me. I'm not sure I get your point.
:11:01. > :11:06.It is the second rank that is puzzling and still puzzles me. I
:11:07. > :11:10.don't know how to help you. When I was in the race and was leading in
:11:11. > :11:16.the polls. I had high negatives and knew it will be difficult. And you
:11:17. > :11:19.will -- I knew it would be very difficult even with no evidence
:11:20. > :11:24.coming out for me to win. All that being said, you asked if I still
:11:25. > :11:29.cared about the things I care about, and I do. I think I would have been
:11:30. > :11:32.a good mayor. There is a notion the people did not decide I should leave
:11:33. > :11:36.the first time. People argued I should have stayed. The polls in my
:11:37. > :11:41.own district over one links and I should stay. If you are telling me
:11:42. > :11:47.it was a mistake to run the second time, join the club. I didn't do
:11:48. > :11:50.very well. -- overwhelmingly said. Just to give people a sense of how
:11:51. > :11:55.much media attention was focused on you for a while, one story, correct
:11:56. > :12:00.me if I'm wrong and it is not true, when I read somewhere at one point
:12:01. > :12:05.your wife had to come to meet you in the trunk of a car. It was a
:12:06. > :12:10.terrible scandal. This is not terribly interesting. You are an
:12:11. > :12:15.important guy, doing a show, during an interview. You are talking about
:12:16. > :12:19.things five years ago it that where a chapter in my life, maybe it is
:12:20. > :12:22.titillating to you and others. I think about it all that much any
:12:23. > :12:27.more. It was difficult for my wife and it was difficult for me, yes.
:12:28. > :12:31.Now that you know, and it has become clear you absolutely no with
:12:32. > :12:36.certitudes you are not going back to politics... Yeah, I know. What you
:12:37. > :12:45.make of American politics today? In a dangerous place? It is in a
:12:46. > :12:49.reflection point. There is a thing going on in politics today in
:12:50. > :12:54.America which is able shouting at each other and in the media kind of
:12:55. > :12:57.being involved in a shouting by putting them on a screen and letting
:12:58. > :13:02.them shout at each other. Which is really omitted to me you were... I
:13:03. > :13:08.was really good at it. -- admitted. I recognise that was the state of
:13:09. > :13:12.it. But the problem is that if underlying that there is not a
:13:13. > :13:16.real, session about the issues, one of the reasons I did the shows was
:13:17. > :13:24.to have sessions about these things, when I was taking part on foxes, I
:13:25. > :13:32.thought there were some value. -- Fox News. But I'm concerned that all
:13:33. > :13:36.we are getting today are these weird conflicts, many conflicts, but are
:13:37. > :13:40.not really getting at the issues at hand, and I don't really know. I
:13:41. > :13:44.can't imagine it will stay this way for long. I think there is an
:13:45. > :13:48.appetite for ways to elevate issues beyond that. So people are not
:13:49. > :13:53.voting or watching shows like yours. They like the institutions are in
:13:54. > :13:54.decline. I think something has to change. And I think something
:13:55. > :14:19.probably well. At the moment, a man who prides
:14:20. > :14:25.himself on having very little political position at all, referring
:14:26. > :14:30.to Donald Trump... I am wondering why a significant chunk of the right
:14:31. > :14:35.leaning population are behind him, I wonder what that says? I am not sure
:14:36. > :14:39.what that says. There are some elements of a fringe in every
:14:40. > :14:45.country. Did I already know that there were hundreds and thousands of
:14:46. > :14:50.blockheads, idiots in this country, who would vote for a reality TV
:14:51. > :14:56.star? I already knew that. We shouldn't give it too much credit
:14:57. > :15:02.for representing a real thing. There is a phoniness about this,
:15:03. > :15:09.consternation. Guys like you, you love him, you dine out on him. You
:15:10. > :15:16.like tents to look down upon it, to go into the mystery of the Donald
:15:17. > :15:22.Trump phenomenon. It's a logical outgrowth of the way the media
:15:23. > :15:28.covers politics. The media clearly has a role to play, but it isn't
:15:29. > :15:31.just about the media. It is not even just about the republican side.
