Edwards isn't ruling out politics in the future.

(CNN) – In his first at-length interview in the year since he admitted to an extramarital affair, former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards says he's still not sure whether it was a mistake to run for the White House knowing his act of infidelity could be exposed.

"Did it make sense to run and stay in the race? Time will tell," Edwards told the Washington Post in an interview published on the paper's Web site Wednesday.

The former North Carolina senator credited his run with highlighting the issue of poverty and pushing his chief Democratic competitors — Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — toward more progressive stances on a host of issues.

"If you were to ask people during the campaign who's talking most about [poverty], it was me," Edwards said in the interview. "There's a desperate need in the world for a voice of leadership on this issue… The president's got a lot to do, he's got a lot of people to be responsible for, so I'm not critical of him. But there does need to be an aggressive voice beside the president."

The comments come a month after his wife Elizabeth embarked on a high-profile book tour, during which she documented at length her anguishing reaction to Edwards' affair with a campaign staffer three years earlier.

Edwards — the 2004 vice presidential candidate and onetime frontrunner for an Obama cabinet post — also said he is not ruling out a future in politics.

"Sometimes you just keep your head down and work hard and see what happens," he said.

Edwards isn't ruling out politics in the future.

(CNN) – In his first at-length interview in the year since he admitted to an extramarital affair, former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards says he's still not sure whether it was a mistake to run for the White House knowing his act of infidelity could be exposed.

"Did it make sense to run and stay in the race? Time will tell," Edwards told the Washington Post in an interview published on the paper's Web site Wednesday.

The former North Carolina senator credited his run with highlighting the issue of poverty and pushing his chief Democratic competitors — Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — toward more progressive stances on a host of issues.

"If you were to ask people during the campaign who's talking most about [poverty], it was me," Edwards said in the interview. "There's a desperate need in the world for a voice of leadership on this issue… The president's got a lot to do, he's got a lot of people to be responsible for, so I'm not critical of him. But there does need to be an aggressive voice beside the president."

The comments come a month after his wife Elizabeth embarked on a high-profile book tour, during which she documented at length her anguishing reaction to Edwards' affair with a campaign staffer three years earlier.

Edwards — the 2004 vice presidential candidate and onetime frontrunner for an Obama cabinet post — also said he is not ruling out a future in politics.

"Sometimes you just keep your head down and work hard and see what happens," he said.

"Did you have an suspicion at any time?," King asks Mrs. Edwards in an exclusive interview set to air Tuesday night on CNN.

"No. No. None," Elizabeth Edwards replies. "He's been on the road for quite some time. He's a lawyer who traveled. He took cases all over. But I saw the way he treated me. I knew the way he treated me, the commitment he had to our family. I was perhaps, the one thing I could agree with Maureen Dowd, I was probably naive, I was certainly naive."

Edwards also tells King that she believes her husband loves her, but fell prey to a flaw.

"I believe through this whole thing, John has loved me," she tells King. "I just think that he had a frailty that allowed him to do something which was completely contrary to the rest of his life."

The political spouse was also candid about the impact that her husband's infidelity has had on their marriage as she continues to live with terminal cancer.

"You know what's double sad, if God forbid you left, John will probably be double crushed," King says in Tuesday's interview.

"I completely agree with that," says Edwards. "We've talked about that. We've talked about his work at rebuilding trust, and it's really important that he get to that place, quote in time so that he understands that what he took away he does his very best job to put back."

Updated: 6:38 p.m.

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Programming Note: Watch Elizabeth Edwards' entire exclusive interview on Larry King Live beginning at 9 pm Tuesday.

Trippi was a former senior adviser to Edwards' campaign.

(CNN) – Joe Trippi, a former top aide to John Edwards, is sharply refuting a report a handful of campaign staffers knew about the former presidential candidate's affair and had plans to sabotage his White House bid, telling CNN Monday the claim is "complete bull s**t."

"No one that I know had such a plan, I wasn't involved in a plan like that, it didn't exist, it's a fantasy," Trippi said in a phone interview.

Trippi, a close advisor to Edwards during his Democratic presidential primary bid, also said if any campaign staffer actually knew the affair was true they were "not only malpracticing John Edwards but the country as well by not doing the right thing, going to him, and telling him he had to leave the race."

The comments come a day after ABC News reported several Edwards campaign staffers "in the inner circle" began to believe rumors of an affair were true in late 2007. According to the story, the group had devised a "doomsday" strategy to sabotage the campaign if Edwards looked as if he would win the Democratic nomination.

