gly rare, which makes it hard not to mourn what we may have lost with the downfall of the sheriff of wall street. but it was his zealous belief in his own righteousness that made eliot spitzer's self-destruction inevitable, and that might be why this story's so chilling. former president trump was a steamroller in the white house, and it landed an insurrection on the steps of the capitol. if we can't shake our addiction to strongmen, to those utterly convinced of their own greatness, there will be many more like spitzer in positions of power posing even bigger threats to our fragile democracy-- crusaders wanting their portraits on the walls of history. every governor of new york has the chance to be immortalized in a painting that hangs in the new york state capitol, a self-directed monument to his or her own illustrious legacy. all of them are there-- all but two. the first served in the early 19th century and left no likenesses behind. the second...is eliot spitzer.

♪ ♪ tapper: in 2009, south carolina governor mark sanford was a republican rock star. his reputation as a budget-slashing deficit hawk family man had the gop betting on him to beat obama in 2012 until he became a missing person. the search for sanford threw his office into chaos and turned up a secret love affair and a bizarre set of lies that coined the phrase "to hike the appalachian trail." but it also revealed something deeper-- how even the most tightly controlled political persona can mask the messy, imperfect reality of a human being. and counterintuitively, when the world was crashing down around him, baring it all might have been the savviest political move of mark sanford's career.

♪ it's monday night. do you know where your governor is? that's what the citizens of south carolina are wondering-- "where in the world is our governor?" a mystery tonight in south carolina. the state's governor, mark sanford, disappeared for days. governor alert: the search for mark sanford. in june 2009, south carolina governor mark sanford became a missing person. news began to go out in south carolina, get in the papers like, "no one knows where the governor is." the south carolina governor is missing. where is he? is he dead somewhere in a ditch? with each day that ticked by, the mystery grew. reporter: many in south carolina don't know where he is, not even his wife. reporter: #2: it's just so strange. this well-known father of four young boys

wasn't home for father's day. tapper: and more and more people started asking. the headline in today's local paper says, "sanford awol. who's in charge?" it was a complete dereliction of duty. imagine if there was a mass shooting or a hurricane or, you know, anything. i think all of us are concerned. we're worried about where he might be. speculation was rampant. some people thought he was dead. a fringe few thought he'd been abducted by aliens. it was only after he'd be gone for nearly a week that sanford staff finally offered an explanation of where he was. his staff said he was hiking the appalachian trail. tonight we find out this e-mail coming through just a few minutes ago. the governor's actually hiking the appalachian trail. the governor is said to be, "clearing his head" somewhere along the appalachian trail that stretches from georgia to maine. the governor is hiking the appalachian trail. why would that be such a big secret? a reporter with "the state" newspaper

had gotten a tip that mark sanford never went anywhere near the appalachian trail and goes nowhere near argentina, which is actually where he had been. what could compel a sitting governor to up and leave his state all the way to argentina without any kind of notice at all? the answer could only come from mark sanford himself. so the bottom line is this. i, um... i've been unfaithful to my wife. i developed, um, a relationship with a dear, dear friend. savage: turned out he was a man in love. his cover is now blown. mark sanford was not, after all, hiking by himself on the appalachian trail. hiking the appalachian trail, which then instantly entered the lexicon as a euphemism for an affair. he was hiking on the appalachian trail, which is a trail that starts in maine and ends in an argentine woman's vagina. [laughter and applause] it was all over the late night shows. it was every monologue.

