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In the Arena

Weiner Resigns; Planned Parenthood Under Fire; Zawahiri Becomes New al Qaeda Leader

Aired June 16, 2011 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ELIOT SPITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. Welcome to the program. I'm Eliot Spitzer. Tonight, the final sad chapter in Anthony Weiner's very public meltdown. The way these things work nowadays, we're told he would resign many hours before it actually happened. That in turn led to hours of speculation about how it would happen.

What he would say, whether his wife would be at his side and then finally, the week of drama and speculations were over. I said this a week ago and I'll say it again. Weiner's behavior was awful. CNN along with the rest of the media played a crucial role in revealing it, but there is something frightening.

Something worth examining in the gigantic media swarm that descends when these stories develop. Some would say that I of all people have no business commenting on this because of the events that led to my resignation as governor of New York.

But maybe because I've been on both sides of the story, I'm well suited to have a conversation on how this was covered and we will have it in a few moments.

But first a look at the other stories we're examining tonight. Planned Parenthood under fire. A woman's right to choose denied. One state at a time. This man says it's all good.

And death by foreclosure. What happens when a town loses its home owners? Is the cost more than the money? E.D. Hill investigates.

Then al Qaeda reloads. Bin Laden's number two is now number one. Ayman Al-Zawahiri gets the perks and then addict followers, internet access and $25 million price on his head.

Now back to our top story. Congressman Anthony Weiner made it official today. He resigned from office. He made the announcement this afternoon in Brooklyn.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPRESENTATIVE ANTHONY WEINER (D), NEW YORK: I hoped to be able to continue the work that the citizens of my district elected me to do to fight for the middle class and those struggling to make it. Unfortunately, the distraction that I have created has made that impossible. So today, I'm announcing my resignation from Congress. (END VIDEO CLIP)

SPITZER: So what now for the congressman's fellow Democrats? How does his resignation affect the business of the House of Representatives?

Joining me from Washington is CNN's senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash who broke the story of Anthony Weiner's impending resignation early this morning.

She's been speaking with his colleagues all day. Dana, thanks for being with us. What is the sense? Is there just overwhelming relief among Anthony Weiner's colleagues?

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There is, Eliot. I mean, there are no two ways about it. Major relief when it comes to the politics of this. You know, we've been reporting, they have been trying particularly the Democratic leadership, trying to get him first privately, then publicly to make this move, to resign for more than a week.

Because of the political distraction, they said that this particular scandal has caused and the fact that it went on so long. Personally there is definitely a feeling of sadness. This is a colleague of theirs.

He might not have always been the most popular Democrat in the Democratic caucus, but he definitely is somebody who many people got along with. When you have a politician who in the words of one of his colleagues, just self-destructs like this, and has a family, it is not anything that any of his colleagues particularly his fellow Democrats are happy about.

SPITZER: You know, Dana, you're right. He was described over and over again over the past week or two as not being terribly popular within his own caucus.

But on the other hand, there was a lot of respect because he went on to the floor of the House and he fought vigorously every day on the issues. They respected that.

What do people think turned the tide over the course of the last 24, 48 hours?

BASH: You know, the final conversation that he had, or the conversation he finally had, is a better way to put it with his wife, Huma who had been traveling abroad with her boss, Hillary Clinton, he was waiting for that. That finally happened yesterday.

But I think it was the pressure that was mounting. I mean, last week, Eliot, I've talked to several people who spoke to him. He was really dug in. He was absolutely saying I'm not going to quit. I'm not going anywhere.

He was talking about the poll numbers in his district being high. He was talking about the fact that he didn't, maybe he did something morally wrong, but not necessarily legally or against House rules.

But it is just the fact that the pressure of his colleagues, and then coming out publicly. The president of the United States effectively saying he should resign and the fact that the story didn't end.

It was picture after picture, story after story after story. It just kept going and finally, he realized, according to the people who talked to him, he had to go.

BASH: You know, Dana, you're right. There was sort of a military sense to this. It was just a battle day by day that was being waged. Some days you felt maybe he was a bit more successful as you referred to those poll numbers.

If I'm correct, tell me if I'm wrong, 56 percent of the constituents in his district said he should stay. There was a moment there when people said, you know what, maybe he'll tough it out.

But I've heard you stay the reaction among the leadership of the Democratic Party was not to use that poll number to suggest you should stay, but rather to use it as a - sort of way to go out gracefully.

BASH: Exactly. I have a quote here from Nancy Pelosi's aides. They were trying to give us more of a behind the scenes tick-tack of what happened. In a private conversation Anthony Weiner had with Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader on Friday.

He apparently cited those polls and she said consider those rose petals to let you go graciously because they were just so fed up with this. The fact that this had been going on so long and it was not ending.

And it was such a distraction for the things that they felt they were getting traction on politically. Like the Republican budget and Medicare and things like that.

BASH: Well, Dana, now that it is done, how did they reclaim their message? How did they get back on message immediately? Is there some effort tomorrow morning to come out with a big proposal?

