July 22, 2007 12:11 PM

Back Roads Interview with Rudy Giuliani

***LISTEN HERE***

By M.E. Sprengelmeyer
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS

SIOUX CITY, Iowa -- Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was near the end of a long day of Iowa barnstorming last Wednesday, when he set up shop in a school conference room and did a string of quick, back-to-back interviews before his day's last town hall meeting.

Earlier in the day, he had given a speech about the types of "strict constructionist" judges he said he would nominate as president. Afterwards, there was a lively, hallway exchange with reporters who wondered if he was trying to send a message to religious conservatives who otherwise might be wary of his support for abortion rights.

By the time I took my turn sitting at a table across from Giuliani, he was a man in a hurry -- anxious to finish his evening snack, wrap up this interview, get through his night's town hall meeting and get out to the streets for a downtown parade that one of the other reporters had told him about.

In between his long, but rapid-fire answers, I managed to ask just a few questions about his Republican rivals, the war, his view of the country since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and about those "strict constructionist" judges he said he plans to appoint.

Among other things, he suggested that he's not focused on differences with fellow Republican presidential contenders. Instead, he's already looking ahead to facing Democrats like Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards. And in the process, he's trying to link them to gonzo filmmaker Michael Moore, and a "European-Canadian-Cuban" health care plan that Giuliani already is equating to "socialized medicine."

Considering the interview's condensed time frame, Giuliani gave us a lot to digest. And he finished his dinner, too -- in time to be a surprise, late addition to that parade.

Look below for the FULL TRANSCRIPT. Or ***LISTEN HERE***

Or, read another full story HERE from the folksy, folded version of the Rocky Mountain News.

GIULIANI: Hi, how are you?

SPRENGELMEYER: Mr. Mayor, thank you for following my convoluted questions this morning... Thanks for taking the time. It turns out that today I'm here with you, but back in Colorado, which is where my paper is based...Gov. Romney is going to be there today in Colorado Springs...

GIULIANI: I wonder if he's doing a fundraiser...

SPRENGELMEYER: Well, he's appearing at, I think it's a Lincoln Day dinner kind of event. But I like to ask candidates, let's have a good honest, let's get into the good, honest disagreements between you guys. I wonder if you could focus in particular on Mr. Romney and point out the things that, where you see yourself, honestly, he thinks one thing and you think another thing -- a good honest disagreement.

GIULIANI: I don't think of the Republican candidates that way. I only think of the Democratic candidates that way. I think about how I disagree with Hillary Clinton, Michael Moore, Barack Obama, John Edwards, and what they want to do with health care, which is a kind of European-Canadian-Cuban system of health care for the United States. That disagreement is so vast that it pales in comparison to any of the disagreements I might have with some of the Republican candidates. I'm not even sure what they would be.

Or I think, my number one commitment to the American people is to keep the America on offense in the terrorist war on us. I see the Democrats wanting to give our enemies a time-table of our retreat, kind of holding an all-night session in congress last night, or the Senate last night, trying to push us to the point we have to do something that has never been done in war, ever before, which is to not only retreat. They want us not only to retreat, but to print out a time table of that retreat for our enemy, which I've never heard any army in the history of war ever having to do.

So that disagreement between a position that I have, which is to remain on offense in the war, which I think is a sensible one, and then going on defense to such an extent that you're printing out timetables of your retreat and giving them to your enemy, that disagreement is so great, that it keeps me focused on the Democratic candidates who I believe I'll ultimately be running against, and not the Republican candidates where, it's really up to the Republican Party to decide who they like better. I'm not going to disparage any of my republican colleagues. The Republican electorate will get to decide, of all of us, who they like better, who they think can do a better job. I'll point out what I think are my attributes. I think I've had a great deal of executive experience. I think I've dealt with this situation of Islamic terrorism longer than anyone else.

Photo by M.E. Sprengelmeyer

SPRENGELMEYER: If I could follow up on the war, I wonder how you view this playing out if it turns out that by some measure Democrats get their way. Not just Democrats, but moderate Republicans that are on that fence, too, get their way. Does it become a case going into November 2008, or toward November 2008, where they're the ones who own whatever happens there on the ground in the war.

GIULIANI: I don't know the answer to what is going to happen, so I can't really tell you. All I can tell you is that if they get their way... I think what you call the moderate Republicans and the Democrats do have a somewhat different position. None of the moderate Republicans have embraced this very, very irresponsible notion of handing the enemy a timetable of our retreat. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton voted for it, and John Edwards has supported it. They also, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, voted to de-fund our troops, which I don't think the Republicans ever did. So they've taken some steps that no Republican that I know of have taken.