But Trippi, who worked closely with Edwards' most senior advisors, including Campaign Manager David Bonior and Deputy Campaign manager Jonathan Prince, suggested he would have been aware of a plan if one existed.

"I don't think there was an hour Prince wasn't with me," he said, adding later, "I can't conceive of how it was possible that if someone had a secret plan I wasn't aware of it."

In reality, Trippi said, Edwards' senior advisers immediately discounted the rumors, first reported by the National Enquirer in the fall of 2007, and never raised the possibility they might be true.

"We were thinking there is no way in hell he would do this to Elizabeth," Trippi said. We were thinking how could the National Enquirer do this to her, when she has terminal cancer and tries to make a difference by helping her husband run for president."

Edwards came in second in the Iowa caucuses on January 3, 2008, behind Barack Obama but slightly ahead of Hillary Clinton in the state delegate vote count. But five days later he finished a distant third in the New Hampshire primary. Edwards gave up his bid for the White House on January 30, the day after a disappointing third place finish in the South Carolina primary.

Programming Note: Watch Elizabeth Edwards' exclusive interview on CNN's Larry King Live at 9 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday night.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – She’s lost her first born child, continues to battle cancer, suffered through coping with her husband’s extramarital affair, and been an integral part of two unsuccessful presidential campaigns.

But notwithstanding all of the sympathy from voters built up in favor of Elizabeth Edwards, two reporters suggested Sunday that the famous political spouse’s current media blitz could bankrupt her goodwill with the American public.

“She was painted as this martyr figure,” CNN American Morning Entertainment Reporter Lola Ogunnaike said on CNN’s Reliable Sources.“

“They had what seemed to be this ideal marriage. And it turns out that she was complicit in basically this cover- up. She knew all along that he'd had an affair, that he cheated on her, and decided that they would go along with this massive cover-up, and she ultimately decided that his political career was worth more than being honest.” Ogunnaike added.

Washington Post reporter Lois Romano said Mrs. Edwards recent efforts to rehash her husband’s extramarital affair in multiple interviews and her forthcoming book is filling some sort of need but is risky.

“There's clearly something in her personality that is pushing her to get the last word,” said Romano. “I think she is at risk of diminishing her own stature. I mean, people held her up as the soul of this relationship, and now she's turned it into a spectacle again,” Romano also said.

Romano also suggested that Mrs. Edwards’ book tour might backfire. “Well, I think what we're going to see here is we're going to see the curve of the public follow us [the media]. Right now . . . the public is still generally in support of her,” Romano said. “Let's see what happens after two weeks of this.”
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WASHINGTON (CNN) – She’s lost her first born child, continues to battle cancer, suffered through coping with her husband’s extramarital affair, and been an integral part of two unsuccessful presidential campaigns.

But notwithstanding all of the sympathy from voters built up in favor of Elizabeth Edwards, two reporters suggested Sunday that the famous political spouse’s current media blitz could bankrupt her goodwill with the American public.

“She was painted as this martyr figure,” CNN American Morning Entertainment Reporter Lola Ogunnaike said on CNN’s Reliable Sources.“

“They had what seemed to be this ideal marriage. And it turns out that she was complicit in basically this cover- up. She knew all along that he'd had an affair, that he cheated on her, and decided that they would go along with this massive cover-up, and she ultimately decided that his political career was worth more than being honest.” Ogunnaike added.

Washington Post reporter Lois Romano said Mrs. Edwards recent efforts to rehash her husband’s extramarital affair in multiple interviews and her forthcoming book is filling some sort of need but is risky.

“There's clearly something in her personality that is pushing her to get the last word,” said Romano. “I think she is at risk of diminishing her own stature. I mean, people held her up as the soul of this relationship, and now she's turned it into a spectacle again,” Romano also said.

Romano also suggested that Mrs. Edwards’ book tour might backfire. “Well, I think what we're going to see here is we're going to see the curve of the public follow us [the media]. Right now . . . the public is still generally in support of her,” Romano said. “Let's see what happens after two weeks of this.”
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WASHINGTON (CNN) — John Edwards supported his wife writing about their marital problems in the wake of his affair with a campaign staffer, the former presidential candidate said in a rare on-camera interview airing Thursday.

In the brief television interview with talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, Edwards said he never suggested his wife, Elizabeth, change any part of the book, even chapters that described the most personal details of her reaction to his infidelity.

"I think it's how she feels, it's what's inside of her," Edwards said. It was his first television interview since publicly acknowledging the affair nine months ago.