Some event that will say that door is closed. Now we're back to the things that matter to the people of the United States of America?

BASH: So far no in terms of an event. It is late Thursday so you know the way Congress works. They're gone. They've already gone back to their districts.

But already in the statements that Anthony Weiner's colleagues, Democratic colleagues were putting out today, they tried to weave in their message with their statements about Anthony Weiner.

Saying we are sad for him, we are sad for his family, but we want to get back to Medicare and the fact that in their words, Republicans are privatizing Medicare. So they're already trying to weave their talking points into buttoning this whole saga, this scandal they've had to deal with for almost three weeks with Anthony Weiner.

SPITZER: All right, Dana Bash, thank you so much. Your reporting through all this was always ahead of everybody else. We appreciate it.

BASH: Thanks, Eliot.

SPITZER: I spoke earlier about the media circus that has surrounded the story of Anthony Weiner's professional demise.

For more on the spectacle, I'm joined by Dan Abrams, founder of mediaite.com and ABC News legal analyst. Dan, welcome as always.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks, Eliot.

SPITZER: So you've was watched this not only from -- you're a lawyer, you're also in the media. Judge the media. Was the media brilliant to uncover something heinous and violative of our sensibilities or was this over kill?

DAN ABRAMS, FOUNDER OF MEDIAITE.COM: Well, first of all, I think that he was trying to beat the media clock. Meaning he was hoping there would be another media story that would eclipse this.

What we rarely talk about is the fact that what else is happening in the media matters in a scandal like this. So if there were some other big story that had taken over the headlines, he might have been able to eke it out.

But because there wasn't and because it continued, he wasn't. Now you asked me about how did the media performed? Look, this is a made for media story. It has pictures, and not just everyday pictures, but awful pictures.

And salacious pictures and yet it relates to a political leader. It has a little bit of everything that the media loves, and then you have the fact that he lied to everyone of those members of the media in those interviews. You put that together and I don't think there was any other way.

SPITZER: Look, just the way you describe that, you sound like a media executive saying, my goodness, this is out of Hollywood. We can't do better than this. Is there too much joy? This was like watching a lion, the carcass over a zebra. It's just been completely devoured.

ABRAMS: Look, I get that except that the big defense the media has is, he went on 20 something media interviews and lied to everyone. Remember, he is not just lying to the media.

He is lying to his constituents. He is lying to his colleagues. He is lying to everyone involved. So when we talk about lying to the media, you're not lying to the media. You're lying to everybody. SPITZER: OK, let's separate these strands out then because you're saying something critically important. There was the underlying offensive behavior. Offensive and I'm using that word intentionally. Not clear, we may never know if it was illegal.

Violative of House rules, we just don't know. Certainly it was offensive and reprehensible. Would that alone, if he had fessed up to it at the very first moment, have led to this result?

Or does this go down as the worst crisis management in history because day after day he made it worse by lying repeatedly to the media.

ABRAMS: Yes and maybe both. I don't know that he would have been able to survive even if he had come clean at the beginning. He certainly would have had a better chance of surviving.

In part because the media wouldn't have, I think, gone after him as much. But remember, he was also lying to his colleagues. We talk about the fact it was the political pressure that was put on him.

I'm sure part of that political pressure stemmed from the fact these legislators were saying, wait a sec, his friend told me or I watched him say that this was all nonsense and it wasn't true.

He put me in the position then of believing him. I think that was an additional problem.

SPITZER: You're making a hugely important point. The early stages of this when he went to the media and said this it's simply not the case, he also was must have been - so we don't know for a fact, he must have been saying the same thing to Nancy Pelosi and the others in the House leadership.

And at the end of that, they said wait a minute. You just brazenly lied to us. We can't have you in as a colleague, but still raises the question. The behavior, put aside the lies to the media, the behavior, the underlying behavior.

When you compare it to the behavior of certain other members of Congress who were still there, you kind of say, wait a minute. Why the huge pressure on him but not on others?

ABRAMS: It's politics. I mean, the bottom line is that politics in media intersect. The reality is when you have pictures and when you've got this kind of behavior, look, it's why I think people say there are differences between this and the Chris Lee situation.

But I think that's why he immediately resigned. You got that photograph. You get naked photographs of a legislator who is sending these kinds of photographs out to whoever it is. People they don't know. I think that's a political issue.

It's not just a media issue. Politics is about how you're perceived. Now you can say his constituents were still supporting him. OK, maybe for now. By the way, I do think that he will be back in New York City politics, within three years, he will have a leading role, I predict in New York City politics. I'm not saying he will necessarily be a married man. I have no idea. But I will say that I think --

SPITZER: Three years. You've already mapped this out. We'll come to this in one second. I want to come back to the issue of comparability. Sex is a made for TV, made for tabloids scandal. Taxes not so much, why do people who have tax issues continue in politics with regularity?

ABRAMS: Well, I'll even compare it to Senator Ensign. I mean, why did that story - you could you argue that was worse behavior. Why did that story -- why did not it get the media attention?