I don't know how this is all going to play out. I don't know how far congress is going to go. How much the president is going to be able to deal with them. All I can do is tell you my best judgment of what should be done. And what I believe should be done is, America should display the patience and the strength to say that the goal in Iraq is a situation that will help us in the terrorists' war against us. We've got to get it to a position of stability so that they are able to do that. And the time-table of our withdrawal should be tied to a strategic advantage for the United States. It shouldn't be tied to our running away because things are getting too tough as far as the Democrats are concerned. And it certainly shouldn't be tied to an announcement like it was by Harry Reid that America has "lost." I don't get, I don't understand the wisdom of an American Majority Leader announcing that his country has just "lost."

Photo by M.E. Sprengelmeyer

SPRENGELMEYER: Usually, candidates get asked when they are the incumbent, 'Are we better off than we were four years ago?' Those types of questions. I had a curious question for you, considering your position in New York City. Is America, the whole country in many ways -- security, economy, internationally -- are we better off today than we were on Sept. 12, the day after the attacks? In all the steps we've taken since then, are we better off than we were the day after the attacks?

GIULIANI: Huh. Sure. Boy, that's unquestionably, yes, sure. That's a good question, because, but, it takes me back to Sept. 11, Sept. 12, Sept. 13, Sept. 14, all the briefings I would get. And I can tell you, none of this I don't think is secret information. It's in George Tenet's book. Every briefing I got told me we were going to get attacked again. We're going to be attacked again. Got to be ready for more attacks. Could be chemical. Could be biological. Could be some kind of a dirty bomb, which is a small nuclear attack. Could be another attack like that one, by air. You've got to be ready for it. I had many, many meetings trying to get ready for other kinds of attacks, including a big one to try to deal with biological and chemical attacks. Except for the anthrax attacks that happened a month later, and which, as far as I can tell the FBI can not connect necessarily to terrorism, none of those attacks have taken place. So I'd have to say, from where we were on Sept. 12 to today, we are existentially and clearly, all politics aside, safer, based on what we thought could happen.

Even if you compare the last four or five years, six years, to the six or seven or eight years leading up to Sept. 11, there have been fewer attacks both in America -- there haven't been any -- there were two in that period, and fewer attacks on Americans by Islamic terrorists. We had Khobar Towers. We had Kenya. We had Tanzania. We had the USS Cole. So the strategy of being on offense has bought us some safety that we didn't have before.

It hasn't bought us total safety. I have this National Intelligence Estimate, the two pages, which says that al Qaeda and the Islamic terrorists are planning to attack us again. I've known that for years. And I do believe it's correct. They are planning to attack us again. But I think our ability to find out about it has improved. I think our ability to deal with it has improved. Has it gotten us perfect safety? Absolutely not. Could they crack through any of those things? Absolutely. I was in London on July 7, 2005, when the four bombs went off. The Islamic terrorists had attacked London a couple years ago. And I was a half block away from the one that went off at the Liverpool station. And that reminded me, no matter how good your intelligence is, no matter how safe you are, they can crack through. The UK has just about the best intelligence services in the world. They've got cameras on almost every block, things we don't have, and even with all that, these terrorists were able to attack. They were able to do it again two weeks ago or three weeks ago. So we're, yeah, there's a threat. It's a serious one. We have more resources to deal with it now than we had on Sept. 12, 2001.

But if you ask me the other question, are we better off, our economy, yes, our economy is stronger. Here's the thing that the terrorists never thought was possible. I think for sure they thought that when they attacked us, they were basically going to kill us. They were going to destroy our spirit. They knew they were going to kill us. I shouldn't say that. They knew they were going to kill people. I don't know how many they thought they were going to kill. I've always suspected they thought they would kill even more. But they sure killed way too many people. Worst attack in our history. But I also think they thought they'd break our spirit. And I think they thought they'd break our economy. I think that's one of the reasons they picked the World Trade Center. Our economy is stronger now. We have less unemployment. We have a smaller deficit. We have, if you judge it by the stock market, the stock market is stronger. The American economy is a stronger economy today than it was before. So they haven't done that. We've shown that we're a very resilient people. We may not even, enough Americans may not even have absorbed how strong we are, maybe because they weren't in the middle of it the way I was and I saw how challenged they were. But I look at my own city, my own city is better prepared now than it was on Sept. 10, 11 or 12. New York City has more people working now. New York City has more tourists coming to it now. New York City is stronger in every way -- spiritually stronger, economically stronger. I believe that more people are living there. Now go figure that on Sept. 12 people thought people would move out of New York City and never come back. There are more people living there now, more people working, unemployment's lower. The American people are a more resilient people than they realize they are sometimes.