"hiking the appalachian trail." "where have you been, honey? what's that lipstick?" "i was hiking the appalachian trail." it was just... it was such a huge contribution to the english language. so the guy had an affair and was really sloppy about covering it up. he's hardly the first politician to do that. but there was something about this man dropping off the grid to see his secret international lover that truly shocked people, myself included. full disclosure--i was friendly with mark and jenny sanford. i first met them more than 20 years ago when i was covering the south carolina primary. my now-wife and i watched the super bowl at the governor's mansion in 2004. mark going awol, reading poetry and the bible while on a weeklong solo hike-- that, frankly, seemed totally believable. so when folks began speculating about seedy possibilities, i wrongly wrote it off as the worst kind of sensationalist journalism, and when it was proven true, i felt dumb.

i felt duped for naively believing that i ever knew mark sanford the person, when i really only knew mark sanford the politician. and i wasn't the only one. right there with me, caught between image and reality was sanford's closest aide-- his former chief of staff, scott english. thank you so much for sitting down with us. you worked for mark sanford from '96 to 2015? -is that-- -yes. you know, i had my impression of him, which was that he was a nice, affable guy. uh, he issued a proclamation for our wedding, which i do not have hanging up in my house anymore. but i mean, my point is i knew him and i liked him and jenny and marshall and bobo and blake, uh, and landon. what--what did you think of him? you know, i love and respect this guy. i put in a lot of effort with this guy, okay? i missed a lot of my children's life for this guy. -yeah. -which, by the way, is why i've never done an interview about this ever in my life. -and...until today. -right.

but, you know, i could just never imagine him... like, he had no game. i mean, he just didn't. and when someone threw out to me that maybe he had a mistress, i just laughed and said there's no way this guy's got a mistress. you and i both thinking that he was actually on the appalachian trail is-- is--is good. i mean, it made me feel better. i'm like, yeah, that makes sense. he's a weirdo. maybe you think we're being dramatic or exaggerating. how could we be so shocked at a politician having an affair? but you gotta understand. mark sanford had one of the most convincing political personas in the game, and this was the guy we thought we knew. "time" magazine named you one of the five most boring governors in america. [audience laughter] did that sting? what you learn in politics is there's gonna be some folks that don't like us, some folks that love us, and the real key is are we staying true to, you know, what we believe and what--what--what, uh, we promised to voters in the first place. and then you can live with that and, uh, sort of leave it alone with the other 49%, 'cause you ain't gonna please everybody.

you are incredibly boring. [laughter] i was actually there when that was filmed, and he--and it was like, "yeah, you're boring. you are like manila-envelope- stapled-to-a-brown-wall boring." yeah. yeah. that's completely accurate, which is, again, why we were just, like, completely shocked that it was, like, this very, like, you know, passionate, emotional affair with this woman, you know, on the other side of the continent. it was just completely out of character or for what, like, we thought we knew about the guy. here's the thing. i can accept that politics is a bit like professional wrestling. candidates play a part to make headlines and win elections, but there's a fine line between marketing and outright deception. and mark sanford's scandal made me question is there any truth to a political persona, and what's the cost of keeping it up? so when you worked for him, you described him as saying, "he's willing to say what he believes,

act accordingly, and live with the consequences." but more recently, you have suggested that that's part of an image and a brand and not reality. so there's a duality to mark. one is the mark sanford that you meet, uh, in political life-- that's the brand guy. that's the--the image that-- and--and it's not unique to mark. it's, you know, all-- all of these people have exactly the same thing. you know, it is about them. they are the brand. so you always had to be cognizant of the fact that you weren't just working for an individual person, but you are working for this brand. what was his brand? his brand was focusing very much on limiting the--the size of government and balancing the budget. that was--for him, that was his way of connecting with the audience. reporter: congressman mark sanford, republican of south carolina, is the fresh face of this new breed. i've actually got the remnants of last night's dinner here. -[laughs] -this is the new washington. this is not the $150 dinner that we're accustomed to. i did save the crust.