Why, in part because Bin Laden eclipsed the media environment and B, he didn't have pictures. I'm not defending it, but what I'm saying is this is the reality. The reality is when you got pictures, when you got photos, it's a lot harder to overcome.

SPITZER: OK, I'm going to put you on the hot seat now. Compare Tim Geithner, Treasury Secretary took tax deductions that were simply beyond outrageous, claimed camp payments as childcare, tax deduction. People knew this was no good. That disappeared into the ether.

ABRAMS: Yes because it's not as easy a story to translate to the public.

SPITZER: Meaning he is now in charge of the IRS?

ABRAMS: That's right.

SPITZER: He continues. This you see, is this a media oversight?

ABRAMS: Is it a media oversight? Look, I would argue, if you want to say it's a media oversight then it is also a public oversight. Meaning if the public was putting enough pressure on the media, the media would be covering it.

SPITZER: Back to Anthony Weiner. Three to five years. You've mapped this out. Are you political consultant now --

ABRAMS: No, I'm just saying that I think that people forget. Everyone looks at this now and say he's finished. He's done. You know, they said the same thing about Marv Albert. They said the same thing about Michael Vick. They said the same thing about you.

People were saying these people are done and you know what? We're now in a situation in our society where people are willing to be more forgiving. As long as you don't murder, rape, something -- putting aside the most awful.

Where I don't think that people can necessarily come back, but put those aside for a moment. I think that we've gotten to the point where people are pretty quick to forgive. SPITZER: So what you're saying is the media cycle turns. As vicious and demanding and horrendous as it may be at the moment of the event, the wheel turns and there's redemption down the road?

ABRAMS: Look, I think that's why he had to put it behind him more quickly. By the way, the other reason to put him behind him is because he doesn't want an ethics investigation.

He doesn't want them searching out more possible wrongdoings. That's the last thing he wants. So close this chapter. Put this away. Put this behind him. It is not going to be an easy time.

SPITZER: Not an easy time. I can tell him that. The behavior was awful and it got worse day by day and that was --

ABRAMS: What does he do? From your perspective, what does he do for the next six months on a -- what did you do in the six months?

SPITZER: You sit, you reflect and you figure out what you did wrong, why you did it wrong and what you can contribute back to society.

ABRAMS: And every day you're sitting there --

SPITZER: You then go out and try to do things that you think will contribute and you begin to lead a life and put it back together. Spend time with your family and I hope that's what he does.

ABRAMS: Because with you, you slowly came out in the many months afterwards. I think he has to do the same thing.

SPITZER: Look, it's a personal tragedy at so many levels and I think we've all seen that. As much glee as the media has at this moment though.

ABRAMS: I don't think it is fair to call it glee. There's a level of that, but I also think that there is a level. The media can be vindictive. If you want to say it, the media is vindictive, fine. He lied. But this is a guy who lied. This is judgment that is so bad to be sending these kinds of photos out.

SPITZER: Of course. Understand when I say glee, it is glee because the media was right. The media was both over the top and vicious but over the top and vicious because they said, wait a minute. You just lied to us and we proved it.

ABRAMS: Some of the media dismissed this at the outset and said --

SPITZER: The glee that emerged from proven the underlying facts of case you could argue was justified and that's what makes it so complicated.

ABRAMS: Yes, I mean --

SPITZER: All right, Dan Abrams as always thank you so much for being here. We'll have more in the story later in the program.

But up next, Al Qaeda chooses Bin Laden's successor. If you're asking how exactly do terrorists hold an election, I was, too. We'll find out when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: In tonight's war on terror, it's official. Al Qaeda has a new leader, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born second in command to Osama Bin Laden.

He is known as a master of logistics and planning who favors big attacks, but he is unpopular even resented among the rank and file. As Zawahiri takes the helm, terror experts worry he'll have someone to prove.

Moments ago, I spoke with Mike Baker, a former CIA covert operations officer about what this means to al Qaeda and to America's war on terror.

Mike Baker, thanks so much for joining me. Ayman al-Zawahiri is the new head of al Qaeda. First a lot of people are intrigued as am I. How was he chosen? How much do we really know about the decision process? This isn't a board of directors that sits down at a formal meeting. What happens?

MIKE BAKER, FORMER CIA COVERT OPERATIONS OFFICER: Well, in a loose sense, what they want is they want some sort of buy-in from the key people that are still living within al Qaeda and there's a number of them.

You're right, it's not as formal as a sit-down board meeting in part because of security reasons. They're all obviously in hiding even more so since the take-down of Bin Laden.

But they do need that buy-in despite the fact that Al-Zawahiri has been around since the mid '80s and with al Qaeda since about '98.

SPITZER: Does he actually control the organization to the extent that he has to sign off on particular terrorist acts? Or are these independent, free agents in Yemen, in Saudi Arabia, elsewhere, who will say we will do what we want to do. And we'll give you heads up after the fact.

BAKER: Right, a good question. But, you know what, after 9/11, and after our move in to Afghanistan, routing the Taliban and really putting them on the back foot and getting as aggressive as we did and have continued to be. They've never had the luxury of doing that central top-down planning that they did prior to 9/11.

