he is the disgraced former governor of new york he resigned after being caught in a prostitution scandal he's the man once referred to as a client nine in federal courts and the sheriff of wall street for his aggressive actions is new york's attorney general he's now running for comptroller of the silly former governor eliot spitzer joins us next on politicking with larry king.

live a long way eliot spitzer and i will use to sit in the back table with the regency hotel in new york to leave would it was attorney general of new york what he would dying for breakfast alone. into that breakfast that was the power breakfast invention there spot people who may be culprits now that lead them back table at the reason that you make it sound a little more sinister than it was since they have it is enjoyed by yoga weaving the new york times exactly exactly why why why are you running for the trail why why why it's a great position and i've spent five years since i resigned as governor and i've done fun things we were colleagues at c.n.n. for a premier of time in our history of doing things together what i miss is public service and what i look forward to is a different type of position the controller oversees the finances of the city as a critical role in running the pension funds a hundred forty billion dollars so you need to understand capital markets using that position to improve corporate

governance to get the return for those whose pensions are due to them. inquiring whether the policies we're pursuing in city government or working in education health care infrastructure it's a way to get your hands dirty and to provide a public service in areas that i really love but there are many church a little with this i will discuss the things around you and we will buy the long way i'm going to get us into it and you could have done a lot of other things right and i have but in the his case you're asking the public to come forward and polenta lever right despite having you know that cloud around here here's the it was the case that it was over and we did all that you're absolute right it was a tough decision because politics is under the best of circumstances is hard takes pound of flesh out of you even if you've been pure driven snow with all the stuff that led to my resignation it makes it harder but as i thought a really long time about this but the public is forgiven and i think the public

will i hope the public will be look at the totality of my career and what he did as attorney general what i did as governor what i did as a prosecutor when i was in that d.a.'s office and say yes this guy can do the job control now i hope they say that but you're right i could have done a lot of other stuff i loved being at c.n.n. you know the you know company didn't like the show as much as i did i guess but you know things happen and i loved having my other show it current i have written a book i have taught which i absolutely the teaching was spectacular and it was yeah you know and i loved it i mean it was and the kids like it i mean i was i didn't hear some article somewhere that the kids whatever i mean but it was great fun and i have been running our family business so those are all exciting but getting back into pure public service is what makes me excited but you did know you're very bright that once you make that scene you would face all yes yes the go around it and then further hampered by the winners scandal which affects you

they're saying it's going to affect hillary right well you think that scandal equals scandal. i don't think what equals two equals three and i'm not going to sort of parse that but i think the public can distinguish and will look at me as a separate candidate separate individual i've obviously been asking the public to do that and you know what i what i've said very clearly is look at what i am and been running a very sort of quiet low key campaign we have t.v. ads office that i think are effective but it's basically a conversation with the public that says look what i did as attorney general look what i did as governor funding education for the only governor ever to really put them funds we need into new york city's public education here leaving the public good if they wish absolutely but you know larry what i said the moment i got into this was that when i was a prosecutor i had respect for the jury's verdict as somebody seeking a left of office i have always had respect for the voters win lose or draw that is

the beauty of our system and i was happy with it but i respect it and that is i will be at peace regardless of the outcome. one of the one of the rivals in the mayoralty election christine quinn says that she didn't think you you you said that you would not vote for women and she said you're not in a position to discuss when you know or anything you shouldn't be discussing the president does of if they do you react to that well look i look one level my view is to come at it from the top and out theoretically everybody has the right to state an opinion for that's why when there are people who are extraordinarily wealthy who don't like me for reasons we can get to that prosecutor them whatever they get into right or poor i've never just disagreed with their right to say what they want and that's a look at the first moment right that's the beauty of our country i never try to say to somebody your voice shouldn't be heard if you disagree with somebody voice speak in a more persuasive with more persuasive argument don't silence anybody so with that