Photo by M.E. Sprengelmeyer

A GIULIANI AIDE: You've got time for one more quick one.

SPRENGELMEYER: Then I'd better pick it carefully.

GIULIANI: I've got to go do my town hall meeting, and the parade I hope.

SPRENGELMEYER: Let me ask a follow-up to this morning's line of questioning. When you talk about judgeships, Democrats took huge fire when they obstructed, they used filibuster methods, to obstruct judges (nominations) when they weren't in power. Now this week, Republicans are using some tactics to avoid an up-or-down vote on some of the Iraq-related resolutions. I wonder if you see any philosophical or, by principle is there any similarity between the two? Or are they two totally separate situations, the way the obstructions worked on the Democratic side clearly and on the Republican side clearly?

GIULIANI: I think as far as passing of laws are concerned, Congress has to have the rules they want to have. Those are rules that the Senate has had and Republicans have used them and Democrats have used them. And the Senate has to decide what kind of rules they want to have for the passing of laws. Their filibuster rules confuse me. I don't know that I know all of them. They seem kind of complicated. But that's up to the Senate. I don't think a president has much to say about that. It's different when you're talking about the confirmation of a judge. After all, that means that there's a position that's open, that's not being filled, and a third branch of government that's being held up, because people are being obstructionist. There's a different thing. It means that our, I think the number is right, 48... There are 48 vacancies right now in the federal courts. There's a process for confirming judges. So if you're stopping that process, it seems to me you're obstructing the operation of the third branch of government, the judiciary. And the Senate should take that into consideration.

Photo by M.E. Sprengelmeyer

SPRENGELMEYER: This morning when we were talking about this, we all think when we hear "strict constructionist..."

GIULIANI: I know, you all...

SPRENGELMEYER: We all read James Dobson's web site where he says I want a "strict constructionist" who's going to overturn Roe v. Wade...

GIULIANI: I mean by "strict constructionist" what I think Justice Harlan would have meant by "strict constructionist." I remember my first year law course in American constitutional interpretation. I think it was called "Legal Institutions." And there was a whole group of writings in the law textbook, casebook, about how to interpret the constitution, and the different schools of thought on how to interpret it. And from the very beginning, it seemed to me, that I was an advocate of the plain meaning of the language as the best way to interpret the constitution because in that way a judge doesn't put himself in a position, or herself in a position, to put your social desires over what somebody else meant. I believe the constitution has a beautiful formula, a very intricate balance that kind of protects against absolute power corrupting absolutely. It says the legislature passes the laws, the president -- executive -- enforces the laws, and if the congress doesn't pass a law that the president would like to have, the president can't go around acting as if that law has been passed. If they don't make something a crime that isn't a crime, the president can't say, "I'm going to make that a crime and I'm going to put you in jail for it."

SPRENGELMEYER: We'll talk about signing statements later. I know she's trying to get me out of here...

GIULIANI: And then the third part of it is the courts have to interpret what the congress passes and what the president enforces. But they can't decide they're going to make new laws because Congress failed to make a law, or that they're going to create things that either the Congress or the Contitution hasn't created. They're interpreters. Judges are interpreters they're not creators. Legislators are creators. Presidents are executives, they execute. They get things done. And the courts interpret. And I think there are judges that in their desire to achieve a social result they want -- ban guns, so read out the second amendment; or create more rights for criminals, so you create them -- that don't necessarily stick to the constitution. That's what I mean by strict constructionist. It is not code words for anything, other than what it means. And I don't know on any particular case how they're going to come out. And every once in a while, all this is such a matter of interpretation, strict constructionists disagree with each other. Two judges who are quite honestly strict constructionists look at the same language and they say, 'Gee, I don't think it means what you think it means.' But what I want them to do is to be looking at the language and asking the question," What does it mean?" not "What would I like it to mean?" OK?

Photo by M.E. Sprengelmeyer

Posted by M.E. Sprengelmeyer at 12:11 PM | Comments (2)