:15:32. > :15:35.Something interesting is happening in the Democratic race as well in
:15:36. > :15:39.that, while Bernie Sanders is a longtime politician with serious
:15:40. > :15:44.views on lots of things, he is also very much in antiestablishment
:15:45. > :15:51.figure and is taking on Hillary Clinton. Your wife is Hillary's
:15:52. > :15:55.Chief of Staff, essentially you're watching this from a very close and
:15:56. > :16:02.will. Bernie Sanders' message is that Hillary Clinton is part of the
:16:03. > :16:08.problem and the establishment. My question is, how does America make
:16:09. > :16:13.sense of this fantastic level of frustration with the establishment?
:16:14. > :16:19.It is institutions at large. The only institution that is perhaps
:16:20. > :16:22.held in a lorry guide than politicians is the media. That is
:16:23. > :16:27.why Donald Trump lobster point to the cameras and fight with the
:16:28. > :16:39.media. That was exactly what you did in a different sort of way. Bernie
:16:40. > :16:45.Sanders also makes an issue of it. It is institutions in general. The
:16:46. > :16:50.financial institutions in our country are in ill repute, the media
:16:51. > :16:57.is as well. It's a problem. I think that the way it will change is when
:16:58. > :17:04.it changes. I might be wrong and misreading you, but I think you're a
:17:05. > :17:10.bit conflicted. Hold on a second. I was good at playing the game that I
:17:11. > :17:14.was in. There is no doubt about it. You didn't want to be seen as the
:17:15. > :17:19.establishment guy who was playing the game, you wanted to shake things
:17:20. > :17:24.up and break the rules. I would go on shows like this and takedown guys
:17:25. > :17:28.like you, because I know as a politician the only one I can talk
:17:29. > :17:36.down to in all of society is guys like you. I do a bit of TV and media
:17:37. > :17:41.every now and then. I still believe that the way politics gets covered
:17:42. > :17:46.is ridiculous. I don't know if you're trying to defend yourself or
:17:47. > :17:51.if you're trying... Let me try to answer the question. I think what
:17:52. > :17:58.has to happen is that their house to come about forces that do more than
:17:59. > :18:03.simply said, these are the guys suck. They start to elevate what
:18:04. > :18:09.they do. If Congress does a better job of passing laws, if the media
:18:10. > :18:14.does a better job of, say what John Oliver is doing, getting people to
:18:15. > :18:19.watch and engaging people in a real conversation, if financial
:18:20. > :18:28.institutions start to act in a way that reflects the notion that
:18:29. > :18:33.citizens respect... Then... People say, what do we do to get more
:18:34. > :18:38.people to vote? I'm not sure that the way to get them to vote is not
:18:39. > :18:42.the first reform the system is that we are trying to get them to
:18:43. > :18:50.participate in. I find that answer interesting. Is that the first
:18:51. > :18:54.answer you found interesting was white not at all. I'm guessing
:18:55. > :19:01.you're a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton. Very strong. It seems to me
:19:02. > :19:05.that what you just said and the feeling you have, that things can
:19:06. > :19:12.only change if there is fundamental shakeup and restructuring of
:19:13. > :19:16.politics and the media and finance, that is a Bernie Sanders message? I
:19:17. > :19:20.didn't say fundamental, I said reforms to make them better. You
:19:21. > :19:24.need a president who get things done, not to have an angry President
:19:25. > :19:29.who doesn't have a way to get things done. Reforming the media is
:19:30. > :19:36.easier. You start to treat issues with more substance. It's not as if,
:19:37. > :19:40.there is good and bad in what is going on in the media coverage.