SPITZER: But the reason it is critical to us is that Al-Zawahiri had been a proponent of the big dramatic act. And so if he had the capacity to follow his own ideological druthers, one presume he would try to recast a 9/11 type event whereas some of the other outlying cell have focused on smaller non-U.S. based events. BAKER: We never really had a lot of insight into the inner workings of al Qaeda in terms of personalities and interaction between the various people.

After Bin Laden was taken down, that's when we really started because the amount of information that we hovered up out of that compound. That's when we really started to see some of the interaction that was taking place.

As it turns out, you don't have to be Mr. Popular to run al Qaeda. That's not the point. This is a very significant moment from al Qaeda's perspective.

From our perspective, OK, we understand that not much will change in their objectives, but from their perspective now, they have this succession taking place. They need to show they're relevant. So we have to be worried they'll do something spectacular or try to.

SPITZER: That is, I think the question that bothers me the most they do need to establish their own relevance for the sake of their own public relations. It sounds crazy. It's Al Qaeda PR. The two terms shouldn't go together.

But somehow they're thinking how do we reclaim the offense? They're playing defense right now. Nobody likes to play defense. So what do you think they try to do to reclaim offense?

BAKER: What we need to be concerned about is what we know about Al-Zawahiri in terms of his past involvement in the big operations. We know that he is a very strict ideologue.

We know that he is at this point clearly interested in showing he has taken control. He will not necessarily put his footprint on us because it's not going to change their objectives or their motivations.

They're still looking to create murder, mayhem and terror, but he wants something. To say this is now my organization.

SPITZER: In that vein, let me ask the hard question. How relevant is centralized al Qaeda decision making. In other words, how many people do we really think he can pick up the phone and communicate with directly, indirectly through whatever mechanisms they have to disseminate his orders and how much of it has now been dispersed into a much flatter organization?

BAKER: In sufficient time, he can reach all of those individual --

SPITZER: But how many?

BAKER: You know what, I would be lying to you if I gave you a number because I don't know. I don't know that anybody has an exact figure.

You hear a lot of thing bandied about. I wouldn't put confidence into an exact number. You can count in terms of dozens that the key personnel responsible for thing such as communications planning, bomb making, finance.

SPITZER: Let me put this in the context of what I used to participate as a prosecutor of organized crime where you had a hierarchy, the very senior members of each family.

Then you had associates, loose associates. If you knew who the capitalist were 12, 15, 20 at most in each of the major families, you knew who the players were. But given what you picked up as you point out when we got Bin Laden, hovered up to use your phrase. Don't we know who those 20 people are now?

BAKER: For some time because they've been on our list of most wanted. We've known a number of the key players. Part of the problem, is we've had a lot of success in taking out a lot of those individuals.

Over the years, part of the problem is they have a deep well of potential recruit. They're going after who you would expect, uneducated, unmotivated, you know, people with -- no place else to go.

And so from their perspective their targeting these people, they're bringing them in. Now what we've been able to do over the years is we're taking out the top leadership, limit their ability to bring in experienced, qualified people.

Back before 9/11, before we chased them out of Afghanistan. They had all sorts of time to train people and work with them. We've seen some of these operations here in the U.S. and we say how come they're not more successful? They don't have time to sit them down and train them.

SPITZER: When there is a generational transfer like that, they do lose a lot of skill the way organized crime, any other criminal syndicate will. You raise a critical point.

They're trying to latch on to the Arab spring and make themselves relevant to this mass movement. Has that been successful? Your estimation, your contacts in the Arab world, are they still on the outside peering in or have they made themselves part of the sort of narrative of what has happened?

BAKER: As far as al Qaeda goes, in the short term they haven't been able to get their hands around this. They were caught by surprise when Egypt started to go up. Now, the difference is, they will play the long game eventually. They'll recover from this and much like with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Initially, remember when we talked about Muslim Brotherhood. What influence they could have in Egypt, it was that's crazy. This is about democracy and self-determination. Well, I guarantee you the Muslim Brotherhood has the long view.

What al Qaeda will do is try to watch that and take advantage of that. I heard a comment from General Petraeus the other day. A wonderful, very smart professional, capable, all that, but he made a comment about how al Qaeda will probably fall apart as a result of Bin Laden's demise. Not so much. I don't think.

SPITZER: All right, Mike Baker. Thank you for your fascinating insights.

BAKER: Thank you.

SPITZER: Coming up, abortion still divides these United States and both sides are at war in at least six states. Last night, we heard from Planned Parenthood. Tonight, the voice of the opposition. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: In tonight's American issues segment, the return of the highly charged battle order abortion rights and the funding of the procedure.

Three states have voted to eliminate Planned Parenthood's funding and three more states are about to do the same. Last night, I spoke with the organization's president, Cecile Richards and she had this to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CECILE RICHARDS, PRESIDENT, PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA: I think it is a political miscalculation, Eliot. I think that they are playing politics with women's health care. And when you talk about, we're not even talking about abortion here.

