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American Morning

Interview with Rudy Giuliani

Aired October 03, 2002 - 07:33   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: In the days after 9/11, New York's mayor, Rudy Giuliani, led the city and also became a symbol of resilience to the country. His leadership has since been recognized the world over. Qualities, he says, that have guided him in good times and in bad. And now the former mayor, Rudy Giuliani, putting those principles to paper. A new book is out. It's called "Leadership," a rather simple title.
The author, the former mayor, joins us live this morning.

Great to see you.

RUDY GIULIANI, AUTHOR, "LEADERSHIP": Good morning.

HEMMER: I can imagine you can probably relate to the folks in Louisiana this morning.

GIULIANI: Yes, I...

HEMMER: And the mayors down there are trying to tell their folks, you know, what to do and where to go.

GIULIANI: It's the first thing I heard on the news this morning when I got up and I remembered all the times that we prepared for hurricanes and the ones that we had to deal with, and then the times we would prepare and it didn't happen and all of the plans that we had.

HEMMER: That's right.

GIULIANI: And it's a very tense time because you never really know how bad a hurricane is going to be until it actually hits you. Sometimes it's unexpected.

HEMMER: The book is out. It's called "Leadership." You wrote it primarily prior to the events of 9/11, but the first chapter deals solely with that day. A couple of things struck me in that first chapter. You talk repeatedly about the same perfect blue sky that morning and that day.

GIULIANI: Well, it had a very big dramatic impact on me because the first thing that I was told was that a twin engine plane had hit the towers and that there was a bad fire there, as if it were more or less an accident. And I was at the Peninsula Hotel having breakfast with Bill Simon and Danny Young.

I got out, looked up in the sky, I saw the most perfect day you could possibly imagine and immediately my mind and reason began fighting with that theory that it was an accident, because you could not have an accident on such a beautiful day. And then I found out that it was two planes and that it was a terrorist attack. But for a while it was unclear.

HEMMER: And things unfolded from there. I think one of the most startling things that I took away from what you wrote in that first chapter was standing on West Street looking up and thinking that you were seeing debris falling from the sky and they were actually bodies coming down off the towers. More than a year later, is that still indelible?

GIULIANI: Absolutely. It was the turning point for me from another very, very difficult emergency to deal with -- of which you have many if you're mayor of New York City, you virtually have one a week -- to a horrid, horrific experience, you know, well beyond anything we had ever imagined before. When I realized one of my deputy mayors, Joe Lhota, told me that there were people jumping and when I first looked up, I saw well, that can't be. And then I saw a man who just jumped out of the 102nd, 103rd floor, and I followed him all the way down. And when I saw that, I grabbed the police commissioner's arm and I said to him, "We're in uncharted territory. We're going to have to, we're going to have to really invent our response here."

And largely it turned out that the plans and preparations that we had made were the ones we relied on. And the book tries to describe that. It tries to describe how you've got to continually try to prepare for the unanticipated and even if you don't anticipate it, you'll still be prepared for it because of everything else you prepared for.

HEMMER: Yes, and it seemed to me that you were ad libbing a lot of that. We were in areas, waters that we never had been before.

GIULIANI: Right.

HEMMER: It was uncharted territory and we essentially have to make it up in a very good way from here.

Move away from that day. You remember 9/10? You remember the day before?

GIULIANI: Do I remember the day before? Not well. I very, I have very vague recollections of about a 10 day period, the two days before and the 10 days after. And some days I get the days confused. I get the, I'll get Friday confused with Saturday and I'll get an event and the sequence of it confused, because it happened so quickly.

HEMMER: The reason I bring that up is because I want to talk about you as a person. On September 10, you were described in an article as arrogant, mean-spirited and contentious.

GIULIANI: And that was one of the better articles.

HEMMER: That was a good one. GIULIANI: Yes. That was one of my fans.

HEMMER: Were you that?

GIULIANI: No, I don't think I -- I never thought I was mean- spirited. At times I was combative because I was trying to make a point and New York is a tough city to make a point. And I also have a political philosophy that's different or was different than the governing philosophy of the city. The city tended to be much more liberal in its thinking and approach. I was much more conservative in terms of economic policy, in terms of the way you deal with crime and a lot of my ideas, it took a lot of debate and discussion.

Like welfare reform. From the day I came into office, I thought it was better for people to work than to be on welfare. The governing philosophy of this city for 30 years was sign up as many people on welfare as possible. And I tried to explain that as being part of caring, compassion and really trying to help people. But the politically correct view was just the opposite.

HEMMER: Well, how about this? You say you have critics. The "New York Times" reviewed your book and they say, "The former mayor gives little credit to the role the booming economy must have played in the city's impressive reduction in crime." It continues, "Mr. Giuliani takes direct issue with criticism that his administration was not as well prepared for the attack of 9/11 as it could have been."

Is there a point to be made there?

GIULIANI: Well, about crime, the crime went down when the economy was weak as well as when the economy was strong, and crime went down in New York when it was going up in other cities. So I think that's sort of been sort of the "Times'" approach to it, that the work of the police, the COMSTAD program really didn't have an impact on crime. But the reality is eight years of crime reduction records, and a city that goes from 2,000 murders a year to under 700 every single year, when other cities were increasing, has to say something about the policing strategies that were put into effect.

