Anthony Weiner - Former US Congressman (Democrat) HARDtalk

American politics currently has more unlikely storylines than anything

you might see in New York's Broadway theatre district.

The rise of Donald Trump is one illustration

of the depth of public frustration with politics as usual.

My guest today is Anthony Weiner, who was a rising star

He had his own role in bringing US politics into disrepute.

His career was destroyed by not one but two bizarre sex scandals.

Why did he push the self-destruct button?

Thank you. I want to begin by asking you to reflect and look back five

years. If you think about the way you were then in the way you are

today, do you think you are pretty much still the same guy? I'm

animated by many of the same things, the things I cared about

when I ran for office and served in the House of Representatives. I

still care about the city. I have a four-year-old that I spend a lot of

time with. It is hard to tell whether I are many different. My

life is different, but it is hard to tell. Let's go back and talk about

your political career before it came to an end. You were a very noisy

politician. You were playing hardball politics you got to the US

Congress. You seemed to revel in the sort of no mercy Patterson fight.

Would that be a fair characterisation? -- Patterson. I

recognised that politics are changed. I realise that now there

are ways you can advance policy and things you care about within outside

strategy as much as any inside strategy. You can be there for 20

years becoming an expert in the machinations of legislative

procedure, but since that was not really happening much any more in

the modern Congress, getting legislation passed, nobody did that.

I saw the value and the benefit of developing a strategy of pushing

issues by sabre rattling from the outside, using people like you to

get my message across. You had a high media profile. And you pulled

stunts. One only has to go to YouTube to see some of the Anthony

Weiner stance of days gone by. I don't like the sound of stunts. You

brought things onto the floor. I had fun. And I had fun with myself. And

you rented and raved. People will recall the sort of figures

passionate speeches you made and the rows you got into on the floor of

the house. Do you think yours on reflection was the kind of politics

that people today are deeply alienate it from? I forget is the

other way around. I find people don't like the phoniness. They don't

like the notion that it is not on a level. That was a lot of what my

mentor was when I was in Washington, that I would go on Fox and literally

look into the camera and sell how phoney it sounded -- mantra. I would

take down the interviewers as much as they did the people I was often

arguing with because I believed it was necessary that people like you

are fundamentally in on the problem we have today, which is this split

screen shouting economy of political ideas. I would disagree. I think in

fact the moment is that I found most residents in whether things when I

was pushing back against the conventions -- resonance. You were

on television a lot. When you ran into your crisis, your personal

crisis, you were high profile, and plenty of people in politics and the

media wanted to take you down. I will take your word for it, yes,

perhaps that is the case. It also didn't help that I was not honest

about it, journalists are not like that. Hang on. The people I was

dishonest to whether journalists asking the questions, so yes, there

were not happy. That is not their fault. You can be any level of

politician and pursue any level of any style that you want, but if you

were going to be dishonest at the beginning of a scandal, journalists

would want to take you down. We have to talk about the specifics of the

scandal to make sense of it. You will not get too far with that line

of questioning, but go for it. I'm not interested in mitigating. For

those who do not know, and there will be plenty. You accidentally

publicly tweeted pictures that were indicative of the fact you had been

sexting various women it turned out over a period of years. When this

was exposed, you lied about it. If you had not lied about it, do you

think your political career would have survived? No. Why? It wasn't

the lie. It was the pictures and why name and the fact it was a slow news

period. Newspaper guys could write headlines and John Stewart could

make fun of it. I should have, but it would not have changed anything.

The common wisdom about these sort of things is it is not the act

usually kills the politician. You just asked the question and I

answered it. I answered it and I disagree with that. You didn't do

anything illegal. Visualise if you want to give go down this power. I

suggest that was me. My name is Anthony Weiner. It is a slow news

period. I have John Oliver, John Stuart, New York tabloids, which

tabloids. You think it just goes away, the pictures? -- Jon Stewart.

Bill Clinton survived a scandal. He obviously had tools at his disposal

to change the subject as the President of the United States that

an individual member of Congress does not have. But you are working

to draw the conclusion you would like. The narrative is more complex

than you realising after the first break of the scandal that your

political career was dead. There was a period after the summer of 2011

when you quit the Congress would you might be able to make a comeback.

Because you decided to run for New York City mayor. There was a time

when people believed to have a shot of winning. It would have been

difficult, but yes. So you did believe you could come back? I would

not have run if I thought there was no chance. It was an uphill battle

from the word go, and it did not work out. But yes, I do not run

because they thought it was impossible. I ran because I thought

I would give it a try and in some ways around the campaign well in

some ways disastrously. But yes honestly I thought I could win.