The moves by these legislatures, I mean, the efforts by the U.S. Congress were to eliminate access for women to get access to life- saving breast cancer screenings, pap smears and birth control. The American people don't want that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SPITZER: Joining me now from Washington, someone who has been working feverishly to cut Planned Parenthood's funding. Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council. Tony, thanks for joining us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good evening, Eliot.

SPITZER: Let me begin with this question. Aren't you trying to prevent the government from funding health care service that are constitutionally protected, services, the Supreme Court has said women should have access to?

TONY PERKINS, PRESIDENT, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: No, not at all. I mean, this is not about health care. In fact, all of the procedures in terms of health care are still being funded in these states.

What is being done here is that funding to the nation's largest abortion provider is being redirected. So in fact, take Indiana, for instance. Under the Indiana provision, there are about 34 sites that are affected in 21 counties.

These are Planned Parenthood clinics. They'll no longer be able to receive federal tax dollars if they're involved or state tax dollars if they're involved in abortion providing, if they provide abortions.

But in that same 21 counties, they're 800 other illegible providers, so this is not about cutting health care.

SPITZER: Tony, let me just put up on the screen so folks can see a diagram, a pie chart that shows what Planned Parenthood does. I mean, you can see 16 percent of what it does is cancer prevention. Thirty-five percent is contraception. You know, sexually transmitted disease, testing and treatment, 35 percent. Only three percent is abortion-related services and absolutely no money by law can go to that. We agree. I think you would agree with me, no money goes to abortion services as a matter of law right now. Can we agree on that point?

PERKINS: That's correct.

SPITZER: OK. So what you're trying to do then is say, the organization, because three percent of its services are abortion- related, all the other stuff that we just put up on the chart, they shouldn't be able to do that.

SPITZER: No. They're not prohibited from doing. That they can choose. Now that three percent represents 37 percent of their profit. Now I would say that also, that three percent is not an accurate number because Planned Parenthood uses fuzzy math. If somebody come in and they get a birth control method and they have some other thing done, that's not counted as one. That's counted as multiple.

So the math is a little fuzzy. But let's stick with the three percent. It's still 37 percent of their billion dollars worth of revenue that they bring in. Now they take in about $336 million of, in government money.

SPITZER: That's correct.

PERKINS: What's being said here is a very bright line is being drawn, where if you want to provide these health care services and receive government money, you can.

SPITZER: But Tony --

PERKINS: But you cannot be doing abortions, too, because these are being done in the same facilities. You can have the same receptionist. The same overhead is being covered. Dollars are fungible. And so what was happening is government tax dollars are being used to underwrite the overhead of Planned Parenthood doing abortions.

SPITZER: I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt. We just agreed no federal dollars are permitted under any circumstances, anywhere in the United States to go to abortion services.

PERKINS: Directly to -- directly to the procedure of abortion.

SPITZER: Right.

PERKINS: But you can carry the overhead so that all of that abortion revenue, that 37 percent of the revenue is pure profit.

SPITZER: But Tony --

PERKINS: And over the last five years, over the last 10 years, they've made over $500 million in profit from the services they've provided.

SPITZER: Wait, Tony, here's the thing. The structure that Planned Parenthood has that you're saying should prohibit their getting any federal money is identical to the structure that every hospital in the United States has.

Hospitals provide abortions. Hospital cannot use federal money to provide those abortions. They segregate those services. They account for them separately just the way Planned Parenthood does. They also, these hospitals, provide cancer treatment, STD treatment, contraception, all the things that are both legal and necessary. So your argument would apply to every major hospital in the United States.

PERKINS: Eliot, what we're talking about here is the same thing that was in place up until Bill Clinton was president. Prior to Bill Clinton becoming president and by executive order, changing the rules, Title 10 funding could not go through an organization going into a same facility that did both abortions and family planning. Because this is government money, and over 70 percent of taxpayers are opposed to their money going to underwrite the cost of abortions, this is simply drawing a bright clear line of distinction. Either you do the health care or you do the abortion.

SPITZER: Am I right though? I will concede that point way back, the rules were different. But in today's world, the laws and rules that apply to every major hospital permit hospitals, and in fact, hospitals do exactly what Planned Parenthood does. They keep all the funding for abortion separate. They provide the entire panoply of medical circumstances and they keep all the federal money away from the abortions exactly the same as Planned Parenthood. And just as a matter of fact, I am a correct that these are identical situations?

PERKINS: Well, I would say that I'm not certain that they are in part because Planned Parenthood, and what has brought them to the forefront and has made them the focus of the work of legislators across the state, is because they've been implicated in improper funding, as well as covering for child prostitution, not reporting underage women or girls coming in for abortions. They have some legal trouble.

This has come to the forefront. During the whole health care debate with President Obama -- SPITZER: Tony, Tony --

PERKINS: -- it was made very clear that Americans did not want to underwrite this type of behavior.

SPITZER: Tony, I've just got to interrupt you right there and I apologize. You just made a series of undocumented, unproven comments about Planned Parenthood.

PERKINS: No, no.