i mean, i didn't want anything to go to waste. the fiscal conservative thing with mark sanford was not an act. he was painfully fiscally conservative. for example, there's an infamous freakout there in the congressional office about him finding a discarded paper clip in the trash can, and he dug around in there and grabbed it back out and said, "you can reuse this." is he really making you save paper clips? -of course. -[laughs] i remember jenny sanford in an interview complaining about he would not buy new suit jackets, and he would just wear the same clothes for years and years. he didn't just talk a big game about being frugal. he really was a frugal man. tapper: and while being frugal does not necessarily block a man from a little romance, mark inhabited this penny-pinching, sweetly curmudgeonly character so thoroughly, i just could not imagine there were other aspects of him. you know, he's mark sanford, family man. he's mark sanford,

father of four boys. -right. he's mark sanford, fiscal conservative. but that's the distinction between being the character actor and being the person. there's method acting involved in politics, and there's a character they build that's real to them. -but it's not real. -it's not real. each one of these political figures-- they're playing a character, and sooner or later, the fourth wall breaks. ♪

reporter: as a first step in reducing

the $4.7 trillion debt, congressman sanford is halting the delivery of ice to his congressional office. why do we need ice? why can't we just walk down three floors and get it from the cafeteria ourself? you can't just talk about it. i mean, you have to have actions in your own office that reflect that. english: sanford, when he got elected, i could tell you exactly when i met him. we had a reception december 7, 1994. he had just been elected to the house? he had just been elected to the house. and we had a good conversation. the one thing that he and i share was a common philosophy about the world. you were just, like, taken with, like, he-- this could be a really good leader. you believed in him. that--i believed in the issues he believed in. yeah. it really just, like, gets into my mind, like, it really--i really didn't think mark was capable of doing anything slimy. -not mark. -yeah. -he's too afraid of jenny, and he's, you know, all of these--and he's-- they were, like, weren't they, like, college sweethearts? they'd been together for 20 years. they had four beautiful kids. she was such an integral part of his professional and personal lives.

they seemed great to me. that 20-year journey together, you know, from congress to the governor's office, when you're partnered with someone like that and you're--you're-- that relationship's forged in steel, under fire. they're solid as a rock. you know that when you find a good one, you gotta help 'em, and you find a good one in mark sanford. but more importantly, the mom, jenny sanford, the great future first lady of the state of south carolina. [applause] jenny sanford was invaluable to mark sanford's rise. she was a smart, skillful woman, a georgetown-educated, wall street vice president. i don't think that mark sanford, uh, would have had a political career at all if it were not for, uh, jenny sanford's help. it's not my love. i'm not driven to run campaigns, but, um, but we worked well together. jenny sanford had been a right-hand woman throughout all of mark sanford's political career.

she managed his congressional campaigns, and she also managed his first campaign as governor-- something that she has said since she really tried to get out of doing because she had four sons, all of whom were still of school age, but, you know, she was free labor... [chuckles] and was somebody that he really wouldn't have to--to hire on. on behalf of the people of the state, i wish you godspeed. thank you. [cheers and applause] sure, mark and jenny made a great team, but it turned out there were some elements of the sanford union very few people knew about or even suspected. right before we were getting married, when he said, you know, you know, there's-- your priest gives you a menu of different vows, and he says, "well, you know, i-i--with all due respect, i'd rather not use a vow that uses the word 'faithful' in it," and i said, "well, you've gotta be kidding me." and there's no question. i had my own thoughts about mark, but fidelity was the last thing i was worried about. but jenny brushed the red flags aside, and with her help,

mark's political brand grew until it seemed unstoppable. he entered the governor's office as a sort of folk hero to south carolina voters, a saltine cracker of a man on a single-minded crusade to save taxpayers money. when you have a $5 billion budget that's essentially a billion dollars out of-- out of balance, change is needed. but when he actually got to work at the state house, sanford found his passion for cutting budgets had also made him some enemies. mark sanford--he's a republican. the legislature for years has been controlled by republicans, so they're all in the same party, and ostensibly from the outside you would think, "oh, okay. well, these guys are all gonna get together and get a lot of things done." that's not really what happened when mark sanford was in the governor's mansion. instead, mark sanford leaned further into character and started slashing his fellow republicans' budgets with a vengeance. i mean, one year he vetoed the entire budget. i mean, just sent the entire budget back. we never got to a budget cycle where there weren't dozens of budget vetoes.