There are very few people who run for office, especially for mayor of

the city of New York, who think they won't win. To be brutal about it, it

wasn't that you had the exposure and a tough time, the crisis in marriage

that you had come through. It wasn't that first face of it that

completely killed any idea in your head of continuing a political

career, it was the second time. When he ran for New York City mayor, you

carried on sexting. I have lost track of the question. What is your

question for me? My question for you this time, to be simple, what

possessed you when you had suffered this meltdown crisis to decide to

resurrect your political career they keep on sexting. Firstly, it was in

the past. It was before the campaign began. I thought I had expressed

clearly to every interviewer that there was other stuff out there and

I had done other things. You can say I should have said I did it with

this person this particular time, but the question is fundamentally

whether I thought I could run having that stuff in my background, and the

answer is no. It seems like we discussion to be having. Yes, you

were right, it was not successful to come back. I suppose what I'm trying

to do is get inside your head. Maybe in politics there is a belief that

you can fix things, that you live in a bubble in you live in a world

where there is a lot of affirmation, a lot of people who want a piece of

you, who want to tell you what a great job you were doing, and maybe

you believed you could get away with it. I don't understand what you are

asking. I obviously do not believe I could get away with it, because I

resigned. You are asking me whether or not giving the voters, this time,

rather than me, the opportunity to decide whether it was it

disqualified me. I gave them that opportunity and they said yes, it

disqualifies me. I left it to the voters in the voters decided

resoundingly yes, it disqualifies me. I'm not sure I get your point.

It is the second rank that is puzzling and still puzzles me. I

don't know how to help you. When I was in the race and was leading in

the polls. I had high negatives and knew it will be difficult. And you

will -- I knew it would be very difficult even with no evidence

coming out for me to win. All that being said, you asked if I still

cared about the things I care about, and I do. I think I would have been

a good mayor. There is a notion the people did not decide I should leave

the first time. People argued I should have stayed. The polls in my

own district over one links and I should stay. If you are telling me

it was a mistake to run the second time, join the club. I didn't do

very well. -- overwhelmingly said. Just to give people a sense of how

much media attention was focused on you for a while, one story, correct

me if I'm wrong and it is not true, when I read somewhere at one point

your wife had to come to meet you in the trunk of a car. It was a

terrible scandal. This is not terribly interesting. You are an

important guy, doing a show, during an interview. You are talking about

things five years ago it that where a chapter in my life, maybe it is

titillating to you and others. I think about it all that much any

more. It was difficult for my wife and it was difficult for me, yes.

Now that you know, and it has become clear you absolutely no with

certitudes you are not going back to politics... Yeah, I know. What you

make of American politics today? In a dangerous place? It is in a

reflection point. There is a thing going on in politics today in

America which is able shouting at each other and in the media kind of

being involved in a shouting by putting them on a screen and letting

them shout at each other. Which is really omitted to me you were... I

was really good at it. -- admitted. I recognise that was the state of

it. But the problem is that if underlying that there is not a

real, session about the issues, one of the reasons I did the shows was

to have sessions about these things, when I was taking part on foxes, I

thought there were some value. -- Fox News. But I'm concerned that all

we are getting today are these weird conflicts, many conflicts, but are

not really getting at the issues at hand, and I don't really know. I

can't imagine it will stay this way for long. I think there is an

appetite for ways to elevate issues beyond that. So people are not

voting or watching shows like yours. They like the institutions are in

decline. I think something has to change. And I think something

probably well. At the moment, a man who prides

himself on having very little political position at all, referring

to Donald Trump... I am wondering why a significant chunk of the right

leaning population are behind him, I wonder what that says? I am not sure

what that says. There are some elements of a fringe in every

country. Did I already know that there were hundreds and thousands of

blockheads, idiots in this country, who would vote for a reality TV

star? I already knew that. We shouldn't give it too much credit

for representing a real thing. There is a phoniness about this,

consternation. Guys like you, you love him, you dine out on him. You

like tents to look down upon it, to go into the mystery of the Donald

Trump phenomenon. It's a logical outgrowth of the way the media

covers politics. The media clearly has a role to play, but it isn't

just about the media. It is not even just about the republican side.

Something interesting is happening in the Democratic race as well in

that, while Bernie Sanders is a longtime politician with serious

views on lots of things, he is also very much in antiestablishment

figure and is taking on Hillary Clinton. Your wife is Hillary's

Chief of Staff, essentially you're watching this from a very close and

will. Bernie Sanders' message is that Hillary Clinton is part of the

problem and the establishment. My question is, how does America make

sense of this fantastic level of frustration with the establishment?

