♪ >> this week on "q&a," part one of a two-part interview with former public interest lawyer and politician mark green. he discusses his book "bright infinite future." brian lamb: you say in your book when you were running for mayor of new york city you made 30,000 phone calls to raise money? mark green: yes. once you decide you want to be the mayor of new york city it is a marathon. i have to make 80 phone calls a

day reach 20 people a day get 8 commitments a day. they put up calls i have in front of me. he gave $5,000 to schumer, $1,000 to clinton. he likes waterskiing. so i call and say "hey brian, how's the waterskiing?" if you don't do that you can't run competitively. i didn't know that i would end up running against the richest man in world history to run for office, michael bloomberg. brian lamb: in 2001 september 11 was the day of the primary. give us a little bit of the flavor what that was like.

mark green: i have never spoken about that because i lost an election in part because of that. 3000 people lost their lives. the statute of limitations has run. when you write a memoir you have to be candid. two years before september 11 i had an apartment in east 90th street right near gracie mansion. i said i'm going to run for mayor. i have a record of recognition. there's a very good chance i'll win. unless there's an external event that upends the cart. a racial shooting in bensonhurst. which affected the koch-dinkins mayor's race in 1989. when david won.

two years later the night of september 10, 2001 the same apartment i turned to my wife and i said there have been no external events. nothing to upset the apple cart. so it looks like i will win the nomination or get into a runoff. kinahora is a jewish expression that translates to knock on wood. that morning i went to vote and i'm supposed to see that night, john o'neill. bill bratton has been a supporter of mine. the famous new york city police commissioner then and now. he said well, you meet john o'neill. he handles the security and heads up the bin laden task

force. i said i want to spend time with my wife on election night but i'll see him later. at 8:46 a.m. i'm on 11th street in manhattan. i made the last handshake of the whole campaign. i said let's go back to the apartment. she looks up to the south and gasps. it was a perfectly clear blue sky. everybody knows what i saw. so i saw it live. i was not able to interpret it for television commentators. i had no experience with anything like that. just the diehard movies. it affected everyone. it affected the world and my city. it affected the election and me least of all. but it shifted the conversation.

from education and housing in traffic to one issue. security and rebuilding new york. changed the conversation in the campaign. it affected me as well, a lot. brian lamb: that was primary day. who are the people are you running against? mark green: there were four of us. all four of us were known citywide officials. none of us were fdr. none of us were super famous. but we were running under a campaign-finance system where you get the same amount of money. i was running against freddy ferrer, the borough president from the bronx, alan hevesi the city controller, and peter vallone the city council speaker. i was called the public advocate. in new york city we have a rule

they have to get over 40% in order to win the nomination. otherwise you could have some weirdo get 41%. you want make sure that person gets a majority. i was in a runoff with freddy ferrer, a rising latino star, the borough president of the bronx. brian lamb: we've got some video from a documentary was made by your son. this is 2001. explain what jonah was allowed to do with this documentary. mark green: he was very precocious. very good writer. he had a school project. i said i will film my dad. he's running for mayor.

it was a relatively boring election until 8:46 a.m., september 11. then again that only interesting but historic. he ended up having inside access to a candidate. the war room we now know with james carville and george stephanopoulos was what happens with the top aides and staff of the major candidate. governor clinton. this is a great film on what it's like for a family to run for high office. the highs and lows. every day you live a lifetime. jonah shot and finished it and sold it to sundance. which airs it on a real with a film called the perfect candidate. that was about oliver north. the reagan aide who ran for

senate in virginia. he said sorry about 9/11. but it made for a better film. i said, anything to help. brian lamb: they can watch the whole thing on youtube. mark green: if you go to jonah green.com you can access the film. jonah: my father had been in the lead for months. that would be easy. so the most prominent city democrats were vying for the nomination to succeed rudy giuliani, who could not run again because of term limits. freddy ferrer was the bronx borough president. alan hevesi from queens was the city comptroller.

