Transcript: Rudy Giuliani On Huckabee, Personal Security And More
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Dec. 14, 2007
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National Journal's Linda Douglass sat down with Rudy Giuliani for the eleventh edition of "National Journal On Air." This is a transcript of their conversation.
Audio of the full show is also available.
Q: I want to thank Mayor Rudy Giuliani, one of the Republican candidates for president, for joining us here on National Journal On Air. Welcome, Mayor.
Giuliani: Very nice to be with you, Linda, a pleasure.Q: So let's dive right into these last frenzied days in Iowa. What do you think your chances are at this point in Iowa?
Giuliani: Look, you know I'm hopeful about every primary. We've got 25 between now and February 5th, and we want to win as many of them as possible. We're ahead right now in probably 16, 17, 18 of the 25 -- I like that. I'd like to be ahead in all of them. We're not. And we're going to lose some and we're going to win some, and the whole point of this is you gotta win more than anybody else, so that's what we're going to try to do.Q: Why do you think that Mike Huckabee has shot up the way he has?
Giuliani: Not surprising. Mike is a very good candidate. He has a record as a governor, an executive record, which I think people like for presidential candidates. I have an executive record also, so I rely on that quite a bit to say, you know, you don't need on-the-job training, you can at least know how to manage something, direct something and lead.Q: There is less known about him than some of the other candidates, and he's getting that scrutiny that you all have to face at some point during the campaign. What do you think that voters and reporters should be asking about Huckabee?I think, Mike, you know, is a real good candidate, I have great respect for him. I like him very much. I've gotten to know him better during the campaign, and he's one of those people that as you got to know him during the campaign, you got to like him more.
Giuliani: Oh, I wouldn't direct it just at Mike. The same questions they ask all of us -- they scrutinize every part of our record. He has a long record in public office like I do, so you look at all that, see how he performed, and lay out for the public the way in which he performed so they can make judgments about whether he's ready, or I'm ready, or anybody else is ready to be president of the United States.Q: Let's talk a little bit about the Democratic field. You've been running certainly against Hillary Clinton in a lot of the rhetoric you've used in the campaign, and Hillary Clinton is a candidate who energizes Republican voters. What do you think happens if Barack Obama gets the nomination? Will he energize the Republicans to the same extent that she has done?I think one of the things that has happened as you look at these two fields of candidates, at the very beginning there used to be all this talk about how the Democratic candidates seem to be better than the Republican candidates. I think as it's gone along, it's kind of shown that Republican candidates have far more experience than the Democrats. I mean look, you look at my record, or Mike Huckabee's and some others -- the Democratic candidates have never run a city, they've never run a state, they've never run a business. We have candidates that have run all those things, and with long extensive records and a lot of success and sometimes failures, so you have a right to look at all that.
Giuliani: I believe so. The degree of difference between, let's say, the positions that I have and the views of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is just about the same. The reality is, on policy issues, they have almost exactly the same ideas. So I think Republicans will find with either candidate, in the case of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, a candidate who wants to bring us bigger government, much more central government. They both are candidates that want to raise our taxes. And they want to raise our taxes considerably -- their rhetoric suggests some of the biggest tax increases in American history. So it's gonna be a division there between Americans who want their taxes raised significantly and those who don't -- Americans who want larger central government, Americans who want smaller central government.Q: You are certainly talking a lot -- and always have been -- on the trail about foreign policy issues, about security issues, about dealing with the countries that can be a threat to us, but domestic issues at least at the moment seem to be pushing forward in the debates in the questions that the candidates are being asked. And immigration seems to be, certainly among Republican voters, rising to the top. Are you surprised by the intensity of the emotion surrounding that issue?There's a big difference on Iraq. I mean, they want to pull out of Iraq. They debate how to do it and when to do it. I want to have victory in Iraq, I want see us successful in Iraq. They take a much more accommodating view on Iran. They both want to negotiate with Iran without preconditions. I don't think you negotiate with countries that sponsor terrorism without preconditions. I don't think we've ever negotiated successfully without preconditions. And I think you have to keep the pressure on Iran, and I think the recent National Intelligence Estimate demonstrates that if you keep significant pressure on Iran, the kind that President Bush has been able to mount, you can actually affect their conduct.