there was no democrat versus republican. it was, you know, us versus mark sanford, so he would send hundreds of vetoes back, and we would just get together and all override 'em, because it was mark. during one particularly volatile session in 2004, sanford kept vetoing budgets, and the legislature overrode 105 of those vetoes in 90 minutes. this is a republican legislature. -a republican legislature. -uh-huh. and that's--i mean, that's how bad this was. -and how'd that go over? -uh... that morning, there's just, like, this epic freakout at the press office, and everybody is frantically on the phone dialing, and they look up, say, "get on the phone and find some pigs." i'm like, "w-what?" "uh, get on the phone. find pigs. mark needs two pigs. he's gonna take 'em upstairs and do a press conference." i'm like, "'kay." and i'm just, like, googling, you know, "where to find pigs, columbia, south carolina." i, like, have no idea, right? they drove out to lexington county, which is a rural area outside columbia,

and i'm still up on the house floor, working on legislation, trying to, you know, move the governor's agenda to some other areas, and i can remember lots of people turning their heads and craning their heads and looking toward the lobby and then somebody said, "oh, my god. he has pigs." ♪

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-no. -no? -we didn't tell anybody. -you didn't tell anyone. you just walked up with the pigs. no one's aware of what we're doing, and we just start telling everyone in the lobby that the governor's got pigs, so it just creates this mass of people, and all the reporters just go and set up. voters across south carolina tuned in as their manila envelope governor seemed to reveal the one issue that could stir him to reckless passion-- protesting his fellow republicans' bloated pork-filled budget with actual pork. the constitution lost yesterday, and pork won. i think pork won, and the taxpayers lost. you know, mark had one under each arm and was maybe squeezing them a little too tight, and so there was a trail of pig excrement as he went up the stairs. he gets it down his pants and on his shoes and on his coat. -oh, boy. which, for a guy who owns one coat... -yeah. -the house majority whip is yelling at me that we have to clean this mess up. yeah. i went up there with the-- with the spray and the rags and a little bit of elbow grease,

and, uh, cleaned up pig dookie that day. and then he let the pigs go run free, and so the pigs ran free in the lobby and ran into the house and the room chamber and--and, of course, all the lobbyists were around there. the press was there. and sure enough, it was the lead story on all three local television stations, and it was a huge hit in the public. was it an effective punch in the face? it was good timing because we had a primary just coming up a week later, and one of the republicans who ended up losing their seat was the house majority leader. and he said point blank that his polling numbers flipped completely because of that pig episode, so we had a number of incumbent republicans who ended up losing to challengers. they started taking him a lot more seriously now. -it worked? -yeah, it was very effective. but at the same time mark sanford was becoming a political rock star for letting pigs loose on the capitol floor, a chance encounter was about to make a complete mess

of his personal life. in 2001, sanford had taken a guys' trip to uruguay, and there, at an outdoor dance, he met and instantly connected first as friends with a woman who saw the man behind the brand-- argentinean journalist maria belén chapur. english: she was a very likeable person, and for a guy like mark sanford who's surrounded by people who are basically beating the shit out of him every day, you know, over in the senate, when you get this oasis of compassion, it can be appealing, and she's an attractive woman. she's age-appropriate. it's the whole nine. and all of a sudden, he's in love. he's got this e-mail exchange with this woman. he prints these letters out and puts them in a file cabinet in his office at the mansion. his letters to his mistress? and the ones from her. they're in a file! this dumbass printed them out and put 'em in a folder and then filed 'em away. [laughs]

i mean... i just keep coming up to the... i... it's just so weird to me because all these politicians who work so hard... right. ...and they throw it away for sex. and it's just always so crazy to me as somebody who covers politics, it's so common, and it's so dumb, and i just-- i never truly understand it. the thing about a political figure that you've got to keep in mind-- number one is compartmentalization, their ability to isolate each segment of their world as though it didn't exist. they have to be able to do that. if you meet jenny sanford and you meet belén, they're polar opposite people. all of a sudden, belén found a hole to get into the gap in his life and filled it. but then he compartmentalizes, and he's this method actor, so he goes back to being mark sanford, you know, actor-governor, without ever letting on