peter vallone had been speaker of the city council. there was also michael bloomberg. a democrat turned republican and a billionaire and a political novice. and then there was mark green. brian lamb: who is mark green? mark green: my grandparents came from poland and russia. my father was a lawyer but smalltime landlord owner. my mother was a kindergarten teacher. she had five miscarriages before i was born. i was considered a miracle child. my parents treated me like wow, he's here. i have an older brother stephen l. green who is well-known in new york. he is the funny older brother that i kept teasing.

he founded what is now the owner of the largest commercial real estate property in manhattan. it has a market cap of $14 billion. an extremely influential mentor in my life. living on long island. we lived in brooklyn originally and moved to long island. it was a suburban family. my family was rockefeller republicans. a conservative, it hit the earth and killed off these moderate republicans. i'm sure they voted for nixon over kennedy. i go to cornell and harvard law school in the 60's. i became very progressive. very antiwar. very pro-civil rights.

i was immersed intellectually in several of the huge movements that characterized the 60's. i argue my book they are tapping the shoulder of 2016 at the same time. civil rights, antiwar, gay rights, consumer rights. i leave harvard law school in 1970. i was the editor-in-chief of the harvard civil rights civil liberties law review. it's not the harvard law review itself. this was the alternate law review. the more progressive one. i have a job lined up with mayor john lindsay. fetching coffee for him.

he won as a republican for mayor in 1965 and that he won reelection in 1969 as an independent. because the republicans wouldn't give him the nomination. he was a moderate liberal. i got a phone call from ralph nader, we had never met. but i admire him from afar. he was a super famous, cover of newsweek, which was a magazine that was published in the 1960's. they depicted him as a knight in shining armor. he asked if i would consider working for him. nader said, do you want to make coffee or do you want to make history? ralph was a very persuasive person. i ended up working for him for 10 years. i am off and running. the most influential period of

my life. every night for 10 years ralph would call me and we would talk about what he did that day and what i did. we weren't peers, he was ralph nader and i was a lawyer. i was learning from the master of the craft. brian lamb: let's go back to the mayor's race. did alan hevesi run into some corruption problems? mark green: he then ran successfully for state controller. he got a contribution from an interest that gave him a free flight to israel. he was prosecuted and convicted and jailed.

for corruption. he is now out and rebuilding his life. brian lamb: what happened to freddy ferrer? mark green: he later ran for mayor himself in 2005. he won the democratic nomination. i endorsed and campaigned for him. and he lost by 15 points to the incumbent michael bloomberg. brian lamb: here's some more from your son's documentary. >> focusing on the twin towers of my candidacy, educating children, that will take me to victory.

are you going to vote on tuesday? this is ground zero of politics, the upper west side. brian lamb: what is your reaction when you're in front of crowds like that? mark green: well, first, the clip you showed had me saying before 9/11 the twin towers of my candidacy and now this is ground zero of politics on the west side. so that is eerie. i used to be an athlete. and when you're playing a sporting event in the crowd screaming you kind of block it out. you are trying to communicate to the crowd that is somewhat overexcited.

bill clinton is good at it, donald trump. they can read a crowd and feed off it, the key is to be yourself. the public the interviewers of tv or candidate, they can smell a phony. you might as well be yourself because everyone else is taken. i tried to be candid and blunt. you like it when people are cheering. mario cuomo was campaigning for me when i ran for the u.s. senate in 1986. we were on a street corner in lower manhattan. this guy says, i hate you governor cuomo. mario said thank you sir for your views. he was a very animated guy who had a temper.

so you have to stay calm. people who overreact, like trump who struts while sitting down. or if you're too cool then people can't connect with you. i try to keep an even keel. which is hard for me. because really good things happen i would say oh it's ok. brian lamb: other than jonah you've got two women in your family. mark green: my wife i have been married to for 39 years. she was in public affairs. working for people for the american way my daughter is the mother of our two grandchildren and a lawyer. works for a not-for-profit

educational firm. putting kids and technology together. brian lamb: this might be painful for you to look at. the number of elections you have lost. there it is. if we missed one let me know. go back to the 1980 election. who did you running as for congress? mark green: i worked for ralph nader for 10 years. i loved it. but i'm really a new yorker. i was lobbying congress and it occurred to me can i run for public office? i decided to go back to new york