level i say to christie look ok i see your your but we're all entitled to stated that having said all that i am not passing judgment on the mayoral candidates by and large evidently not it wouldn't be that one comment on chris matthews' show you know how chris matthews does an interview a bit and he kept going at me but that being said. i'm not commenting on the mayor's race or my race is my race i'll let them have their interaction how should the public view. hypothetically the private life of a public person should we do we measure it do we think of it do we consider it in the vote do we put it aside we go to the voting age it's a great question and yet you always do it and here's i thought of that a little bit obviously i think that there need to be boundary lines there needs to be some zone of privacy that we do respect now having said that the public is entitled to pass judgment upon people based upon how they comport themselves i

think it's fair i've never said to the public to you know. to be self referential i've never said to the public you're not entitled to look at what led to my resignation it's not relevant i'm not never said that what i've said is look at it in the totality of others i don't think i think there are precious few people who are as we say without without some blemish and the question then becomes can you weigh and balance those frailties and infirmities that we are aware of and how do you come up it's a fair it's for about ok sure what should we worry about a frailty affecting performance i think depends on the person i think that we don't we i can't get into your head right what with me you know i mean i think the short answer i have is no one i think people who know me have seen me i've been now been in the public eye for gosh nine hundred ninety four i first ran for office that's

nineteen years was a prosecutor before that so technically the public eye but i think theoretically yes theoretically the answer your question is does can private issues affect performance of course they can i mean if people have addictions and people have you know serious issues that affect one's day to day life that there's no question that those those are issues to be thought about in confront it as it relates to me i think the public is knows a fair bit about me my life is basically been subjected to all sorts of years and say he is overly and that i prosecuted lawbreakers and i broke the law they deal with the because this is. and i would venture to say that now i'm not trying to draw comparable dynamics you know there's speeding tickets there's everything else and have some adequate into the but there again it goes back to the very few people are without any sense i try to of tried to lead a good life failed to the interests known publicly where i failed at tried to seek some sort of redemption through award some sort of over time and understanding of

that and dealt with it i think and i hope the public will appreciate that so you recognize it and just say that because life is complicated for the public also consider what the wife things your wife is not appearing with you publicly usually if the wife appears as is this the bag no matter what the scandal it's as well if she did stress them why isn't your wife would let me answer the parts a yes i think it's fair to consider whether the family wife and extended family is supportive and is. i can forgive absolutely. and in this case the answer is yes so to is whom you've met and is fully support of the machine not appearing well there's a difference between you and she signed a petition she gathered petitions there's a difference between being supportive and very firm of about this and wanting to step into the maelstrom of the media that has attended this campaign as it is what

it is well i wouldn't ask her to do it i've been a candidate since july seventh so it's not a number of weeks. and. i'm running for office not my family they are support of my kids obviously sort of absolute now there are reports all over the place or so it's fair to ask you you've never ducked anything with that you are involved with someone knows that the wars is coming what is the answer to that i think there is probably isn't title to know when you seeking their vote it's been over here here's here's the answer look my life has been chronicled there has been there been endless articles for the first three weeks of this campaign larry i answered every question about the past and everything was you know as you know these are the companies didn't would have had your chance there was a guy there was a moment it was the first day down to union square that hundred fifty degrees i was wearing a dark balloon wall suit surrounded i had no place to go surrounded by about one hundred and fifty reporters and i was held hostage in it hours

a little over an hour of just being bombarded answered everything at a certain point you know the folks who are advising me and i said you know what the whitney and the onslaught of rumor innuendo at a certain point this campaign has to pivot to the substance so we said that's enough we've now answered all the questions and so this ongoing stream of stuff i have now said look we've answered enough about all that stuff i've answered questions for three weeks now the answer is we've answered enough let's throw it over as if nothing was done to those questions and exactly you don't think the public has a right to know that that one issue they came up was didn't come up in. down in union square because nobody knows but that's why i say there's this continual whitney of rumor innuendo i think the public is entitled at this point having had three weeks of answers to everything that was asked to a conversation about things that do affect the control of the office which is what we've been trying to talk about as a log brigade do you think in the future john should go to jail you know that the president does go to jail read a little yes or sometimes and let me answer this from the perspective of not my own