that he's having an affair. yeah. to maintain his office and reputation, sanford had to hide his love for maria and continue to pretend to only long for balanced budgets. in 2009, he topped pork and barrel with a bigger stunt that would catapult him from south carolina local legend to the national spotlight. south carolina's republican governor has become the nation's first to reject some of the economic stimulus money. south carolina was still reeling from the 2008 recession when sanford was offered relief funds from president obama's economic stimulus plan. if we spend all this money, we end up $700 million in the hole 24 months from now, and then the question is, and then what? people started legitimately talking about him as a presidential contender to challenge obama in 2012. i was a white house reporter at the time. that's how it looked from where i was sitting. oh, sanford's emerging to challenge obama, and it sounds like that's what you guys were thinking, too.

right? next thing you know, we've got the tea party, and sanford is the man. [cheering] he had become a darling for fiscal conservatives. i met people who had moved to south carolina just kind of quietly to begin forming what was going to be potentially a national-level bid for him. [cheering] you know, if mark sanford is a stock, like, in spring of 2009, you're buying, right? anybody who knows anything about politics or about republican politics, you're buying mark sanford's stock in spring of 2009. then father's day weekend of 2009 was when everything started to fall apart. because the governor disappeared. it was honestly one of the most bizarre things i have covered in 20 years of journalism. he left. he was gone from the state and didn't leave anybody else in charge. it seemed totally out of character,

but his constituents would soon learn that they did not know the real mark sanford at all.

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am i gonna be able to reach you on your cell? "uh, probably not." all right. "if anything comes up, joel will handle it." okay. but as the weekend came and went, no one had heard from mark sanford. father's day weekend, so i'm with my children and my family, and i get to work the next day on monday, and there are sort of these rumblings of, you know... "do we know where mark is?" -[telephone ringing] -meanwhile, i had been calling him, trying to get ahold of him, uh, and i couldn't get him on the phone. all of a sudden, this appalachian trail story comes up. where did it come from-- the appalachian trail thing? he planted that with a member of our staff. but even an eccentric guy like mark sanford would spend father's day with his four sons whom he legitimately adores, right? did you talk to jenny sanford? she didn't know where he was, and he wasn't home for father's day. and the last thing she said to me is, "he's your problem now." and she hung up. from there, the day got worse for scott,

because one of sanford's enemies in the state senate was starting to ask questions. i get a call from someone with sled-- state law enforcement division, which is the governor's security detail. senator knotts is asking questions about sanford's whereabouts. jakey knotts--he singlehandedly blocked tattoos becoming legal in south carolina... [southern accent] because if god had wanted you to have a tattoo, he'd-a put it on your body himself. [normal voice] i mean, he--he is that guy. jake knotts--he was one of the top foils of governor mark sanford. they absolutely did not get along. every day is another embarrassment with someone else that's popping up. it started out that he just simply took a vehicle and was missing. jake was trying to stir up this idea that nobody at sled knows where he is. nobody knows where the governor is. he didn't tell anybody where he's going. he's missing. i know exactly where he is. he's hiking. ♪

"the state" newspaper was tipped off by senator jake knotts. when we started calling and asking, "where's the governor?" you know, at first, they were like, "well, why do you wanna know?" well... because he's the governor, and then of course, you're gonna get the media's attention, right, when you don't answer where our governor is. reporter: there is a mystery this morning surrounding the whereabouts of south carolina governor mark sanford. the mystery is unfolding surrounding the whereabouts of south carolina's governor. reporter #2: reportedly, even his wife didn't know where he went, and he wasn't even around for father's day. the very simple solution to this thing is, governor sanford, call back home. come back home. the people of south carolina wanna know where you at. communicate. tmz called all 170 members, i believe, of the state house. i'll never forget. i got a message from tmz, and the guy on the other end-- he was just, like, "do you know where the governor is?" and i was like, "i do not," and he hung up. and so then i was like... all right, something--

