No kidding, eh?
Crack-smoking, skirt-chasing Toronto Mayor Rob Ford admitted Tuesday he’s made a few mistakes.
“I’m not perfect. Maybe you are, maybe other people are. I’ve admitted my mistakes,” the buffoonish Canadian said in an interview shown Tuesday on NBC’s Today show.
“I’ve embarrassed, not just myself, my family, my friends, my supporters, the whole city. I take full responsibility for that. We’ve all made mistakes Matt,” he told host Matt Lauer – who readily agreed.
“You have brought disgrace to this office, and you know that’s true,” Lauer scolded the portly pol, who was interviewed Monday night in Toronto along with his brother, Toronto city councilor Doug Ford.
Lauer asked him what would happen if he was on a drinking binge and something terrible happened in Toronto, such as a terrorist attack, and Ford’s phone rang at 3 a.m.
“Will you be capable, and stable enough to handle it?” the host asked.
That prompted the mayor – after admitting he was “fortunate that hasn’t happened” – to bizarrely try to turn the tables on Lauer.
“Say your son or daughter just got killed in a car accident and you’re plastered out of your mind at three in the morning,” Ford said. “Are you there able to handle that?”
And he even blamed his erratic behavior on being overweight.
“I’m not in any drug treatment programs,’’ said, who plans to run for reelection next October. “I have a weight issue. I’ve been training every day. All I can say is actions speak louder than words. I invite you to come back. Give me five or six months, and if they don’t see a difference, I’ll eat my words.”
Doug Ford, who credited his brother with saving “the taxpayers $1 billion,” admitted he’s worried about Rob’s wacky behavior – and even called his brother a liar.
“His weight issues, when he goes on a binge, when he goes, if you want to call it binge-drinking, and I hear about it, yeah, it’s concerning,’’ Doug Ford said. “Do I know, on a personal side, has Rob been 100 percent honest? No, he hasn’t.”
The interview came after Toronto’s City Council stripped Ford of the last of his substantive powers because of his seemingly endless string of scandals, including his admission that he smoked crack and allegations that he pressured a female staffer into having oral sex.
“I was very, very inebriated” when he smoked crack, Ford told Lauer, insisting he was not an addict.
The mayor had earlier vowed “outright war” to take on his critics in next year’s election.
“This is nothing more than a coup d’etat,” Ford said Monday before a series of votes went against him on. “What’s happening here today is not a democratic process — it’s a dictatorship process.”
In a TV interview Monday night for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Ford said he had only smoked crack cocaine once, calling it “an isolated incident.” He denied that he has driven while drunk, but admitted that he had bought marijuana since becoming mayor.
The mayor declared that he was “finished” with alcohol.
“I’ve had a come-to-Jesus moment if you want to call it that,” Ford said. “Just the humiliation and the belittling and the people I’ve let down. And it’s all because of alcohol. Excessive, stupid, immature behavior and that’s it.”