Among the revelations in her book out this week, Mrs. Edwards said she became nauseous when her husband told her of an affair with Rielle Hunter in 2006, who was hired to make Web videos about Edwards as he geared up for his second presidential run.

“I cried and screamed,” Mrs. Edwards writes in the book. “I went to the bathroom and threw up." Mrs. Edwards added that she urged her husband not to run for president in order to protect the family if the affair became public.

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(CNN) – Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has long denied that he is the father of videographer Rielle Hunter's daughter — but outspoken wife Elizabeth Edwards says she isn't sure.

In an interview with talk show host Oprah Winfrey set to air Thursday, Elizabeth Edwards says doesn't "have any idea" if her husband, who has admitted having an affair with Hunter, is also the father of Hunter's child.

"The other woman has a baby," Winfrey said during the interview.

"That's what I understand," Edwards said, interrupting the media mogul.

"And there is great speculation that your husband, John Edwards, is the father of that baby," responded Winfrey.

"That's what I understand. I've seen a picture of the baby. I have no idea. It doesn't look like my children. But, I don't have any idea," said Edwards.

In "Resilence," a new book by Edwards due out later this month, she describes her visceral, physical reaction to her husband telling her about the affair in late 2006, soon after he announced his second presidential bid.

"After I cried and screamed, I went to the bathroom and threw up," Edwards writes in her forthcoming book.

Related on TIME.com: How I survived John's affair

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John Edwards and his wife say they don't believe there was any financial wrongdoing.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — While acknowledging federal authorities are investigating the finances related to John Edwards political efforts, he and his wife say they don't believe there was any financial wrongdoing.

Investigators are focusing their inquiry on the more than $114,000 in payments from July 2006 through February 2007 by Edwards' political action committee to a production company owned by Rielle Hunter, a woman he had an affair with, according to the Raleigh News & Observer.

Hunter recorded web videos of Edwards for the political action committee. The payments were listed in federal election records as related to website/internet services work.

After months of tabloid rumors, Edwards admitted last summer he and Hunter had a previous affair.

In a statement given to several news organizations, including CNN, Edwards for the first time acknowledgedthere is an ongoing federal probe but would provide no further details.

"I am confident that no funds from my campaign were used improperly," Edwards said in the statement. "However, I know that it is the role of government to ensure that this is true. We have made available to the UnitedStates both the people and the information necessary to help get the issue resolved efficiently and in atimely manner."

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Edwards spoke at Brown University Tuesday.

(CNN) — Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards waded back into the public eye Tuesday, months after admitting to an extramarital affair with a campaign aide that likely put an end to his political career.

In a speech at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, the two-time presidential candidate focused his remarks on issue of poverty, calling it a "fundamental issue," according to the Raleigh News and Observer.

In a question and answer session following the speech, only one student touched on the controversy that unfolded last summer, asking Edwards if politicians should be held to a higher standard than ordinary citizens.

“I don’t think it’s for a candidate to decide what’s appropriate,” Edwards said. “It’s something for every American to decide for themselves.”

“I have my own view, which I’m going to keep to myself tonight," he added.

Since admitting to an affair with former campaign videographer Rielle Hunter last August, the onetime vice presidential candidate has kept a low profile. Wife Elizabeth Edwards has continued to advocate for universal health care and is set to release a book in the coming months entitled, “Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life’s Adversities.”

Blagojevich, facing record low approval ratings in Illinois, tops at least one political poll this month.

(CNN) – Which politician should be top Santa's naughty list this year? If the American public had anything to say about it, Rod Blagojevich would beat out John Edwards and Eliot Spitzer for the title of the naughtiest politician of 2008.

Asked which political figure deserved a lump of coal this Christmas, the scandal-scarred Blagojevich was picked by more Americans than the other two candidates combined.

Nineteen percent thought that Edwards, who admitted cheating on his wife during his presidential bid, was the naughtiest. And 23 percent thought that Spitzer, who resigned as New York's government amid a call-girl scandal, should get the nod.

But 56 percent said that Blagojevich, who has been arrested on corruption charges, was the naughtiest pol in 2008.

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Edwards made hist first public appearance Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — John Edwards took the stage at Indiana University on Tuesday night for a discussion on the 2008 presidential election, but members of the audience may have had something else on their minds entirely.

After all, this is the former North Carolina senator's first public appearance since his admission of an extramarital affair sent shockwaves through the political world more than three months ago.