and run for the house against an incumbent. bill green, a very effective low key moderate republican. he won the election 57 to 43. brian lamb: what was it like to lose? mark green: it's ok. in my book i say i have a big defect. i was born without an insecurity gene. if i think something i can do it. this is good and it's bad. i didn't have self-doubt. i was an underdog i had lived in washington. i was not really a native of the east side of manhattan. it's called the silk stocking

district. ed koch and john lindsay had represented the district. i went all out. it was a sprint. when i lost i said many people lose their first races. i am ok. i went back to washington to run public citizen. ralph offered me that. i wasn't crushed. i was young, it was a formative learning experience. brian lamb: you mentioned your brother stephen. he's made a lot of money. have you ever made any money? mark green: no.

he is a realtor in new york although he is not running for president like another realtor in new york. we divided up the world. steve took the private sector and i took the public sector. so he gets paris and i get baghdad. he is seven years older than i am. the deal as i don't tell him what to do in the private sector but he gets to tell me what i should think of the public sector. i am all ears because i want to learn from everybody. he started out as a moderate republican. he switched to the democrats so you can vote for his kid brother when i ran house and senate and mayor. brian lamb: did it ever matter to you, did you want money?

mark green: no. it never occurred to me. i grew up with parents who were not wealthy but were comfortable. in a north shore suburb called great neck. west egg and the great gatsby. i never felt the urge to make money. what turned me on in the 60's as an admirer of the kennedys was to make policy. that was what drove me. i went to law school and i worked with nader.

brian: in 1986 he ran for the senate. who did you run against? mark green: i had a primary against a man named john dyson. a very wealthy man. he'd been in the governors cabinet. so he was close to mario cuomo. cuomo wanted dyson to run because he could tell him what to do. but he stayed neutral because he didn't want to get involved in the primary. john dyson said mark green can't raise a dime. so i said it was the mark of dimes campaign. a kind of a bernie sanders mind. $700,000 in increments of under a thousand. he wrote one check to himself for $7 million. when i heard that in august, i said what? i can't win. but i won 54-47.

he was more of an elitist. i ran against senator al d'amato. he had won an incredible primary victory against jacob javits back in 1980. by 1986 he was the chairman of the senate banking committee. had money coming in. at the time i called him a walking quid pro quo. giving to get. he won 57 to 41. he had ignored me. i was the underdog. i was failing upward. at this point i had lost the house and the senate so my next option was either pope or president. brian lamb: you won the race for

public advocate in 1993. mark green: every city in the country has a number two. in new york it was always the president of the city council. it was held by people with the names al smith and fiorello la guardia. two iconic figures who went on to become governors and mayors. when the position became available i thought that would be great. it is an ombudsman office. we monitor city services to show there is no fraud or suspicion. you represent people who don't have a voice. i ran for it. i won easily. i defeated a state senator named david paterson.

15 years later he succeeded governor eliot spitzer as the governor of new york. he said you should've let me win public advocate then maybe you would be a governor now. david has a great sense of humor. brian lamb: you mentioned al smith. you were at a smith dinner one night in white tie and sales. what is the al smith dinner? and then you are called away to a meeting. to meet with freddie ferrer. mark green: al smith was the governor of new york and catholic. he was the first catholic nominee of a major party in 1928.

he was subject to horrible anti-catholic commentary and the next catholic who got a nomination won, john kennedy. the dinner is run by the catholic elite of new york. the cardinal at that time was o'connor. in 2000 bush and gore came and the tradition is every four years the nominees of both parties,. they make humorous toasts at each other's expense. in 2001 i was now running for mayor. i had been the nominee. i got elected. sorry, nominated. in my victory speech i said what a great race by borough president freddie ferrer. i can't wait to work with him.

