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Rudy GiulianiGLENN: Joining us now, former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani. Hello, Rudy, how are you?
GIULIANI: Hello, Glenn, how are you?
GLENN: I'm very good. I just don't know how we dig ourselves out of this.
GIULIANI: How we dig ourselves out of this mess?
GLENN: Here we lost 156,000 jobs last month and the government gained 9,000 new employees. We're going in the wrong direction here.
GIULIANI: Yeah, I think one of the good things that President Bush could do, I've been saying this for a while but never too late to do it, and John McCain could really pound this tonight is how about an across-the-board 2 1/2 to 5% cut in all government agencies with the possible exception, you know, of the military and maybe to take out one or two that are going through critical problems right now.
GLENN: If we weren't both married, I'd date you right now.
GIULIANI: Now, I did that four, five times as mayor. It can be done. Michael Bloomberg is doing it right now here in New York City, started about a month ago. I don't see why the President of the United States can't do it.
GLENN: We're not doing that. We're going the opposite direction. I mean, Barack Obama is still on the campaign trail and they are still talking about Social Security, they are talking about, you know, healthcare, they are talking about another stimulus package now. Rudy, where are we getting this money?
GIULIANI: All these things have to be put on hold until we get ourselves through this and what has to be done is we've got -- I always thought that economic downturns -- and this is not the first one that we've had. We get them in cycles -- are great opportunities for straightening out government. I always found doing the budget easier during a downturn than an upturn because I could say to the legislature, sorry, we have no money, it's time to cut now. And that's what should be done. Also, if the President did that, if McCain did that, it would send a great signal to the rest of the world that America is going to try, we're going to try to live within our means. We recognize part of the problem is we've been spending too much darn money, starting with the government and then going right through our society. And then a couple of targeted business tax cuts, corporate tax, certainly don't raise the tax on capital gains the way Obama wants to do. I mean, we've got to talk sound fundamental economics now.
GLENN: But we're not. We've got Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Barack Obama. These people, this is a train to 1917 Russia.
GIULIANI: I mean, we've been saying this for some time but it's now sort of become clearer. This is the most left wing accumulation of Democrats we've had in a very long time and the guy at the top of their ticket is, you know, way over on the far left. From the time he entered politics with ACORN, this guy has been on the far left.
GLENN: William Ayers, how do you --
GIULIANI: Well, I think William Ayers fits into ideology.
GLENN: I do. I think --
GIULIANI: Forget all this guilt by association. Barack Obama has surrounded himself with radical left wing thinkers. No wonder he wants to redistribute wealth.
GLENN: Oh, sure. How do you --
GIULIANI: I mean, Ayers, a guy who admitted to bombing the New York City police department, the Pentagon, the congress, unrepentant, says I'd do it again.
GLENN: I have an amazing piece of -- we have an amazing piece we're going to play later from CNN that Anderson Cooper did that, I mean just says, yeah, yeah, there's some real ties here. It's an amazing piece. What I'd like to have John McCain say today -- and tell me your thought on this. Why doesn't John McCain just say, "You know what, I just want to ask one question and that is why does it seem like all of your friends hate America." I mean, I don't have those friends.
GIULIANI: Right.
GLENN: How many people in your circle of friends hate America?
GIULIANI: Well, you've got him, you've got Wright, and it is not -- therefore it is not strange that this guy has the most liberal radical agenda.
GLENN: Yeah.
GIULIANI: He believes in redistribution of wealth. When he was confronted with the fact that if he raises the capital gains tax, he will get less money rather than more money for the government, he said, well, it's just fair.
GLENN: Right.
GIULIANI: Well, that becomes out of being a disciple of Saul Alinsky, of being someone who sits on board with Ayers, a guy who was in Wright's church for 20 years. And his answer to all this is he didn't know. One of his campaign guys came out last night and said, well, when he took the money from Ayers, he didn't know about Ayers' background. Just like for 20 years he didn't know that Wright was spewing forth anti-American hatred from the pulpit of his church. I mean, actually he didn't know, then he's not qualified to be President, right?