So I don't think that has much to do with crime.

About preparation, the City of New York...

HEMMER: Yes, what about it?

GIULIANI: The City of New York was...

HEMMER: Could you have done more?

GIULIANI: Of course. Sure. Of course we could have done more.

HEMMER: But if you look back prior to 9/11, 9/10, you try and put a finger on what when it comes to preparation for this thing...

GIULIANI: The reality is New York City was better prepared than any city in the country, largely because we're the biggest city in the country and we have to deal with emergencies all the time. We had plans for every conceivable kind of an emergency. We faced almost every kind of an emergency. We had drills, tabletop exercises. We once went out and simulated an airplane crash in Queens, unfortunately, and tragically similar to the one that actually took place in November of last year. We once went out and did a serin gas attack, drilled for that in the shadow of the World Trade Center, calling upon us to have to utilize the hospitals and other places.

So the city was about as well prepared as a city could be, or any city was. Were we prepared for that? No, we had never anticipated that. And neither had anyone else. I wish we had. I think everyone wishes they had.

HEMMER: What's your future? Are you going to get married?

GIULIANI: Yes, but I...

HEMMER: Oh, you chuckle.

GIULIANI: But I think I'm going to leave that to be done privately, as privately as I possibly can.

HEMMER: I can't spill the news here?

GIULIANI: No.

HEMMER: I understand you told Larry King last night that that's in your future, though?

GIULIANI: You mean I proposed to Larry last night?

HEMMER: No, no, no, no, no. Not to Larry.

GIULIANI: You want the really strange one?

HEMMER: Go ahead.

GIULIANI: I was on Larry King last night and he and I were sitting at the ball game together and there were several people this morning that said to me -- they still don't understand tape and all that -- how could that happen? How could you be interviewed by Larry and be at the ball game with him? So we're going to let them ponder that and figure that one out.

HEMMER: The Yankees are 1-1. You nervous?

GIULIANI: I'm never nervous about the Yankees in October.

HEMMER: Yes, OK.

GIULIANI: I'm always confident.

HEMMER: Great to see you. OK. Thank you, again.

GIULIANI: OK.

HEMMER: Thank you.

Here's Daryn.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: You know, Bill, this might sound like a trite matter, but Mr. Mayor, I know the ladies are going to notice, the new haircut. Very nice. It looks good.

GIULIANI: Thank you.

KAGAN: It looks good. Stay with it. There you go.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired October 3, 2002 - 07:33   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: In the days after 9/11, New York's mayor, Rudy Giuliani, led the city and also became a symbol of resilience to the country. His leadership has since been recognized the world over. Qualities, he says, that have guided him in good times and in bad. And now the former mayor, Rudy Giuliani, putting those principles to paper. A new book is out. It's called "Leadership," a rather simple title.
The author, the former mayor, joins us live this morning.

Great to see you.

RUDY GIULIANI, AUTHOR, "LEADERSHIP": Good morning.

HEMMER: I can imagine you can probably relate to the folks in Louisiana this morning.

GIULIANI: Yes, I...

HEMMER: And the mayors down there are trying to tell their folks, you know, what to do and where to go.

GIULIANI: It's the first thing I heard on the news this morning when I got up and I remembered all the times that we prepared for hurricanes and the ones that we had to deal with, and then the times we would prepare and it didn't happen and all of the plans that we had.

HEMMER: That's right.

GIULIANI: And it's a very tense time because you never really know how bad a hurricane is going to be until it actually hits you. Sometimes it's unexpected.

HEMMER: The book is out. It's called "Leadership." You wrote it primarily prior to the events of 9/11, but the first chapter deals solely with that day. A couple of things struck me in that first chapter. You talk repeatedly about the same perfect blue sky that morning and that day.

GIULIANI: Well, it had a very big dramatic impact on me because the first thing that I was told was that a twin engine plane had hit the towers and that there was a bad fire there, as if it were more or less an accident. And I was at the Peninsula Hotel having breakfast with Bill Simon and Danny Young.

I got out, looked up in the sky, I saw the most perfect day you could possibly imagine and immediately my mind and reason began fighting with that theory that it was an accident, because you could not have an accident on such a beautiful day. And then I found out that it was two planes and that it was a terrorist attack. But for a while it was unclear.

HEMMER: And things unfolded from there. I think one of the most startling things that I took away from what you wrote in that first chapter was standing on West Street looking up and thinking that you were seeing debris falling from the sky and they were actually bodies coming down off the towers. More than a year later, is that still indelible?

GIULIANI: Absolutely. It was the turning point for me from another very, very difficult emergency to deal with -- of which you have many if you're mayor of New York City, you virtually have one a week -- to a horrid, horrific experience, you know, well beyond anything we had ever imagined before. When I realized one of my deputy mayors, Joe Lhota, told me that there were people jumping and when I first looked up, I saw well, that can't be. And then I saw a man who just jumped out of the 102nd, 103rd floor, and I followed him all the way down. And when I saw that, I grabbed the police commissioner's arm and I said to him, "We're in uncharted territory. We're going to have to, we're going to have to really invent our response here."