It is institutions at large. The only institution that is perhaps

held in a lorry guide than politicians is the media. That is

why Donald Trump lobster point to the cameras and fight with the

media. That was exactly what you did in a different sort of way. Bernie

Sanders also makes an issue of it. It is institutions in general. The

financial institutions in our country are in ill repute, the media

is as well. It's a problem. I think that the way it will change is when

it changes. I might be wrong and misreading you, but I think you're a

bit conflicted. Hold on a second. I was good at playing the game that I

was in. There is no doubt about it. You didn't want to be seen as the

establishment guy who was playing the game, you wanted to shake things

up and break the rules. I would go on shows like this and takedown guys

like you, because I know as a politician the only one I can talk

down to in all of society is guys like you. I do a bit of TV and media

every now and then. I still believe that the way politics gets covered

is ridiculous. I don't know if you're trying to defend yourself or

if you're trying... Let me try to answer the question. I think what

has to happen is that their house to come about forces that do more than

simply said, these are the guys suck. They start to elevate what

they do. If Congress does a better job of passing laws, if the media

does a better job of, say what John Oliver is doing, getting people to

watch and engaging people in a real conversation, if financial

institutions start to act in a way that reflects the notion that

citizens respect... Then... People say, what do we do to get more

people to vote? I'm not sure that the way to get them to vote is not

the first reform the system is that we are trying to get them to

participate in. I find that answer interesting. Is that the first

answer you found interesting was white not at all. I'm guessing

you're a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton. Very strong. It seems to me

that what you just said and the feeling you have, that things can

only change if there is fundamental shakeup and restructuring of

politics and the media and finance, that is a Bernie Sanders message? I

didn't say fundamental, I said reforms to make them better. You

need a president who get things done, not to have an angry President

who doesn't have a way to get things done. Reforming the media is

easier. You start to treat issues with more substance. It's not as if,

there is good and bad in what is going on in the media coverage.

Today you can find people who are out there studiously fact checking

Donald Trump. You will find people writing about all the lies he has

been telling. The problem is that the obsession with polling, he said

she said type of thing, that does nothing to elevate issues that

citizens care about. I can argue very clearly that having someone

like Hillary Clinton, who understands how to navigate the

system... Barack Obama is a great example. He had two polls that were

pulling people further apart, that he did a very good job of navigating

that. That is the kind of president we need. Winning it back to you,

you've made it plain that you are not seeking an elected office ever

again. But you clearly have strong ideas about how to change and

improve America. Can you play a role in public life? I kind of do it. I

keep it on local television, I write upon for the local newspaper. There

are lots of ways to participate in public life without being an elected

official. You can talk to politicians, you can lobby, you can

write letters to your congressmen. You could go on television... There

are lots of ways. I did it for a long time. I began when I was 27 on

the City Council. I got a good crack at it. There are lots of ways that

citizens can make change. Do you have an overwhelming sense of

disappointment about what happened to you? Do you think you've come out

a better person. I don't know. I wouldn't wish it on anyone else. I

hope that I'm a better person. I'm a person... I let people down. I would

be the mayor of New York City today and would be able to help a lot more

people. We have 300,000 children who are getting meals from soup kitchens

in New York City. We have the middle-class and people struggling

to make it into the middle-class. There are lots of ways that I think

I would have been able to help if I had stayed around a little longer.

But the world goes on. There are other officials, the way now we have

now, I have been public eye support of him and have chipped in where I

can. Hillary is going to be a great president and I think she will only

get stronger. There are some people who have been burned by the terrible

experience you've been through who say, despite all of that stuff, they

would say no regrets. Let's dial it down a little, this terrible thing I

would do. You know something embarrassing about me. I'm not

thinking about that, I am thinking about the dynamic between you and

your wife. About your family. I understand that. But people get

cancer, people drunk drives and hit people with their cars. I get up

with my four-year-old son because I don't have to be in Washington. I

can argue that sitting here right now, you and I are doing more to

advance legislation than any member of Congress will in six months,

because nothing is happening in Washington. The idea that I've been

through a terrible thing, yes, I went through a scandal and people

know embarrassing things about me, but a lot of people go through a

heck of a lot more difficult circumstances. A lot of people go

through more difficult circumstances in one day than I went over the

course of months. It was embarrassing, it had my career and

my life, but you have to be careful not to catch it like it's worst

thing in the world that anyone has ever gone through. I'm doing OK.

Anthony Weiner, we have to and it's there. Thank you very much -- end it