something's going on. at this point, i'm being bombarded from everywhere. i've got news trucks all around the state house right now because where is the governor? -i should know. i don't know. -and so what did you do? i put the hiking the appalachian trail story out because, you know, i've got members of my staff confirming it. ♪ reporter: the mystery is actually growing deeper. south carolina governor mark sanford vanished last thursday. well, yesterday, his office say he wasn't hiding. he was hiking. reporter #2: his office said the governor had gone hiking along the 2,200-mile-long appalachian trail but wouldn't specify where. i can only assume he's been sustaining himself by boring wild game into collapsing at his feet. [laughter] tapper: and here's where i must make my confession. the sanford story breaks. i'm a white house correspondent for abc news, and i know mark. i've known him for a decade at this point. uh, i completely buy the appalachian trail thing.

and then, uh, "good morning america" asks me to--we need to get the sanford interview. it's a mystery where he is. and they send me a copy of the story that nbc or msnbc had done in--in which he's, like, basically talking about how shady and weird it is that the governor's disappeared. i forwarded it to maybe to joel sawyer. i forget who i-i sent it to, but i sent it to somebody-- -probably joel, yeah. -and said something like, "pretty slimy stuff." like, alluding to the fact that, like, "don't give the interview to nbc or the 'today' show. give it to abc news and 'good morning america' because nbc, whatever, they're-- they're casting aspersions." and then, of course, way after the truth of sanford's escapades had come out, my e-mail was released in a freedom of information act request. i called the reporter and an executive at nbc and apologized. it was, to be clear, inexcusable. and beyond that, i'd been wrong-- wrong about this guy who i thought had been a devoted dad and husband. wrong, wrong, wrong. lesson learned.

that was just embarrassing, and i also felt, um... dumb for... just automatically believing the best possible scenario when it came to a politician. you--you've always been on the reporting side of things. welcome to the hell we all had to live in. [laughs] by hour 144 of mark sanford's disappearance, pretty much everyone who knew mark sanford was starting to question how much we really knew him. as the day goes on, tuesday, little things, uh, little bits of information start coming out that maybe kinda say, "hmm." we learn that his last cellphone ping was in atlanta. so i'm googling, you know, well, there's an appalachian trail trailhead, you know, just north of atlanta. we find out late in the day tuesday that his car is parked at the airport. surely there's not something else at play here. you're saying he's over here at the appalachian trail. we at "the state" had some information

that led us to believe something different. so about a year before mark sanford mysteriously disappeared from the state, we had gotten an e-mail, the subject that said "this is your governor" that appeared to be back-and-forth e-mails between mark sanford and a-a woman in argentina. but they could not be proven to be legitimate until the governor disappeared. and here is an actual excerpt from one of mark's many e-mails to belén. -[romantic guitar playing] -"i could digress and say you have the ability to give magnificent, gentle kisses or that i love your tan lines or that i love the curve of your hips. the erotic beauty of you holding yourself or two magnificent parts of yourself in the faded glow of the night's light. but hey, that would be going into sexual details."

so do you know what i'm saying? it sort of starts swirling at that point. ♪ we didn't know, but we hoped that we had put everything together correctly and he was going to be getting off of a flight from argentina there in the atlanta airport. and there was only one flight coming in from argentina that morning. i remember being at the atlanta airport at 6 a.m. that morning, and one of the last people off the escalator is mark sanford. and i--i mean, i jump. pick up my digital camera. [camera shutter clicks] just could not believe he was standing there in the atlanta airport. [laughs] so now the question was would sanford actually come clean?

