Rudy Giuliani

As America’s mayor, he helped bring the nation together. Now he has plenty to say about the current crisis. This week on Firing Line.

New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on September 11th 2001

GIULIANI [9/11] The city is going to survive. It’s going to be a very, very difficult time. 

Giuliani’s next act included a presidential bid

GIULIANI [10/21/07]  I need your support, I want your support and I will fight for it! Thank you!

And now he is President Trump’s personal attorney and relentless defender

GIULIANI The president has done a superb job. 

With Giuliani’s hometown the epicenter of the pandemic  

GIULIANI: We don’t know this virus. This is a new virus.

And competing visions for what’s best for America 

TRUMP: 4/27 the testing is not going to be a problem at all.

CUOMO 4/28  the testing has been a big problem. 

What does Rudy Giuliani say now?

‘FIRING LINE’ WITH MARGARET HOOVER IS MADE POSSIBLE BY THE FOLLOWING.

HOOVER: Mayor Rudy Giuliani, welcome back to Firing Line. Now, before we get started, I want to acknowledge that we have met before. I moved to New York City to work for you when you were first contemplating a presidential bid in 2006, and I later married your longtime chief speechwriter, one undeniable, lasting legacy of your presidential ambition. 

GIULIANI: One of the better things I did.

HOOVER: One of the lasting legacies of your presidential campaign is my marriage and my children. 

GIULIANI: And there aren’t too many others.

HOOVER: So let’s get to COVID-19. There are now in New York City 160,000 cases of COVID-19, and four times as many people have died in New York City of COVID-19 than in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Now, you know as much as anybody about the spirit of New Yorkers. And I want to start by asking you, how do you think that New York City will be able to overcome this pandemic? 

GIULIANI: New York City will overcome it. But in a different way than September 11, because this is a different kind of an attack. You know, September 11, I’d had the benefit of about four or five days. We could contain what had to be done to ground zero. Then we could work with the rest of the city on coming back, you know, bring Broadway back, bring baseball back. Bring, bring restaurants back, put the kids, back in school. Responsibly, you can’t do that now. And you and when you do do it, you’re going to have to do it carefully. So I think there’s a worry in people’s mind, will we return to normal? I think we were able to establish that thought in people’s heads about September 11th, 10 or 12, 15 days later. So I sort of see this as the first two weeks of September 11, except extend it out until we do get back to normal. And it’s doing a lot of damage to us. I’m not even sure it’s about economic. We can count that. It’s doing a lot of emotional damage to us that I’m not sure we even understand yet. 

HOOVER: For people who are maybe less aware of your role as mayor and dealing with public health crises. I want to get to that. But first, I want to let people know something they may not know about you. That I didn’t know about you, is that you’ve become a bit of a photographer. And as the city has been shut down, you have been in a position to be photographing an empty city. Let’s look at this picture. It’s a photo that you took of Fifth Avenue on March 21st. And you wrote, “Fifth Avenue at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday looks abandoned. But my New Yorkers are doing their part to flatten the curve. God bless them and protect us all.”

GIULIANI: I’m still at the point where I feel like I’m in a surreal, feel like I’m in a movie set. I feel like I’m, I’m in a movie where the world ended. There were a few survivors left. And now I’m walking around the city trying to find them. I’ve even had kind of a dream like that. I cannot fathom the city like this. It’s much more, it’s much more difficult for me than I thought it would be. 

HOOVER: Look, when you first came to office in 1994, you confronted a public health crisis in the, in the form of an emerging number of tuberculosis cases — 

GIULIANI: Yes. 

HOOVER: — that were rising because people who had been given prescriptions were not completing the course of the medication and they were returning home, not staying on the medication. And you were seeing outbreaks of tuberculosis around the city. Do you see any similarities between how you started to think about tuberculosis and stemming those outbreaks with the COVID 19 outbreaks? 