perspective which obviously is to imbued with my own context but what law enforcement generally has concluded and the answer has been no now fair debate over whether that is right ethically whether the balance that you just implicitly alluded to is unfair that's a conversation that we should have what i just gave you is the conclusion that law enforcement has confirmed as reached across the nation is that your own conclusion from it was when i was a prosecutor yes. the skill of being controlling you'd say you'd be an act first of all control was a job that there was someone who is the person in manhattan this is he they can't of a candidate as director and it was going to be a shoo in i know a lot of people don't know what a contract will draw as well as you pick that thing because i think it actually fits the skills i've demonstrated that i have you know the controller but nobody understands what it is so they are used to chief financial officer yes exactly you

oversee the pensions you'll see a lot of the c.f.o. you're the guy wears green eyeshades the answer to that you answer to the the electorate because it is a separately elected position just as the a.g. was but you would exert uses i can make over your books right one though you have enormous audit author already subpoena power so you have the capacity to trace every penny spent by the city and oversee the hundred forty billion dollars of pensions so it's a significant capacity that i think can be used more effectively but you have to work with the mayor oh it's a got a lot of attention as a tough guy wall street a tough guy lawbreakers a tough guy people in business but he bring that to the controls over step two this .

need to regain economic downs in the final months things that landed in new york saying i and the rest of life thingy it will be everything on. what defines a country's success. faceless figures of economic growth. or a factual standard of living.

a very question attorney general you would agree with that yeah that was the unfairness came down hard on people fairly but hard any regrets not alone let them know in fact i'll give you something that will surprise you i wish in some contexts we've been harder not on the people but structurally here's what i mean by that between. two thousand and two thousand and six when i was elected governor we made

a lot of what you refer to as the wall street cases there a lot of other stuff but outside we the effort was to reform a capital structure that we saw taking us to disaster we began doing subprime lending cases in one thousand nine hundred ninety we did the analyst cases which went to the very heart of our investment banks restructured then the insurance cases the mutual fund cases and what i said to the people in the industry was look guys these are not isolated dots if you see the entire picture you see a system that is over leveraged too much risk we're you are taking advantage of we do regulatory system that will create a crisis so when i say i wish i'd been harder i would have been harder in saying and more affirmative in saying guys there's a crisis broke and one less well than you have chuck prince a smart guy good guys in general counsel city back i dealt with him a lot then became c.e.o. he said his famous quote as long as the music is playing we'll continue to dance

wall street didn't want to turn off the music a few of us were trying to say to them you got to pull the plug on this stop putting quarters on the jukebox or have a crisis i will tell you i know use the word in interviews but in this case it was i'm a big horse racing fan and one of my favorite all time jockeys was. a great jackie and later bradley always it became pretty clear this isn't kroger scales with the job was the way what the job is a carrying when they get on horses you indicted him on three hundred counts of conspiracy grand larceny lost his job spent two years trying to defend themselves as to the town the judge dismissed all the judges due to a lot of evidence and bradley has been in the public will be complaining that you overreach let me say to you may not be a horse racing fan i'm i guess it's our toes when the great tracks it was a serious thing if you know you lie about the weights as you know it goes to the heart of the entire course of the game or it let me say this niren your grace enough already was fraught with him. priority corruption we cleaned it up we did

a complete rebuild of that organization because from top to bottom oversight of the new york racing establishment was improper and i'm trying to you know using the word improper rather than criminal because i don't remember what we did that related to civil criminal whatever so we read we focused on the road and that was absolutely the right thing to do his individual case i heard about this i called somebody i don't remember the details and you know i have a pretty good memory i called somebody my recollection was that no true i don't remember the details if he was vindicated then he was vindicated in. i don't know if he hears i think he's the only reason i'm hesitating if i should i absolutely will find out i don't know the facts well enough to know whether we overstep whether the evidence was thrown out for some other reason if he deserves an apology trust me he will get one from mayor bloomberg that is not very helpful to new york city's economy when you bad mouth wall street what would you say to them they are you know that and you have bad mouth well you know i don't bad mouth