Edwards talked about politics, poverty and his hopes for America and the world, according to The Associated Press. Afterward, he answered only written questions that had been submitted before his speech. The affair wasn't mentioned, AP reported.

The revelation, confirming a months-long investigation by the National Enquirer, was a political bombshell for the former candidate, who espoused moral values during his White House bid and whose wife is fighting a public battle with breast cancer.

Full story

Edwards made hist first public appearance Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — John Edwards took the stage at Indiana University on Tuesday night for a discussion on the 2008 presidential election, but members of the audience may have had something else on their minds entirely.

After all, this is the former North Carolina senator's first public appearance since his admission of an extramarital affair sent shockwaves through the political world more than three months ago.

The revelation, confirming a months-long investigation by the National Enquirer, was a political bombshell for the former candidate, who espoused moral values during his White House bid and whose wife is fighting a public battle with breast cancer.

Full story

A book based on Edwards' mistress is soaring in book sales.

(CNN) — Author Jay McInerney may have John Edwards to thank for a likely influx of book royalties.

His twenty-year old novel, based on the life of Edwards' mistress when she was a young adult, is soaring in sales rankings — so much so that the book's publisher has commissioned an additional 2,500 copies for print on Monday.

McInerney has said the book's main character, described as an "ostensibly jaded, cocaine-addled, sexually voracious 20-year old," was inspired by Rielle Hunter — the film producer who Edwards recently acknowledged having an affair with in 2006.

The book, about the New York singles scene amidst the excess of the 1980s, is now 299 on Amazon.com and 393 on Barnes&Noble.com — moves of a couple hundred places in only a handful of days. Before news of the affair broke, the book was thousands of spots lower.

Edwards, the former presidential candidate and 2004 vice presidential candidate, said he had a brief affair with Rielle Hunter in 2006 when she was employed by his political action committee to make "webisodes" about his campaign.

Despite breathing new life into one of his novels, McInerney said earlier this week he is no fan of the former North Carolina senator.

"To say that he slept with her but he wasn't in love with her — that's not very chivalrous," the author told the New York Daily News. "He's trying to distance himself from her."

"I don't feel my questions have been answered with regard to Edwards," he also said. "It was a half-assed confession."

John Edwards admitted Friday that he had an affair with Rielle Hunter in 2006.

(CNN) — Rumors about John Edwards' love affair had been circulating for months, but it wasn't until the former Democratic presidential candidate admitted to the affair that national news organizations jumped on the story.

After the National Enquirer reported catching Edwards making a late-night visit to see his ex-mistress last month, the blogosphere exploded, asking why the mainstream media was not reporting the story.

Was it because of a condescending attitude toward a tabloid's reporting? Bias toward a Democratic candidate? Or sympathy toward Elizabeth Edwards, who is battling an incurable form of cancer?

David Carr, a columnist for The New York Times, said many news organizations "tend to pick up stories from the National Enquirer with tongs."

"They have been very right about some things … but there's been some misses too, so it's a little scary to follow on those stories," he said Sunday on CNN's Reliable Sources.

"It's also a little scary for big outfits to step up on a story like this. Sex may sell, but it can really hurt your relationship with readers," he added.

Enquirer editor David Perel said his organization feels a "big sense of vindication" now that Edwards has admitted to the affair.

Full story

(CNN) – The woman who had an extramarital affair with former presidential candidate John Edwards won't seek a paternity test to prove whether he's the father of her 5-month-old child, her lawyer said Saturday.

In a statement he provided to the Washington Post, attorney Robert Gordon said Rielle Hunter is a private citizen and that she will not comment further on the media frenzy sparked Friday when Edwards publicly acknowledged the affair.

"She wishes to maintain her privacy" and the privacy of her child, Gordon said in the statement. "Furthermore, Rielle will not participate in DNA testing or any other invasion of her … privacy now or in the future."

Gordon confirmed to CNN that he provided a statement to the Post. He said Saturday he would not immediately be releasing the statement to anyone else and will not be doing interviews about it.

After months of denying the affair, Edwards admitted making "a serious error in judgment" in 2006 when he had an affair with Hunter, a filmmaker who worked making videos for his presidential campaign.

He said her child is not his, as had been claimed in tabloid reports, saying the timing of the affair would make that impossible. A former Edwards campaign aide, Andrew Young, has publicly said the child is his.

Edwards said he was willing to take a paternity test to clear up the question.

"Happy to take a paternity test … would love to see it happen," he said in an interview with ABC News.

Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, was the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2004. He made an unsuccessful bid for his party's nomination in this year's election and had been considered a possible VP choice for presumptive nominee Sen. Barack Obama — or a contender for attorney general or another top government post if Obama wins in November.

Former Sen. John Edwards had been mentioned as a possible 2008 vice presidential candidate.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — John Edwards, who made his marriage a central part of his overall message during the 2008 Democratic primaries — was dealt a political blow Friday after admitting to having an extramarital affair.

In an interview on ABC News "Nightline," Edwards acknowledged the affair with 42-year-old Rielle Hunter, which began after she was hired to make documentary videos for his campaign, ABC said.

Watch: Edwards' interview

Opinions, however, are mixed on whether he would have a future in politics.

CNN contributor James Carville, a former aide to Bill Clinton — who acknowledged an extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky in his second term — said Edwards' career is in dire straits.

"Certainly, his political career is in shambles. It's not going to come back. I humanly feel sorry for Mrs. Edwards. I feel sorry for the Edwards children. But I'm not shocked," he said Friday.

Elizabeth Edwards, in a posting on the Daily Kos Web site, said, "The fact that it is a mistake that many others have made before him did not make it any easier for me to hear when he told me what he had done.

"But he did tell me. And we began a long and painful process in 2006, a process oddly made somewhat easier with my [cancer] diagnosis in March of 2007. This was our private matter, and I frankly wanted it to be private, because as painful as it was, I did not want to have to play it out on a public stage as well."

Like Carville, CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger said this incident could hurt his career.

"Obviously, lying like this, brazenly, is going to put an end, probably, to his political career and could affect whether he gets any role if Barack Obama were to win the presidency," she said Friday.

Full Story

National Enquirer editor-in-chief David Perel says the tabloid broke news of John Edwards' affair in 2007.

(CNN) — Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards admitted Friday to having an extramarital affair in 2006 with a woman who worked on his campaign.

Edwards has denied being the father of the woman's child, as had been alleged in tabloid reports, and it is willing to take a paternity test.

Wolf Blitzer, filling in for Larry King, spoke with David Perel, editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer, who originally broke the story in October 2007. Blitzer also spoke with Alan Butterfield, a senior reporter for the National Enquirer who confronted John Edwards at a hotel in Beverly Hills on Thursday.

Some highlights:

Wolf Blitzer: What got you guys going in this direction to begin with?

David Perel: We received what we thought was a credible tip, Wolf, and we started investigating it. A lot of times when we go down this road and the story turns out not to be true, we abandon it. But the more we dug in, the more information The Enquirer uncovered that was standing up, we were able to prove that, indeed, John Edwards had a sexual affair with Rielle Hunter. We first did the story in October without naming her and then we came back with a much tougher story in December 2007, where we not only named her, but we photographed her pregnant.

Watch: Perel discusses Edwards' 'character issue'

Blitzer: And at that time, you didn't report that — what you reported subsequently, that you thought that he was the father.

Perel: That's true. We know that Rielle believes that he is the father. And Mr. Edwards today, in his own statement, said he did not take a paternity test. He's now saying that he will take one. We've asked him for months if he would take one and he's ignored that request.

Full Story

(CNN) — John McCain was tight-lipped Friday afternoon when it came to answering any questions about former U.S. Senator and Democratic hopeful John Edwards's admittance to having an extramarital affair. Edwards acknowledged he had had an affair with a former aide in 2006 but denied being the father of her baby. McCain told reporters "I don't have any comment on that" during a press conference in Rogers, Arkansas.

In Nevada, New York Senator Hillary Clinton said her "thoughts and prayers are with the Edward's family today" when asked if she thought her party would suffer any repercussions because of the scandal. Senator Clinton held an impromptu press conference following a campaign event in Las Vegas for Barack Obama where the statement was made.

(CNN) — Fred Baron, the finance chairman for the John Edwards presidential campaign, said in a Friday statement that he paid to help the woman Edwards had an extramarital affair with, and the former aide who was the alleged father of her child, move out of the former North Carolina senator’s home state.

“I decided independently to help two friends and former colleagues rebuild their lives when harassment by supermarket tabloids made it impossible for them to move forward on their own,” he said of his efforts to aid Rielle Hunter and Andrew Young.

“I did this of my own volition without the instruction or suggestion of anyone, and made a conscious decision not to tell anyone, including John Edwards, that assistance was provided,” he added. “The assistance was offered and accepted without condition. This is now and shall always remain a private matter between these individuals and me.”

Hunter and Young lived separately at an upscale development in Chapel Hill, and later in Santa Barbara, California.