he is latino and i am not. he had supporters who got a little excited. these races end up being racial. i was a leading white liberal in new york city. marching with sharpton, suing giuliani over police misconduct. strong support in the black and latino community. the freddie ferrer campaign was an alliance with al sharpton. and he refused to endorse me for a week as they thought that some of my supporters were racially hostile to them. not me but my supporters. finally he calls back and says i will meet with you tonight, the night of the al smith dinner. so i leave the dinner in white

tie and tails. i go to his headquarters. this is like hillary clinton going to bernie sanders original home in brooklyn and begging him to endorse her for president. after she had been the nominee. but i did it because the goal was city hall. i had a meeting with sharpton and top aides. about the primary that was and the election to come. i tried to have a unified party. republicans are going through it with trump. democrats are going through it with clinton and sanders. >> what about the racial thing. you were attacked, somebody distributed cartoons out of the

new york post. >> it sounds ridiculous now. you want the racial campaign, donald trump saying mexicans are racist and a black president is not american, that is it. my campaign, the chair was the first black mayor in new york city. everybody understood i was a white progressive democrat with strong interracial support. the new york post is very hostile to liberals and minorities. the justice. they ran a cartoon of farar kissing sharpton's rear end to get his support.

it was an ugly metaphor for what was true. he needed a black man coalition to win in a diverse city. somebody, to this day i hardly know who, grafted and handed it out as a cartoon. he wanted the party to come together, i denounce reverend did it. whoever did it would never serve or have a role in any administration where i win. it caused a racial fracas. race had not come up at all in the primary and the runoff. then, the kindling of the 9/11 and bloomberg's money lit a flame. kerosene was added by race. race is not a big issue in a

city that is 10% black. in a city that has a majority white, 40% jewish, 20% jewish now in a minority majority, there was racial tension and we were to racial candidates -- two racial candidates but some of our supporters were not. i often ask, why the heck did you do that? he said i hated sharpton. sharpton is a double-edged sword. african-americans admire him, white new yorkers hate him. 60 point disparity in his poll ratings in new york. if you get him for the upside, you also get the downside. >> there is an ad from the 2005

freddy farar campaign. this is al sharpton. what you see is all there was to the ad. ♪ ♪ would you explain al sharpton two people out of the new york city area? >> impossible. i have never met anyone in public life is a bigger gap between his iq, eq, their high, performance skills very high if his character and integrity, very low. as i sought, he could have lied to me.

this is among the reasons, 75% favorable rating among african-americans and 15% approval rating among white new yorkers. giuliani racially divided the city. it became his racial anxieties. they became more apparent. when he said of a first black president that he does not love america, of obama. after that, a democratic nominee

wanted a white liberal coalition and with black support. sharpton blew that up. i decided, i will not answer his endorsement because he is so unpopular but my voters. i will treat him with respect because he is an african-american civil rights leader. some of wife and i invited him and his wife to see the opening night of the nuremberg. we enjoyed it and had dinner. i decided not to answer his endorsement. as a strategy, if you will. two months later, he said mark begged me for my endorsement. he would constantly be dancing around. before trump, there was sharpton. saying something different every day. a moth to the flame of the media. like the 13th time of the clock. raises questions about everything the clock did before. when he lied about me then, i

realized that is what he does. i could never trust him again. because i stood up to him, he constantly attacked me and when i lost to mike bloomberg, a very substantial, smart, successful guy. not racially wrong in any way. sharpton said, i'm glad we beat mark green because like paul o'connor, we have to be respected. what? he cannot call me a racist. this is the kind of divisive personality that you don't want to see at the presidential level and you don't want to see at the mayoral level. >> president obama has got close to him? >> i don't know. i so admire barack obama. i don't to take up time with

your audience, but i tell my children, we will never again have a president like this guy. to this day, i can't believe that such a diverse, cool calm really brilliant, very urbain intellectual became president. he has his own politics. when jesse jackson, the reigning civil rights leader dissed barack obama as a candidate privately and publicly, al sharpton was smart enough to say barak, i am from you and i always will be with you. and he became the jackson-sharpton leader and obama and valerie jarrett, his top aide over the course of his life constantly have sharpton over. as for the net plus or minus, i will not second-deaths brock -- second-guess barack obama.