SPITZER: Wait. Listen. Wait a minute, Tony. You are building, trying to build a case that is simply not accurate and fair to Planned Parenthood.

Wait a minute, Tony. You want to agree that they should not have federal funding for abortion services, we can have that. But to try to slander the organization and say they're involved in prostitution and failure -- I'm not going to let you get away with that.

PERKINS: OK.

SPITZER: That's not factually the case.

PERKINS: OK. Let me tell your listeners, your viewers to go to liveaction.com and they can see for themselves the undercover video that was filmed in Planned Parenthood clinics that shows them covering and facilitating sex trafficking. And then let your viewers make that decision for themselves.

SPITZER: Tony, we can have a principled conversation about how where federal funds should go. You know and I know Planned Parenthood is a principled organization.

PERKINS: No, we don't know that. We cannot agree on that.

SPITZER: -- with some of their principles and that's fair game for debate but do not try to implicate them there. I think you demean your own arguments which I'll respect but not when you go there, Tony.

PERKINS: It's been turned order to law enforcement. It's been turned over to federal officials. It's documented. It's true.

SPITZER: Tony, look, you're not serving yourself well. We can have a fair debate about the other stuff.

Let's continue this down the road. Time is short. You know how TV works. But I want you to come back. We'll continue this conversation because you haven't really answered the question. Planned Parenthood is just like every hospital. They do it the same way every hospital does.

PERKINS: No. They're not, Eliot.

SPITZER: All right.

PERKINS: Happy to continue the conversation.

SPITZER: Tony, thanks for coming on. We will continue it. I appreciate your coming on.

Coming up, was it Anthony Weiner's behavior that brought him down or the lies he told about it? A look at that question in just a moment.

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SPITZER: More now on our lead story, Congressman Anthony Weiner's scandal. Was it is his awful behavior that brought him down or was it the lying that he did? My next guest says it's the lie that always brings a politician down. Howard Kurtz is the Washington bureau chief of "Newsweek" and "The Daily Beast." And also joining me here in New York, former Republican Congressman Rick Lazio.

Welcome, gentlemen.

Howard, let me start with you. Grade the media. Does the media deserve plaudits for actually ferreting the story out and driving it forward despite the abhorrence and lies of Anthony Weiner, or was there something over the top, a lack of respect for anybody's privacy in this? How do you come down?

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES": Well, some people in the media deserve some credit for digging out some of the seamy details, Eliot. But over the top doesn't begin to describe it. And I've covered this story, too. I'm not exempting myself and I know you've featured it on this program as well. But I think ultimately the reason that Anthony Weiner resigned, in addition to his lies which where he basically dug his own political grave, is not simply because other Democratic politicians pressured him to do so. That's been going on more than a week. But because the media were so enamored of the strange and surreal aspects of the story, would not let it drop. The New York Press Corps would not let it drop. Weiner belatedly realizing that the only way to stop the bleeding was to go away.

SPITZER: You know, let me come back to former Congressman Lazio. You've been in that chamber. And Howard, I want you to weigh in on this also. It certainly is material that Anthony Weiner didn't seem to have any friends among his colleagues. There was no sort of bandying about to support him. How did that happen?

RICK LAZIO (R), FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN: Actually fundamental here. Because if you look at the experience of Charlie Rangel, for example, in New York, after the censure, he had mainline prominent Democrats rally to him and nobody really was calling for Charlie Rangel to step down, even though it was the case that he was found in violation of at least the House rules of not declaring income and other sort of misdemeanors, sort of speak, even though he was the chairman of the Tax Writing Committee, the Ways and Means Committee. If you contrast that with Anthony Weiner, nobody came to Anthony Weiner's defense. And so, he had a lack of political capital within the House, within the Democratic establishment. I happen to think Republicans played this pretty well because they didn't really pile on early on. They let it play out and --

SPITZER: There's no question, this became a Democratic civil war. And Speaker Boehner was able to speak there and say, hey, you know, we're not going to meddle in your internal House and your problems. But, Howard, let me come back to you then. Contrast the way other scandals have played out. Where the tax issue, for instance, which is notable less dramatic. You know, less sexy, to state the obvious. And the headlines aren't appealing. They're no pictures, a picture of a -- you know, 1040 isn't good compared to what Anthony Weiner was sending over his iPod or whatever. Is the media then at fault for just playing to the salacious, when other things may be just as serious?

KURTZ: Well, certainly the way this story came to dominate Washington coverage, much more so than the debate about the debt ceiling or the war or any of the wars that the United States is involved in. Always in part to the fact that, you know, let's not let Weiner off the hook. Had he not lied repeatedly in all those television interviews, it would have been less of a story. And some of his Democratic colleagues, even though he's been a bit of a loner on the Hill, might have felt more compelled to support him. But secondly, I think there was just a fascinating aspect here, a sex scandal where the guy didn't actually get any sex? A lot of people weren't familiar with this whole sort of texting and sexting underworld and the women who went along with it. And then there were those pictures of Weiner shirtless. Not the really bad pictures but just the pictures where he's kind of preening with his shirt off that were taking in the House gym. I think that became kind of a turning point as the narrative built here, to the point where the pressure got to be so great. And it was so clear the New York Press Corps would not let this drop that I think Weiner ultimately decided to spare his family further.