GIULIANI: That convinced me that, number one, government did have a role that could be useful because I’m generally, you know, conservative and my view is let medicine handle it. But medicine can’t organize a city. Only the city can organize the city. And number two, it said to me that people, people will listen if you approach them reasonably. 

HOOVER: So I mean, one of the issues that you deal with as a mayor when it comes to public health is that you have to make decisions that prioritize public health regardless of what the nation’s federal immigration policy is. And, for example, if undocumented immigrants are too afraid to avail themselves of the city’s public hospitals or frankly, public safety, they won’t use the public hospitals. 

GIULIANI: 100 percent correct Margaret

HOOVER: You signed an executive order that would protect unauthorized immigrants in New York City, and here’s what you said about it. Take a look.

GIULIANI 1996: It basically says if they seek to use city services that are critical to their health and safety and critical to the health and safety of other people, then their names will not be turned into the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

HOOVER: In light of COVID 19, doesn’t what you said in the 1990’s still remain relevant?

GIULIANI: Sure. And the logic of it remains relevant and the reality of it. To let illegal immigrants alone to, to ignore them or to just round them up in large numbers without regard for the fact that this terribly, terribly contagious disease is running around is just going to make the disease worse, obviously, for them. But if I can’t appeal to your charitable instincts, it can make it worse for you. I never considered us a sanctuary city. If you were a criminal, I turned you over to immigration service. But just out of the goodness of your heart, somebody who’s just got knifed and they’re illegal, you’re not gonna say, go die on the street corner. I mean, what kind of country are we if we do that? 

HOOVER: So let me ask you then. President Trump just this week said that he would tie COVID funding for states to sanctuary city policy. Now, regardless of whether you think New York was a sanctuary city or not, in terms of public health, if you’re a mayor is that, is that helpful? 

GIULIANI Well, it depends

HOOVER: Does that make it more difficult for immigrants to report, to turn up to hospitals?  

GIULIANI: As often is the case, you know, it’s the devil’s in the details. I think both sides argue in extremis. And then you’re —

HOOVER: Is it a good  idea to tie COVID funding to sanctuary city policy? 

GIULIANI:  No, you should — Or you should tie it to a sanctuary city policy, that’s a sensible sanctuary city policy. Remember, if you treat them inhumanely it’s going to have repercussions in their behavior and it’s going to hurt you.

GIULIANI 1999, ON FIRING LINE: I think that if the American people, as they relate to the president or to politics, have certain core things that they’re interested in… 

HOOVER: This isn’t the first time that you have been on Firing Line. You were also on the original incarnation of the program with William F. Buckley Junior in 1999 when you were mayor. 

GIULIANI 1999, CONT.: The American people, they’re interested in the economy. They’re interested in jobs. They become interested in foreign policy only when there’s an overriding threat or overriding concern. There are threats, but they’re not seen as overriding threats. The whole issue of terrorism is not one that engaged engages the American people. 

HOOVER: One of the things I find remarkable about that clip is that the video was just, that was just two years before 9/11. And you actually raise the issue of terrorism as a threat. Was terrorism, Mr. Mayor, something that was front of mind for you even in 1999? 

GIULIANI: Yes, well, it was for me. But there’s a special reason for that. Remember when I ran, I ran in 1993. In the early part of 1993, January, there was an attack on the World Trade Center by a specific group of Islamic extremist terrorists from a mosque in New Jersey. And their intent was to take down the entire World Trade Center. They didn’t, but they killed a sufficient number of people and they had a history of having killed people. 

HOOVER: During 9/11 and right after 9/11, you, the mayor of New York City, would sit at a table with Governor Pataki, the governor of the state of New York three times a day, twice a day, to cut through red tape and to make decisions and to work together. First of all, I want to… Why’d you do it that way? 

GIULIANI: Because it gets things done. Every decision was a joint decision. When we made a mistake, we made it together. We’re not going to be pointing fingers at each other. So things got done very, very, very, very quickly. 

HOOVER: So would that degree of coordination be useful now?

