Sen. Larry Craig's interview with Matt Lauer

Matt Lauer 'Today' anchor • Profile

Larry Craig: I liken it to we're in the middle of hurricane season. And we were. And there were no hurricanes. I became the political hurricane that everybody wanted to talk about. And did it-- did they talk about it? You bet they did.

For Idaho Senator Larry Craig and his wife Suzanne, the hurricane started six weeks ago, when the news broke that Craig had been arrested, accused by a police officer of soliciting sex in an airport men's room. He later pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.

The arrest catapulted Senator Craig from relative obscurity, to front pages and web pages and late night comedy shows.

And it placed both his 30-year political career and his family in jeopardy.

Larry Craig: It's been a very emotional time for us, a very difficult time in some ways for our family and friends.
Matt Lauer: Do you read everything? Do you listen to everything? Or do you try and put your hands over your ears and not take it in?
Larry Craig: Yeah. Well, Matt, for a time I tried to take it in. And then I must tell you, it became so aggressive and so distorted that I almost quit listening.
Suzanne Craig: The Food Channel was a great thing--
Matt Lauer: You watched a lot of cooking shows over the last six weeks?
Suzanne Craig: Yes.
Matt Lauer: I want to give you a chance to talk about what has been distorted. But let me take you back a little bit first, senator, and-- and, you know, this is your home. This was where you were raised, on a ranch. You went to school here, one-room schoolhouse. You were in the National Guard in Idaho. You got into politics here. You've served the people of Idaho in Washington what? Thirty years now. What do you remember most about first going to Washington?
Larry Craig: Well-- it's always been a great privilege, Matt, to represent Idaho in Congress. And that's all I've really ever wanted to do is to go there, to be their defender, to be that wall between government and the citizen. Because government, as you know, can be very daunting to the average person.
Matt Lauer: So it sounds like you're saying some of what goes on in Washington is a bit distasteful to you.
Larry Craig: Well, it always has been.

That might have something to do with the fact that, not long after he was elected to Congress, Craig was caught up in his first, but not his last, Washington scandal.

Matt Lauer: It was the Congressional page scandal in 1982 and to sum it up, a couple of pages in Congress stepped forward and said that they had either had sex with or had been propositioned for sex by several members of Congress. The reports hit the media and you issued a statement.

(Statement from June 30, 1982)
Larry Craig: I've got nothing to hide, nothing to be fearful of... But the very fact that allegations have been made and that they're being reported in the news have put a blight over me.

Matt Lauer: At the time it raised eyebrows because you were the only member of Congress, out of 535 people, who issued any kind of a statement. Why did you?
Larry Craig: A reporter walked into my office and immediately accused me. I reacted. I was a freshman. My credibility had been challenged. And I only knew to go on the defense at that moment.
Matt Lauer: But at the time, did you hear the whispers that why did Congressman Larry Craig decide to make these comments unless maybe he had something to hide? You heard that, right?
Larry Craig: Well, Matt, I not only heard it but then every political season afterwards, my opponents would start whispering it again. I've lived with that all of my political life.
Matt Lauer: What toll does that take, Suzanne? I mean, when you're the wife of a public official and you hear these whispers about perhaps there is another side to him, a different lifestyle, how do you handle that as a wife, as a spouse, as a partner?
Suzanne Craig: I don't listen to other people's rumors. I know what's right. I know about Larry Craig. I know about our relationship. I feel very secure in that relationship. And I don't need other people to tell me what they think about it.

But she knows what some people think. Because even after the Craigs got married-- a year after the page scandal-- and he adopted her three children from a previous marriage, the rumors about her husband persisted.

Matt Lauer: There were people who said-- and it's almost hard for me to say this to you. Which you--
Suzanne Craig: I know what you're going to say.
Matt Lauer: No, what-- what were they saying?
Suzanne Craig: They were saying that it was a marriage of convenience.
Matt Lauer: To cover--
Suzanne Craig: To cover--
Matt Lauer: --a gay lifestyle.
Suzanne Craig: Oh, give me a break. People know me and know that I would never do that. You-- that's almost like selling your soul for something. No.
Matt Lauer: I don't know you well enough.
Suzanne Craig: You will when--
Matt Lauer: However I should say people have sold their souls for politics before.
Suzanne Craig: But--
Larry Craig: Larry and Suzanne Craig do not sell their souls. I love this woman very, very much. And the day I found her, I fell in love, deeply in love. And that's lasted-- we're heading toward our 25th anniversary.
Matt Lauer: You know, and here you are all these years later still married, proving everyone wrong and yet still dealing with these rumors--
Larry Craig: Sure.
Matt Lauer: --and this innuendo.

Rumors that, once again, were about to be made very public.