LAZIO: I want to disagree with Howie a bit on this because he makes some very good points. But I do think it was a pivotal moment when in a coordinated way, Nancy Pelosi, the chairman of the DNC, Steve Israel, the head of the campaign committee for the House, all came out and said you can't tough this out. You must step down. I do think at that point the establishment was really making itself known you can't survive here.

SPITZER: The Democratic leadership clearly and rightly said our agenda is being completely swamped. Our capacity to talk about Medicare, Medicaid. The myriad of real issues that Howard referred too.

But here is the question. The members of the House of Representatives and Rick, you are a part of this collegiate body. Anthony Weiner did not, as we now know it, do anything clearly illegal. Creepy, awful, disgusting, revolting, all those things apply, but not necessarily illegal. Do the members of the House now begin to wake up tomorrow morning and say wait a minute, is this a new threshold? And somehow we don't necessarily, we're not going to feel that happy about this bar.

LAZIO: You know, in one way, it's nothing new. When you're in public life, one of the first tenants is don't write anything, send anything out that you wouldn't want to appear on the front page of the "New York Times."

SPITZER: Right.

LAZIO: So this was, you know, the fundamental rule that was broken by Anthony Weiner. And then, of course, the rest is history in terms of him compounding these problems by the lying and the suggestion that he is being falsely accused and all the rest of this. So I don't think the people in the House of Representatives are going to draw any great lesson except for the fact in an age of new media, there are more opportunities to have a risky behavior exploited by the media and ultimately by the public.

KURTZ: But I have to ask, you know, is what Anthony Weiner did worse than what David Vitter did? He was re-elected to the Senate of Louisiana worse than what John Ensign did? It took him two years to resign. I think one of the things that enable those legislators to hang on despite these kinds of charges is that correct they didn't have to deal with the New York Press Corps. And if you lay low and you issue a statement of contrition, the story will eventually fade. But that doesn't happen in New York.

LAZIO: The only difference I will make, I will say about these situations is that at least with respect to Weiner, some of these women did not ask for Weiner to send some of these salacious material to them. And some of them appear like they may have been under age, anyway. So I think that is a fundamental distinction here that the behavior was so outside the norm. Not that the other two didn't do the wrong thing. And then, of course, from a practical standpoint, I just think the Democrats who had just won a special election in New York, who felt like they had momentum on Medicare and putting Republicans on defense on some of their budget initiatives, felt like that momentum completely ground to a halt and they couldn't wait to get him out of the way, make the case again.

KURTZ: They wanted to change the subject.

SPITZER: Howard, let me end with you because time runs short.

KURTZ: Sure.

SPITZER: You refer repeatedly and those of us who have lived in and have been subjected to the New York Press Corps somehow do believe it's different. That there's a tabloid sensibility certainly to much of what is printed and published here. Does that media ever forgive? Can Anthony Weiner come back? Dan Abrams on the show just a few minutes ago said, three years from now, Anthony Weiner is back in politics and can reassert himself. Can he do that? Will he do that?

KURTZ: Well, Eliot, Eliot Spitzer, your career shows that you can bounce back from an embarrassing episode in politics, not necessarily in the political arena. And look, the tabloid media, like everybody else love a comeback story. A year from now the memories fade. People say what did Weiner do that was so wrong, if he goes out and does some community service. I don't think -- I think his career in the Congress may be over. I'm not saying his career as a public figure is necessarily kaput.

SPITZER: All right. Howie Kurtz, Rick Lazio, thanks as always for being here.

KURTZ: Thank you.

SPITZER: Coming up, E.D. Hill looks at a town that's dying, one bad mortgage at a time. E.D., tell us about it.

E.D. HILL, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's the town with the worst mortgage crisis in America but it's indicative of what's happening nationwide. And adding to the troubling news is that federal and bank policies may be making it worse for everyone. We'll examine what's happening.

SPITZER: E.D., how could it possibly be that a bank would make things worse for Americans? Impossible. I don't believe it. Looking forward to it, E.D. Stay with us.

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HILL: Plainfield, New Jersey, has a new and dubious distinction. A higher percentage of foreclosures than anywhere else in America. People there aren't alone, though. As of this week, housing industry data shows we are in a double dip. A housing crisis worse than the Great Depression. Rather than get better, the rates by Fannie Mae and bank lenders to clean up their balance sheets may be inflaming the problem, causing home values to tumble further.

CNN Money's Poppy Harlow has witnessed Plainfield's slow demise firsthand. Take a look.

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POPPY HARLOW, ANCHOR, CNNMONEY: I'm here on East Front Street alone. There are 25 homes in foreclosure. And just down the way on Berkeley Terrace, you'll find eight more.

REGINA PERRY, PLAINFIELD RESIDENT: I've moved in three houses and three of the houses that I've lived in have foreclosed. And I was forced to move.