♪ after being mia for days, the appalachian trail-hiking governor finally turned up at the hartsfield-jackson international airport in atlanta. so i'm standing with my camera and my notepad. i went running up to him, and i'm like, you know, "governor! um, we thought you were hiking

the appalachian trail. [laughs] what are you doing getting off a plane from argentina?" and he said, "well, you know, i... i was gonna hike the appalachian trail, but i had a-a last minute... change in plans. would--would you like to talk about it?" and i said, "well, yes, sir. yeah, yes, i would." he told me this story about the pressures of public life, and he just needed to get away, right? and he wanted to take this trip. "well, where did you stay? do you have friends there? who did you visit with?" he told me he was alone, and i think it started dawning on him that i knew more than i was letting on, and he--he got up and left. and then i'm grabbing for my cellphone and calling my editor and yelling, uh,

"oh, my god! you're not gonna believe what just happened! i just found mark sanford in the airport!" ♪ knowing it was only a matter of hours before gina filed her story, mark sanford raced back to the capitol to get ahead of it all with a now-infamous press conference. i was there, and i can't recall a time being more squished in in what is a very large atrium in the middle of the south carolina state house. [camera shutters clicking] [amplified voice] somebody wanna help me here? how are we gonna... do this one right here? [microphone clattering] i couldn't get-- i couldn't talk to the guy. i had no idea what a mess he was. um... [camera shutters continue clicking] um... i don't see-- where's gina smith? -man: she's not here. -not here? okay. so i'm standing there, and i'm off camera, and i'm watching this fiasco. so the bottom line is this.

i, um...i've been unfaithful to my wife. i developed, um, a relationship with a, um... what started as a dear, dear friend from argentina. he walked through this-- this experience and his relationship with this woman and how he feels about this woman. it began very, uh, innocently as i suspect many of these things do, um, in just a casual e-mail, uh, back and forth in advice on one's life there and advice here. uh...but here, recently over this last year, it developed into something much more than that. his explanation of where he was was so deeply narcissistic, so deeply about himself and his feelings. that is, i suspect, a continual process all through life of getting one's heart right in life. and so i-i would never stand before you as one who just says, "yo, i'm completely right" with regard to my heart on all things, but what i would say is i'm committed to trying to get my heart right.

"i found love. i'm sorry i-- you know, i'm sorry i lit the entire building on fire, but i found love, guys." be happy for me. -i mean, what the [bleep]? -yeah. i hurt my wife. i hurt my boys. i hurt friends like tom davis. i hurt a lot of different folks. um... and all i can say is that i apologize. what was your reaction? 'cause he...i mean, he--he spoke from the heart, you could say. -i mean... -[laughs] you know, it's the best thing i can say about it. i started with him in 1996. we're at 13 years later, and i'm just watching my entire career-- everything that i had built up for the last 13 years just fall into a flaming pile. of pig shit. basically, yes. he effectuated the escape, but then he didn't do the cover-up well at all. if mark would have had any friends-- see, mark is kind of a loner. if mark would have looped them in,

i mean, what would have happened? i think his only friend was probably jenny. it turned out she had discovered mark's secrets ahead of the press, and, no, she would not be standing by her man for the photographers. to jenny... now anybody who has observed her over the last, uh... 20 years of my life knows how closely she has stood by my side. it was very surreal, and for the part of a lot of the reporters who came in from out of town, they're like, "is it always like this?" is it--is there always this kind of weird stuff that's happening? and i mean, the answer is yes, but this was definitely a different level, and it took us a while to figure out exactly what we had all just gone through. but it all might have gone away quickly, because mark sanford's news cycle was interrupted by, perhaps, an act of god. the "l.a. times" is reporting that pop star michael jackson has died. the entire national media apparatus

turned their focus from mark sanford over to remembering michael jackson. all the governor has to do now is keep his head down, not say anything... -[laughter] ...and the whole thing will blow over. but then mark held a--basically an almost 2-day interview with members of the associated press on the record, in which he called, uh, belén his soul mate. he gave another interview?! surely it couldn't be that bad, right? [sanford speaking] yeah, it was a lot. i think there was in mark this sense of trying as hard as he could to explain to people some very complex things that he was feeling.

when you compared it to edwards or with spitzer, somebody had gone to a crisis management expert and say, "okay, this is the way you go about explaining things in a way where you can salvage your career or a way you can position yourself to come back." mark didn't do any of that. and that might just be what saved him.