And largely it turned out that the plans and preparations that we had made were the ones we relied on. And the book tries to describe that. It tries to describe how you've got to continually try to prepare for the unanticipated and even if you don't anticipate it, you'll still be prepared for it because of everything else you prepared for.

HEMMER: Yes, and it seemed to me that you were ad libbing a lot of that. We were in areas, waters that we never had been before.

GIULIANI: Right.

HEMMER: It was uncharted territory and we essentially have to make it up in a very good way from here.

Move away from that day. You remember 9/10? You remember the day before?

GIULIANI: Do I remember the day before? Not well. I very, I have very vague recollections of about a 10 day period, the two days before and the 10 days after. And some days I get the days confused. I get the, I'll get Friday confused with Saturday and I'll get an event and the sequence of it confused, because it happened so quickly.

HEMMER: The reason I bring that up is because I want to talk about you as a person. On September 10, you were described in an article as arrogant, mean-spirited and contentious.

GIULIANI: And that was one of the better articles.

HEMMER: That was a good one. GIULIANI: Yes. That was one of my fans.

HEMMER: Were you that?

GIULIANI: No, I don't think I -- I never thought I was mean- spirited. At times I was combative because I was trying to make a point and New York is a tough city to make a point. And I also have a political philosophy that's different or was different than the governing philosophy of the city. The city tended to be much more liberal in its thinking and approach. I was much more conservative in terms of economic policy, in terms of the way you deal with crime and a lot of my ideas, it took a lot of debate and discussion.

Like welfare reform. From the day I came into office, I thought it was better for people to work than to be on welfare. The governing philosophy of this city for 30 years was sign up as many people on welfare as possible. And I tried to explain that as being part of caring, compassion and really trying to help people. But the politically correct view was just the opposite.

HEMMER: Well, how about this? You say you have critics. The "New York Times" reviewed your book and they say, "The former mayor gives little credit to the role the booming economy must have played in the city's impressive reduction in crime." It continues, "Mr. Giuliani takes direct issue with criticism that his administration was not as well prepared for the attack of 9/11 as it could have been."

Is there a point to be made there?

GIULIANI: Well, about crime, the crime went down when the economy was weak as well as when the economy was strong, and crime went down in New York when it was going up in other cities. So I think that's sort of been sort of the "Times'" approach to it, that the work of the police, the COMSTAD program really didn't have an impact on crime. But the reality is eight years of crime reduction records, and a city that goes from 2,000 murders a year to under 700 every single year, when other cities were increasing, has to say something about the policing strategies that were put into effect.

So I don't think that has much to do with crime.

About preparation, the City of New York...

HEMMER: Yes, what about it?

GIULIANI: The City of New York was...

HEMMER: Could you have done more?

GIULIANI: Of course. Sure. Of course we could have done more.

HEMMER: But if you look back prior to 9/11, 9/10, you try and put a finger on what when it comes to preparation for this thing...

GIULIANI: The reality is New York City was better prepared than any city in the country, largely because we're the biggest city in the country and we have to deal with emergencies all the time. We had plans for every conceivable kind of an emergency. We faced almost every kind of an emergency. We had drills, tabletop exercises. We once went out and simulated an airplane crash in Queens, unfortunately, and tragically similar to the one that actually took place in November of last year. We once went out and did a serin gas attack, drilled for that in the shadow of the World Trade Center, calling upon us to have to utilize the hospitals and other places.

So the city was about as well prepared as a city could be, or any city was. Were we prepared for that? No, we had never anticipated that. And neither had anyone else. I wish we had. I think everyone wishes they had.

HEMMER: What's your future? Are you going to get married?

GIULIANI: Yes, but I...

HEMMER: Oh, you chuckle.

GIULIANI: But I think I'm going to leave that to be done privately, as privately as I possibly can.

HEMMER: I can't spill the news here?

GIULIANI: No.

HEMMER: I understand you told Larry King last night that that's in your future, though?

GIULIANI: You mean I proposed to Larry last night?

HEMMER: No, no, no, no, no. Not to Larry.

GIULIANI: You want the really strange one?

HEMMER: Go ahead.

GIULIANI: I was on Larry King last night and he and I were sitting at the ball game together and there were several people this morning that said to me -- they still don't understand tape and all that -- how could that happen? How could you be interviewed by Larry and be at the ball game with him? So we're going to let them ponder that and figure that one out.

HEMMER: The Yankees are 1-1. You nervous?

GIULIANI: I'm never nervous about the Yankees in October.

HEMMER: Yes, OK.

GIULIANI: I'm always confident.

HEMMER: Great to see you. OK. Thank you, again.

GIULIANI: OK.

HEMMER: Thank you.

Here's Daryn.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: You know, Bill, this might sound like a trite matter, but Mr. Mayor, I know the ladies are going to notice, the new haircut. Very nice. It looks good.

GIULIANI: Thank you.

KAGAN: It looks good. Stay with it. There you go.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com