ANDREA BOYLE, PLAINFIELD RESIDENT: Unless something can turn around, we need a miracle.

HARLOW: A miracle.

BOYLE: You know, we need a miracle.

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HARLOW: That's the worst case. Poppy Harlow joins us now.

What is it that is unique perhaps about this area of New Jersey?

HARLOW: I think I wish it was unique. You know, this is emblematic of the crisis across the country. It's not every city but it's a lot of cities. What's going on here is you have a city where you have a largely minority population. And you saw a lot of steep job losses there. And then you saw all of these foreclosures and now on top of that, E.D., you have massive gang violence. Gang violence that's so bad in this town, the police said we shouldn't shoot on one of those streets. And the question is in places like this, did the gang violence come first or the foreclosures come first? But one in 10 homes in Plainfield, New Jersey, one in 10 homes is in foreclosure. And the people that I talked to on the streets there say they feel trapped. Even if they're current on their mortgage, even if they're paying their taxes, their mortgage, taking care of their property, they can't get out if they want to. That's a problem for the whole community.

HILL: Now the government has gone to banks and said, you know, we want you to refinance mortgages. We want you to help people so that they can stay in their homes. At the same time, you know, they're telling the banks to clean up their balance sheets.

HARLOW: Right.

HILL: And they want them financially stable. So the banks are saying fine, you have to dump these properties. Fannie Mae dumping these properties. And when they do flood the market, it causes the other home values --

HARLOW: Makes it worse.

HILL: Right.

HARLOW: So what do you do?

HILL: That's exactly it. What do you do? Because the government is giving you sort of conflicting signals there.

HARLOW: Right.

HILL: Keep people in their homes even if they have difficulty paying and as the unemployment continues to rise, it gets more difficult but they say financially stable.

HARLOW: Right. The question is, the banks say how can we do both? You know, 2009, now two years ago that the government came out with HAM, the home affordable modification program. It's been widely criticized by Democrats, by Republicans. It didn't work. President Obama said four million mortgages will be modified. We're going to help four million Americans. Seven hundred thousand so far have been, so we've got a long way to go to get to that number.

What is interesting is the treasury came out last week, E.D., and basically slapped three of the biggest lenders on the wrist. Bank of America, Chase and Wells Fargo and said until do you better at modifying these mortgages, we're not going to pay you this incentive payment we've been giving you to say basically please modify these in a way that people can afford them and stay in their homes so you don't have to dump these homes off your balance sheet. The banks came back and they fought back. And Wells Fargo is formally disputing that saying we are modifying as fast as we can. The government and the banks on the same page --

HILL: It doesn't seem fast, especially for the number of people who are going into foreclosure.

HARLOW: Right.

HILL: On the other hand, though, if you're looking at it from a purely financial, you know, perspective, I'm assuming bank would rather have somebody in their home paying a mortgage than have it dumped back on to their balance sheet.

HARLOW: Absolutely. Because guess what, every home that they repossess after they foreclose, they really technically have to pay taxes on those homes. And they're supposed to take care of those homes. Keep them looking properly. That's not what happens. And they don't want that burden. So you're seeing the sort of slowdown in foreclosures because of the robo signing scandal, a bit of that.

HILL: Right.

HARLOW: And also, because the paperwork is slower now, they're a little more careful. But that slowdown that we're seeing in foreclosures does not show us that this market is actually healthier.

HILL: So what happens here? Because when you have all these home foreclosures and the increasing unemployment rate, it's sort of this horrible cycle downward. How do you stem it?

You know, one lawmaker suggested, perhaps the government steps in and to banks says, look, we're going to ease up our -- you know, our demands on how financially stable you are.

HARLOW: Stress tests.

HILL: Those stress tests if you just hold off on these mortgages at this point. We'll make it easier for your bottom line not to look so bad.

HARLOW: That would be an interesting proposition. I don't know if politically it would play out across both parties because stress tests are for many other things so we don't have another financial crisis, right, that some say we're leading up to. I think that the problem is the Home Modifications Act from the government came in 2009. Right when it kicked in, unemployment got horrific and it hasn't really gotten much better in this country. So until you have a significant improvement in unemployment, these people can't pay their mortgages. It doesn't matter how much you modify my loan if I don't have a job. And the government -- you know, what more can be done if unemployment isn't fixed. At the same time --

HILL: Yes.

HARLOW: -- it's that catch 22. I think, you know, it's an unfortunate, horrible situation. I don't know -- HILL: We've got to find the bottom.

HARLOW: What's going to happen?

HILL: Right. That's the basic --

HARLOW: And what we're seeing in prices, latest numbers we haven't seen that bottom yet. And I think that's very, very scary for people.

HILL: Yes, that is troubling that this isn't as bad as it's going to get.

HARLOW: No. And like you said in the introduction, it's worse than the depression.

HILL: Poppy Harlow, thank you very much.

And thanks for being here. We will be right back.

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SPITZER: Thanks for joining us IN THE ARENA. Good night from New York.

"PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT" starts right now.