in the wake of the scandal, jenny left mark. reporter: south carolina's first lady

says she's filing for divorce. jenny: there's not room for three people in a marriage. tapper: and there were calls for his resignation across the state. mark sanford said no because he felt he could still effectively govern. critics then called for sanford's impeachment. they opened an ethics investigation in the hopes of finding that his trip to argentina contained criminal use of taxpayer dollars. i was on the judiciary committee. i was 22, 23 years old at the time, and i voted to impeach mark sanford, and i shouldn't have. when i think about it and look back at it, i don't think it rose to the level of impeachability. the majority of the state senate at the time saw it that way, too, because nothing mark sanford spent on that trip crossed over into criminal territory. after he paid a small fine and reimbursed the state, the hearings were dropped. now he just needed to win back the public. he embarked on what i remember terming in a story at one point "an apology tour," and he did that for months. i am compelled to say that i'm sorry one more time

for the situation that i created. the reality is none of us are perfect. and i'm moving forward. i think the people of south carolina are ready, too, so... mark sanford served out his full two terms as governor-- the maximum allowed by south carolina law. in 2012, he got engaged to his soul mate, maria belén chapur, and then the following year he ran again and won his old congressional seat back. reporter: once left for dead in the political wilderness, mark sanford blazed a comeback trail that will take him all the way to washington. i just want to acknowledge a, uh... [cheers and applause] a-a-a god not just of second chances but third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth chances because that is the reality of our shared humanity. i think that we've learned that voters can be really forgiving, and we love to watch the fall. but, man, we really love a good comeback, right? tapper: mark's re-entry into politics wasn't stumble-free. in 2014, he broke up with maria via a 2,300-word post on facebook.

but after all that, it was in 2018 that sanford finally faced a foe he could not bounce back from when he denounced "trumpism" as bad for the republican party, and trump clapped back in a tweet. donald trump endorsed sanford's opponent in the gop primary race, and for the first time in his entire political life, sanford lost. sanford lost his primary race because to a degree, he stood up to donald trump. to a degree, no? if you need that narrative, that's fine. no, i don't-- if you don't think it's true, tell me what you think it's-- -i think it's bullshit. he doesn't have a campaign manager. he doesn't have campaign staff. he has a campaign account and doesn't spend it. the guy spent $300,000 on ads, and the night he was declared the loser in a republican primary, he had one-and-a-half million dollars in his bank account. -he took a dive. -why? he needed the universe to make a decision for him. he was unhappy in congress. christ knows i watched him be unhappy in congress, but he can't--

he can't quit things. let's go back to 2009 for a sec. okay. he couldn't quit his marriage, so what does he do? he gives her the clue by disappearing for five days so that it becomes an international scandal. from the outside, the mark sanford scandal was an absurd comedy, but for insiders such as scott or me, if i'm being honest, it was a really hard lesson. mark sanford seemed like the rare politician who is exactly what you saw on the podium. and that's because who he seemed to be was based on some real truths, but the persona was just one facet of who he was-- packaged up and made clean and comprehensible for the american public. the big surprise was that even after mark sanford's brand had dissolved so spectacularly, the south carolina public embraced him even more, authenticity trumping perfection, ironically a lesson harnessed by his main detractor, the 45th president who took an aggressive brand of filter-free politics

all the way to the white house. i could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot somebody, and i wouldn't lose any voters, okay? -it's, like, incredible. -[laughter] i still occasionally talk to mark, who declined to participate in this documentary, i think because of how guilty he feels about what this all did to his four sons. he says he's working hard on those relationships, and maybe i'm a fool, but i believe him. scandals decapitate people. scandals take people completely out the game, and mark sanford-- that didn't happen to mark. mark didn't get impeached. he finished his term, and he actually won another race, uh, for the united states congress. by being honest to himself, being honest to his conservative political values, and being honest with the public, the real mark sanford was able to shake the perfection of the past and start building a new story, even if it took him a long walk