the entire industry what i say is that there were practices there that took us over the cliff you know wall street and the some of the practices led to the cataclysm of two thousand a cataclysm of two thousand and eight cost our economy fourteen trillion dollars that's not according to me that's according to the dallas federal reserve bank that was asked to calculate what the harm has been so i'm that when he says oh you're costing some tax revenue and say wait a minute the tax revenue that we lost when we had the crisis of two thousand and eight and a downswing of fourteen trillion dollars real people suffered so we were trying to preserve capitalism and make it work that's the thing that bothers me i'm a capitalist and my family's in real estate we like to build and make money so it is saying is if you're an honest businessman you have no were absolutely no but if you have if you're shaving it a little you have worries i believe in having the system work will come back to horseracing right i mean put aside whether that case was right or not it's got to

be an honest system that's all let everybody run the same game but you are going to look into it you bet if so absolutely as a given over and he said i'm sure you could find out if i did it well funded by is not there at any level find a brazilian that used shortly before the election presidential election you wrote a column for slate saying why you're voting for barack obama but a spokeswoman for you said you actually never voted that's exactly right why did you vote because i like you back then had a t.v. show and current t.v. decided three days before the election that we would broadcaster some you know pray that we would broadcast live from san francisco and it was under new york rules it was too late to get an absentee ballot. there you have it some people think a journalist the washing this may shock people the washington post doesn't like its people to vote really they don't know journalists should vote i disagree with that look i mean i could understand if they said keep it secret well i happen to also believe there's no objectivity i'm not saying that as a criticism of journalism i just think as a human theory objectivity doesn't exist better to be open about your perspective

and let people value it you've criticized obama though for not being tough enough in some areas of your book do you assess his presidency look he is a stark president. he was a star president the moment you took the oath of office that is it was a grand and wonderful moment for this country he's also a historic president because he has passed a health care bill that decades of presidents have tried to put in place it's going to be tough to implement that to make it work properly unintended consequences will be there but the notion that we will insure tens of millions of americans who have not had access to health care is a good thing he saved us from in saves he brought us back from the depths of an economic cataclysm not perfectly i wish the stimulus had been bigger i wish they had done more in dodd frank you know you can easy when you're on the outside to criticize you know that's what you're paid to do but has he been a super president yes it is perfect of course not nobody has i mean he tries he

struggles is a tough position that he's doing extraordinary things some other places georgia think it is a moment trial verdict disappointed again i don't like to speak about the verdict of the verdict the jury did what i guess it felt it needed to do but if they overcharged yes they overcharged it should not have been a murder two because they were almost necessarily going to feel that they set themselves up then for a loss of credibility i think when you overcharge you have a hard time regaining the credibility of the jury but the case was alternately failure of justice an innocent kid. to be that president does believe yes and i thought that i thought his speech was brilliant i thought extemporaneous from the heart i wish more people could listen to them when you make of the n.s.a. surveillance programs jomo but ended by the government troubled by i don't get troubled by the scope of it we don't know what it really is and also troubled by the fact the clapper whose first name i apologize i'm forgetting apparently misrepresented i was a wide to congress and only got caught after the leaks and so the public was being

fundamentally misled about this i did there's we've got to have a really serious i'd say we have to have a conversation doesn't take anyone in my view boundaries have to be set was the dividing line between privacy and terrorism. do i have a right if i'm suspicious of you to listen to you if you're a private citizen to the let's say if you're the government that the government because the constitution government have a right to it depends what the level of suspicion is in a pad depends upon how well founded it is you know the independent judge though and i that's that is where i think we have been lacking we have not had judicial intervention to determine whether the into the surveillance is appropriate the thought of the presidential election would you be in hillary's corner automatic going to wait to see what prime what you think what look i hate it ever be anywhere automatically it suggests a lack of thinking but i've known hillary for many years i think many of us who have you know to look at her and say of course we would like it if you didn't think

she'd win i think she would get the nomination very easily i think who will win in twenty sixteen depends upon too many variables for us yet to figure out you are critical of andrew cuomo before he was a government was he doing as governor you know it's been kind of a rough patch up in albany again. in terms of his. me you look either the numbers and i mean it's coming down to andrew's done that the single most important success is the passage of same sex marriage statute which which brought new york into the modern era on civil rights wonderful compliment and i think helped contribute to the national move in that direction we have underfunded education over the past couple years in my view we have not. ressa sara lee moved forward with a genuine with enough economic development for upstate you know look at it look i was governor i don't want to quibble or criticize others who are in that position