Giuliani: No, it's been there all throughout, even at times in which Iran, Iraq and other issues were paramount or first. Immigration and concern about it was always strong, and of course it intersects somewhat, because we have Americans concerned about the idea that people can come into this country undetected. At the same time, we have this existential terrorist threat. So if you have a system that's out of control, I think the fear is that terrorists can take advantage of it. So I think there's a little bit of an overlap there.Q: Do you agree with Huckabee that the 12 million illegal immigrants who are here now should be told to go back home, made to leave the country?And then there's also just the normal concern that exists when you have a system as large as this that doesn't seem to be working. I think the focus should be on who can fix it. Who is best able to fix immigration? Who can make it more secure, who can make it safer, who can actually make it work? And I think my background and experience and the results that I've gotten in the area of safety, security, reducing crime, reducing welfare, say that my plan is not only the best plan for ending illegal immigration, that I'm the person who has demonstrated I can accomplish things like that.
Giuliani: What I believe should be done is that we should stop illegal immigration at the border. Now. Right now. We should just end it.Q: But what about the 12 million?
Giuliani: I think you can only deal with the 12 million that are here, and can deal with them sensibly -- you have to get rid of the ones that are criminals right away -- but you can only deal with it sensibly if you stop illegal immigration and set up a system of a tamper-proof ID card. You use technology at the border in order to prevent people from coming in. You assert that change in behavior for maybe a year, two years, three years the way I changed behavior with regard to crime, and I would use a "BorderStat" system very similar to my ComStat system, and once you do that then you'll see that your numbers here in this country are smaller, because people will leave, and you focus first on people who have committed crimes who are illegal immigrants, and you deport them. And then you allow people who are here to come forward, to get identified, get fingerprinted, get photographed, and then you focus on the people who don't come forward and you do get rid of them, but it's got to be done in steps.Q: You wouldn't tell them to go back home?
Giuliani: If you try to deal with the 12 million that are here before you actually assert security over the border, while you are dealing with the 12 million that are here, 12 million will become 20 million. So you have to stop the growth of illegal immigration and stop that effectively, and then you can decide exactly how to deal with the 12 million here and you can deal with it sensibly. But if you try to deal with people here first, what's going to happen, even if you have an effective solution, you're going to end up with another 12 million coming in.Q: Mayor, you know that you've been asked a lot of questions about the security that was provided to you while you were mayor of New York and to Mrs. Giuliani before she was Mrs. Giuliani. I heard you tell Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" that you've certainly had many, many threats over the years. Have you been offered Secret Service protection?
Giuliani: I don't discuss threats, and I don't discuss them because this is something that I've been living with for 23 years. It also has been my profession. I've been dealing with safety and security for other people. Here's the problem with discussing threats. The more you discuss them, the more chance you have that some irrational person is going to be motivated by that.Q: But have you been offered Secret Service protection?
Giuliani: I don't discuss threats and what kind of protection you have or when you get it or how you get it. It makes no sense to do that. It makes the job of people who have to deal with you and deal with protection much more difficult, and the reality is that it's all dealt with in a professional way by people who know what they are doing.Q: You know there's a lot of talk that at some point in this campaign, Mayor Bloomberg might get in the race. How would you compare your tenure as mayor of New York to his?
Giuliani: I would say that I turned around the city. If you go back to contemporary accounts before you become a political candidate, they tend to be more credible. Time Magazine had me on the front cover in January of 2000, and had the city on the front cover, describing the turnaround in the city of New York in so many different respects. I think he has continued with that in the areas in which we turned around the city. I think he's kept that turnaround going, and I think he's added things of his own. I think he's done a good job.Q: So in other words, you're not necessarily a better mayor or worse mayor?
Giuliani: Oh, other people get to decide that. I think I had my challenges that I had to face. There were pretty big crises. I think I showed and was tested by these crises. I'm not just talking about September 11th. I'm talking about the huge amount of crime when I took over, the city being called the crime capital of America, being on the front page of Time Magazine as the "Rotting of the Big Apple." I took over a city with 10.5% unemployment, with huge job losses by the time I was mayor. Six or seven years, even before 9-11, all of that had been reversed, we had cut unemployment in half, we brought back 400 or 500,000 jobs, we cut 640,000 people from the welfare rolls, we had reduced crime by anywhere from 50-60%, shootings down by 74%. We went from being considered the crime capital of America to being considered one of the safest cities in America. So those are all turnarounds that I did during the time when I was mayor of New York City.Q: Thank you so much, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, out there on the campaign trail. It's been a pleasure talking with you and I hope we can talk with you again some time.Mike took over the city also at a difficult time -- it was after the September 11th attacks. We were able to deal with it for the first three or four months -- I believe, God willing, effectively. But he had to take over a very difficult situation. He did a good job with it and he added things of his own that fit his agenda. But I think he did a good job and we were mayors during different periods of time and we had to do different things, and I think I did mine very effectively. He's still doing his, but as far as I can tell, he's doing it effectively.
Giuliani: Thank you.