GLENN: Let me ask you --
GIULIANI: He doesn't have the judgment to be President. Ayers was one of the most famous Weathermen, known all over Chicago for that. He goes to a fundraiser, doesn't know, then sits on a board with him for three years and gives out millions of dollars?
GLENN: What does it say to you about us that this guy isn't tanking because of Reverend Wright, because of William Ayers, because of all of the extraordinarily left wing stuff? I mean, not crazy Democrat. Left wing borderline if not Marxist philosophies? What does it say about us?
GIULIANI: He has built up a remarkable defense mechanism that makes the person raising this look bad for raising it. He's doing it to Hillary, he's doing it to McCain, he's doing it to Sarah Palin and it's totally ridiculous. Of course you should ask these questions. Again if John McCain was surrounded by some, you know, crazy right wing nut for -- and sat on a board with him for three years, David Duke let's say, right?
GLENN: Yeah.
GIULIANI: If he was sitting on a board with David Duke and David Duke was saying, you know, ten years later, I don't repent any of that stuff I said; in fact, I wish I had said more of it, what would -- John McCain be gone, right? As a candidate it would be the biggest story in the liberal press.
GLENN: You were on my show about, oh, I don't know, I think it must have been about a year ago and we were having a conversation about a book called The Forgotten Man and you said, oh, I just finished reading it; it's fantastic. Let me take you to The Forgotten Man here in a second. For anybody who doesn't know, The Forgotten Man is the guy who they take the tax money from, you know, the politicians take the tax money from The Forgotten Man and give it to the special interest group. It's the people in the middle that are like, why are you screwing me all the time.
GIULIANI: It's a book worth reading right now, by the way.
GLENN: Oh, it is. For those people who have lived cleanly, they have played by the rules, you know, they didn't buy a house with 125% mortgage and zero down and, you know, an adjustable mortgage after, like, two days, what do you do when these people are starting to bail out everybody else to keep them from being disenfranchised, when we have to start spending all of this money, everybody's saying we've got to raise taxes for all these bailouts, how do you keep The Forgotten Man from just rising up and saying, you know, to hell with all of you; I lived and played by the rules.
GIULIANI: Well, you don't unless you set a whole new group of rules that makes it impossible for this to happen, that has some very strict limits on the fact that you can't loan money unless there's some equity there. I mean --
GLENN: Who's going to set these rules? Everybody in congress was dirty. Everybody was in on this game.
GIULIANI: They were, and at the core of it is Fannie and Freddie, who literally were not only not setting rules but were encouraging irresponsible borrowing. I mean, they were leading the band for irresponsible borrowing. And to John McCain's credit and Senator Sununu and some others, they tried to put a stop to this. And one of the guys who prevented it was Barack Obama and Barney Frank and all these guys who are, you know, who are now talking about, oh, gee, they should have done something about this.
GLENN: Did you see the last debate with Sarah Palin where she was talking about predatory lenders?
GIULIANI: Yes.
GLENN: And I don't know -- did you see the graph? And the graph was flat until she started going into personal responsibility. And she says, you don't take out more loan than you can have. Why is it that John McCain seems hesitant to say we're going to slash the budget? Why is he hesitant of saying I'm not going to sign this bill because of all this pork? I believe in a bailout but not with all this pork? Why is he hesitant?
GIULIANI: Well, I hope that's what happens tonight because personal responsibility from poor to rich is at the key to all this, you know, and the same excesses that happened in Wall Street with just lending money and borrowing money and not -- you know, Lehman Brothers was leveraged 30:1? How can you be leveraged? I don't even get it. 30:1? For every dollar they had in essence they had $30 worth of debt? You and I would be bankrupt.
GLENN: It was congress. If it were you and I, Rudy, we would be in jail! We would be in jail! At some point I'm going to look at that and go, well, at least I get three meals a day and a cot.
GIULIANI: And how do you buy a house and you don't put anything down? Nothing!
GLENN: 125% of the mortgage! It doesn't make sense. Rudy Giuliani, thank you so much, sir.
GIULIANI: We'll talk to you Glenn. Bye-bye.
