Weiner was in the news a day earlier: Donald Trump had called Clinton a security risk, citing among other things her close relationship with Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, a top adviser. Abedin, Trump said, is “married to Anthony Weiner, who’s a sleazeball and pervert. . . . I don’t like Huma going home at night and telling Anthony Weiner all of these secrets.” I asked Weiner what it has been like to have Huma dragged into these back-and-forths. “Gut-wrenching,” he told me. “I’ve never seen a staffer targeted like that. I don’t engage on that at all.”

After about 20 minutes in the hotel bar, Weiner was summoned by an aide, and we boarded a van that would shuttle us to the Wells Fargo Arena. We pulled out of the hotel driveway and promptly plowed into a parked limousine — with a loud crunching sound. No one was injured, though Weiner’s volunteer driver for the D.N.C., a local college student named Tim, was clearly shaken and upset. Weiner, who had been talking to his 4½-year-old son, Jordan, over a speakerphone, jumped out of the van to direct traffic around the mishap. He evinced the take-charge demeanor of a man who was accustomed to handling things, someone very much in his element amid chaos. Weiner comforted both drivers and oversaw the exchange of insurance information. At one point, he instructed Tim to back up the van, which nearly resulted in a second collision, this time with a police car.

“Now, Tim, if you would have gone into reverse, and hit that guy, which you almost did, that would be a legitimate lifelong cocktail-party story,” Weiner told Tim as the nervous volunteer maneuvered the damaged-but-still-drivable van toward the arena.

One subject I was interested in discussing with Weiner was “Weiner,” the critically lauded documentary about his disastrous mayoral campaign. Weiner’s campaign melted down following reports of countless instances of the candidate’s tweeting dirty pictures of himself — the fallout from which was captured by the filmmakers in excruciating behind-the-scene detail. Weiner said neither he nor his wife had seen the film and had no plans to. When he agreed to participate, he obviously envisioned a movie that would have a much happier ending, ideally starring Mayor Weiner and First Lady Huma. And his comeback triumph would be immortalized on screens much bigger than the hand-held ones that brought him down. For what it’s worth, Weiner’s selfie-immolation made for a much better movie, at least for viewers.

But I was still curious: Why, after the scandal broke, given the personal and embarrassing nature of it, didn’t Weiner just stop allowing access to the “Weiner” cameras? Weiner mentioned that one of the filmmakers, Josh Kriegman, was a friend and former aide, and he felt a degree of loyalty to him. “I generally wasn’t going to pull the plug,” he said. I asked Weiner whether his wife got a vote on this.