>> then you ran to the senate 98 again. who did you run against? >> looking back, that was a mistake. i had run for the senate when i was behind demotto, 66-16 in the first poll. just keep going. 97, i had a choice, i was than the elected and well-known public advocate. i could have run against giuliani for mayor or i could have run against the motto and 98 or a could have waited and run for mayor in 2001. i decided not to run against

giuliani which was an iffy race. he and i were tied in the polls. then i fell in love with the senate. we would take hikes. i would read and pause during the hike. two other people who were heard of ran. congressman chuck schumer and other person. it was a strong lineup. it was only me who realized that al d'amato was honorable.

-- vulnerable. i lost to chuck schumer. i ended up working against and with so many freaks of nature like chuck schumer. and look, he has merited himself to the brink of being the senate minority majority leader. >> why do you say he is a better politician and what does that mean? >> that is a very good question. lbj like, not only knows the gene that, but we know it when we see it. chuck was that and i was that. we see it with ralph nader and advocacy. second, have a talent that is relevant. chuck had a legislative talent that he fought legislatively, had a lot of laws he enacted on

consumers, guns, banks. he was tough. he did what it takes. that is not criticism of him. because of it in my stupid coverage or poor shot selection, i ended up running against chuck schumer, mike bloomberg, andrew, bill deblasio and they did what it takes to win. do whatever you have to win so long as you don't get caught. these people generally are tough as nails and they do what it takes to win and there are moments in my public life where i had to either do something that was edgy ethically and when i listen to my inner ralph

nader who is an uncompromising purist, i'm neither. i ended up being more nader than cuomo. i made a couple decisions that were not politically smart at key moments. what i mean by that is, i feel like a natural advocate. this goes to be an advocate and a politician are often similar. smart and hard-working, but in advocate is someone who pushes a moral vision and moves towards it like nader. a politician is someone who nets votes because he raises money to get ads and when an election. there are very few advocates who end up in great politicians. bob rice, great advocate, governor of massachusetts. ron wyden was a nader like white panther. represented senior citizens who were poor in his home state.

ran for house and senate and won one of the few examples. -- ran for house and senate and won. one of the few examples. i want to go back more to your sons video. when that video came out, it was 2001 for the race. when did it hit the sundance air waves? there were some deep things. -- iffy things. there was one thing that i begged him to cut and he did. as a footnote, primary night for

mayor when i won the runoff. when i got into the runoff, i'm sorry. i called peter valone. a very formidable city council speaker and chatted before returns were known and he said he may get into the runoff. i get on the phone and say to someone, he is creating his own reality. i say only because i have to say everything now 15 years later. it was ungenerous and it was not relevant to anything. >> here is some of the video from that very night. and i think the family. [laughter]

[indiscernible] >> that was painful. >> a lot going on. >> that was the day of that i won the runoff to be the nominee.

it was true until michael bloomberg came along with money. the nominee would be the mayor. blackberries, you know what those are. [laughter] >> long time ago. >> there was an exit poll that showed me ahead by eight. i ended up winning by two. when i saw that, it look like i would be the nominee and effect out the mayor. -- de facto, the mayor. my son was filming that and i was unconscious that he was there. >> what if this business about it is hard for you not to be arrogant or self-important? >> every politician has a rap. that have a negative and

positive rap. the negative on me was that i was arrogant and i know it all. cocky. that was two thirds true. i do not have self-doubt, i was optimistic. i thought i could do what i set out to do. this -- bill clinton is smarter than hell and will bite his lip and paused to convey humanity when his brain was 10 steps ahead. the arrogant thing is untrue. i never felt i was better than people. that is not a small d democratic temperament. a great guy in his 80's, support me. he said you were not arrogant, you just appeared to be arrogant. [laughter] i have to live with that.

>> when you ran against mike bloomberg, close the outcome? >> he won by two points. closer to mayoral election in 100 years. -- closest mayoral election in 100 years. mark melman called me and says, i have good news and bad news. good news you are 20 points ahead, i never had a client lose when they were 20 points ahead. bad news, mike bloomberg is pending $1 million a day -- spending $1 million a day slamming you and advertisements and is catching up a point a day. we had 20 days left and 20 points ahead. i did the math and said oh.