it's tough and ease working hard to do what he can do you said that hubris is terminal you also indicated personally it was was responsible for your own problems you overcome hubris i hope so you know i guess if i say i've absolutely overcome a bit that might be evidence of hubris right there it also means that everyone is humble all will be good if area exactly you said category you will not use this office as a stepping stone to anything higher than nothing nothing is for as you can see you know we don't know but we don't know what i think i've said actually it's not a stepping stone i'm not running for this because i want to run for something else i mean that you don't go through what i'm going through and then hopefully win a position for four years and hopefully eight years so you can then eight years from now do something else that would be a rather bizarre sort of judgment call. sit by and say b.s. of you know i could have been and there was talk of the first jewish president of the united states larry people don't believe me when i say this but it is the

absolute truth i never thought i could be like the president when i was because you were jews no no because in two thousand and six when i was really my numbers were quite spectacular. in terms of popularity i was had a social agenda progressive agenda that didn't fit with most of the nation i was for same sex marriage years before that was popular i was pro-choice in a way that also was not universal across the nation i have been very outspoken and aggressive in terms of gun control in a way that again early liberal very liberal what progressive liberal and also my positions on wall street which alienate a very powerful constituency my ambition was to be an effective and progressive governor of the state of new york he never thought that you heard what i look i would be so honestly of course your mind takes you but i never thought i could win or would give it the effort to get from the bronx prediction what's going to happen

on september tenth by the way the democrat nomination is tantamount to election the city of new york growing well you know but for the fact we haven't had a democratic mayor in twenty years. well that would be so it was kind of the odd numbers a quasar republican the true true liza it's true even for control were it is tantamount to go with mayors mayors primary oh you're my lover in the middle i got to say i'm going to win mean i don't say that out of hubris i just kind of still feel sorry for the guy who was the borough president of manhattan think he was an issue and i don't think anyone's going to oppose him and suddenly use that you know i don't think you feel sorry for people in politics it just not the nature of the emotions that run in and also look he he had kind of cut political deals to get other people out of the race and it's not as though he said i want to run a nobody else wanted to run he was running for mayor for three years then that didn't go so well so is it ok i'll run for controller other people were running for controller and a couple tickle deals to move them out so i'm not quite sure so sure it's

a sympathetic story as it might be and finally with all the things around you with everything being a lot of again and glad you did this absolute. now i hope i say that on september eleventh. i think that the only is spitzer. it was terrible. the city was on fire nobody knew what was happening. five days without a break we were terrified of them. and there was no communication only tanks all around us we came out to find georgian democracy in our streets. that any one of us could have left straight away but we knew that our first duty was to defend our homeland now that we've had peace since two thousand and one of the places reviving and coming back to normal but it since april twentieth twelve

i've been the president of the republic of south ossetia i'm very pleased to see those old people as so positive about building and strengthening our country's state. we live in the city and we love it everyone loves his homeland right now you know we didn't expect to live through five years of such peace and quiet is good there is no war. zacky what happened that day i don't know but a woman yeah killed. piers later is when i got arrested for. for a crime i did not do. we have numerous cases where police officers lie about polygraph results. innocent people to confess the police officers don't beat people anymore i mean it just doesn't happen really. in the course of interrogation why

because there's been this is like meant no because the psychological techniques are more effective in obtaining confessions than physical abuse and they were often they could get what they wanted they could say what they wanted and there was no evidence of what they did or what they said. right to see. first for you and i think that you're. on our reporters' twitter. instagram. to be in the know. on.

live from the all to center of nine russian and u.s. foreign policy and defense heads meet in washington amid a deepening political route which sees both sides pointing the finger of blame. kurdish activists send up plead to world powers urging them to prevent ethnic cleansing in syria we talk to an eyewitness of the brutal attacks by al qaeda linked groups. and the fountain of hope that's run dry later we look at the roots of the arab spring that flourished on the promise of democracy but which is failing to bring the stability and prosperity and he died for.