:19:41. > :19:45.Today you can find people who are out there studiously fact checking
:19:46. > :19:50.Donald Trump. You will find people writing about all the lies he has
:19:51. > :19:57.been telling. The problem is that the obsession with polling, he said
:19:58. > :20:00.she said type of thing, that does nothing to elevate issues that
:20:01. > :20:05.citizens care about. I can argue very clearly that having someone
:20:06. > :20:09.like Hillary Clinton, who understands how to navigate the
:20:10. > :20:19.system... Barack Obama is a great example. He had two polls that were
:20:20. > :20:24.pulling people further apart, that he did a very good job of navigating
:20:25. > :20:33.that. That is the kind of president we need. Winning it back to you,
:20:34. > :20:37.you've made it plain that you are not seeking an elected office ever
:20:38. > :20:41.again. But you clearly have strong ideas about how to change and
:20:42. > :20:49.improve America. Can you play a role in public life? I kind of do it. I
:20:50. > :20:53.keep it on local television, I write upon for the local newspaper. There
:20:54. > :20:59.are lots of ways to participate in public life without being an elected
:21:00. > :21:03.official. You can talk to politicians, you can lobby, you can
:21:04. > :21:07.write letters to your congressmen. You could go on television... There
:21:08. > :21:14.are lots of ways. I did it for a long time. I began when I was 27 on
:21:15. > :21:19.the City Council. I got a good crack at it. There are lots of ways that
:21:20. > :21:26.citizens can make change. Do you have an overwhelming sense of
:21:27. > :21:32.disappointment about what happened to you? Do you think you've come out
:21:33. > :21:38.a better person. I don't know. I wouldn't wish it on anyone else. I
:21:39. > :21:44.hope that I'm a better person. I'm a person... I let people down. I would
:21:45. > :21:50.be the mayor of New York City today and would be able to help a lot more
:21:51. > :21:56.people. We have 300,000 children who are getting meals from soup kitchens
:21:57. > :21:58.in New York City. We have the middle-class and people struggling
:21:59. > :22:03.to make it into the middle-class. There are lots of ways that I think
:22:04. > :22:07.I would have been able to help if I had stayed around a little longer.
:22:08. > :22:15.But the world goes on. There are other officials, the way now we have
:22:16. > :22:20.now, I have been public eye support of him and have chipped in where I
:22:21. > :22:24.can. Hillary is going to be a great president and I think she will only
:22:25. > :22:28.get stronger. There are some people who have been burned by the terrible
:22:29. > :22:37.experience you've been through who say, despite all of that stuff, they
:22:38. > :22:41.would say no regrets. Let's dial it down a little, this terrible thing I
:22:42. > :22:46.would do. You know something embarrassing about me. I'm not
:22:47. > :22:49.thinking about that, I am thinking about the dynamic between you and
:22:50. > :22:57.your wife. About your family. I understand that. But people get
:22:58. > :23:01.cancer, people drunk drives and hit people with their cars. I get up
:23:02. > :23:11.with my four-year-old son because I don't have to be in Washington. I
:23:12. > :23:15.can argue that sitting here right now, you and I are doing more to
:23:16. > :23:18.advance legislation than any member of Congress will in six months,
:23:19. > :23:23.because nothing is happening in Washington. The idea that I've been
:23:24. > :23:27.through a terrible thing, yes, I went through a scandal and people
:23:28. > :23:31.know embarrassing things about me, but a lot of people go through a
:23:32. > :23:34.heck of a lot more difficult circumstances. A lot of people go
:23:35. > :23:44.through more difficult circumstances in one day than I went over the
:23:45. > :23:47.course of months. It was embarrassing, it had my career and
:23:48. > :23:50.my life, but you have to be careful not to catch it like it's worst
:23:51. > :23:59.thing in the world that anyone has ever gone through. I'm doing OK.
:24:00. > :24:08.Anthony Weiner, we have to and it's there. Thank you very much -- end it