when an opponent is doing something successful, you have to have some antidote. i had no antidote. i could steal his money. secretly made his money -- move his money. cannot do it. mike bloomberg did not win nearly because of his money. a lot of things were going on. 9/11 changed the election. the sitdown strike was not helpful. when i think of bloomberg then and now, i'm reminded of bing crosby's famous comment. frank sinatra comes around once every couple of generations, why did it have to be mine? when i was planning my race, i did not anticipate a

multibillionaire spending $100 a vote. i did not anticipate osama bin laden. bloomberg's ads ribbed giuliani went down from a nixon like popularity. when he got giuliani to endorse him, david garth, the late great media guru said that bloomberg

led at 16 points. >> the original primary was on september 11. when was the actual election? >> september 2010. two and a half weeks later. >> let's run the next clip. let's look at the different people in this clip. >> this is not a time to take a chance on someone who has never spent a day in government service. >> one of the interesting things

about that is he is not the governor of virginia. some of these things come back to haunt you, obviously not he was successful. >> that was a unity dinner three days before the general election and so stewart and valid and the clintons and the cuomos. it was great except we go back to the unity point which is one of the major themes of 2016 for both parties, ferrer would not come. they were still angry about the primary and the distribution of literature and so the new york

times was not that party came together. but ferrer a no-show at green's unity dinner. >> your wife periodically in the books suggests this be the last race. you say it is it. he went on to run for attorney general and you lost. >> 2006. the analogy, michael jordan quits basketball. then he comes back. the attorney general office was to be opened in 2006. andrew cuomo had been embarrassed by a bad race for

governor in 2002. he was bruised and i would talk to him throughout that race to improve his spirits. he said the 2006 race was his redemptive race. i saw the 2006 race as my ability to get back into public life. robert f kennedy junior, who was his brother-in-law came this close to running for attorney general but did not because of various family reasons.

in the contest of four people, andrew cuomo won. i called him election night and endorsed him. >> one last campaign, you lost your public advocate in 2009. what happened? you are still at it. >> their term limits in new york for public advocate so i served eight years as public advocate. got a lot done. i loved it. and people thought i was adept at that. when there was a vacancy for public advocate, three people have been running for a year.

one of them was bill deblasio. i decidedly to run for public -- advocate late. so i announced late. i started way ahead because i was well known. de blasio was less well but had locked up labor support. he is a founder of the work and family party. he is married to an african-american woman. he gets mixed race children. he ran ads saying look at my family. he did extremely well among white liberals as i did but extremely well among african-americans because of his story. he wins. i support him. that is my last race because i was a fugitive of the law of

averages. enough playing against these superhero politicians. four years later, bill de blasio run for mayor and the public is tired of michael bloomberg and he wins easily. >> by how much? >> he won the general election against a smart republican 73-27. currently mayor and in his third year. >> our guest is mark green and the book is called bright, infinite future. this is part one and we have a lot more to talk about. ♪ ♪ for free transcripts or to give

us your comments, visit us at qanda.org. they are also available as c-span podcasts. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> this month, watches c-span's coverage of the republican and democratic national conventions. every setter night at 8:00 p.m. eastern, we will look back at past conventions and the presidential candidate that went on to win their parties nomination. eisenhower, the 1956 republican convention in san francisco. conventionmocratic in atlantic city with lyndon johnson. the 1970 two at

republican convention in miami beach. the 1980 democratic convention with jimmy carter in new york city. the 1992bush at republican convention in houston. bill clinton in chicago for the 1996 democratic convention and the 2004 republican convention in new york city with george w. bush. past republican and democratic national conventions. saturday nights at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. c-span, washington journal is next. then actor and activist george takei talks about the treatment of japanese-americans in world war ii. later, we look at how past presidents have dealt with the issue of poverty in the u.s. >> coming up on today's washington journal, this fourth of july, and issues roundtable with terry jeffries and eleanor clift with the daily beast.

and a look at the situation in iraq and what is next in the fight against isis. we are joined by a former intelligence officer to the military. ♪ host: good morning. it is monday, july 4, 2016. happy independence day and welcome to washington journal. the weather could have a major impact on festivities and ironworks in the nation's capital and along the eastern seaboard. we will focus on the election, now, just weeks away from the convention. for months or so from the presidential election. electionopments in the regarding trade. globalism versus protectionism. a