GIULIANI: Well, it would be an imperative for the city that’s the, that’s the epicenter. Remarkably, the president and Cuomo, despite the fact that they have taken some interesting jabs at each other, which as a New Yorker, I can’t imagine they’d spend four weeks talking and not do that a little bit. I see a good relationship. That’s about as good as it gets. 

HOOVER: Mh hmm. 

GIULIANI: The problem here is the mayor and the governor. And I think de Blasio is deficient in giving hope. 

HOOVER: Let me ask you more about messaging, because you were remarkably candid with the public in the wake of 9/11, almost immediately, like as soon as you got and did your very first press conference, you were, you were honest, you were open, you were empathetic. I want to play you a clip from that very first press conference. 

REPORTER: Do we know the number of casualties at this point, sir?

GIULIANI: I don’t, I don’t think we really want to speculate about that. The number of casualties will be more than any of us can bear ultimately. 

HOOVER: Were there ever times where you tried to hold back the truth from the public during a crisis so as to prevent unnecessary fear?

GIULIANI: Sure, absolutely.

HOOVER: Or unfounded hope? 

GIULIANI:  Yes, both.

HOOVER: What would you say is the key to a successful and effective crisis communications as a leader? 

GUILIANI: Truthfulness. And discretion. It’s a balance of being truthful, but at the same time understanding that you have to have discretion. 

HOOVER: Do you have any advice for President Trump as he’s briefing the country on the COVID pandemic right now?

GIULIANI: Well, I think I think he should, he should deal kind of with the big picture. And he should make it clear that the real answers are at the state and local level, because the answer in New York is gonna be very different than the answer in Texas. He should talk about the needs that have been brought to him. When he can supply them. How he’s going to supply them. I think the fact that he’s shortening them now is better because we just have to recognize the reality — and I’m saying this now as just as a fact, not as a political complaint — the press doesn’t like him. And they’re not going to give him.. If he says something that could have two explanations, they’re gonna go with the one that makes him look foolish as opposed to giving him a break. 

HOOVER: So one of the things that was covered last week was that President Trump, in the most generous portrayals of of what happened when he he the most generous portrayals use the word musing — that President Trump ‘mused’ about the possibility of injecting, in fact, disinfectants as a way of curing COVID or treating COVID. Just in drawing on your own experience as a clear, confident, transparent communicator to your constituency, is it useful when you muse, or when you process out loud new information? Or is it better, as you said, to hold some things back? 

GIULIANI:  Probably a balance. You can’t, you can’t, at times… At times, you have to go beyond in order to move public thinking. But you’ve got to examine that very carefully. And you’ve got to wait a while before you do it. And I think you could have interpreted that… That could’ve been interpreted differently as he would, he was musing it wasn’t serious. It was either sarcastic or or possibly a thought from a person who’s not a scientist. He wasn’t telling people to do it. He was saying this is a possibility of something that could be…

HOOVER: Does it help him, when he thinks out loud?

GIULIANI: And he always makes it clear it should be done by doctors. Having said that, this was probably something that should have been given, should have been, should have gone through a moot court, which I think of as a lawyer. 

HOOVER: You’re saying he shouldn’t be musing, doing his musings out loud, his musings.

GIULIANI: Sometimes he should and sometimes he shouldn’t. This one turns out to be one where..

HOOVER: maybe not .

GIULIANI: ..not.

HOOVER: You said the most important thing is telling the truth. And the challenge with the president is that many people don’t trust that he’s telling the truth. . 

GIULIANI: Well he is telling the truth as he knows it. Maybe, maybe what he should do is withhold it at certain points. Like, for example, let’s go to the hydroxy- quino- uh- 

HOOVER: Hydroxychloroquine, yes. 

GIULIANI: So I know a lot about hydroxychloroquine and people think I do because it’s like a conspiracy between the president and me. We both found out about it differently. And in fact, I was, I was amazed that he knew about it. So in the effort to try to give people hope, he said there are these, there are these medicines that can be used. He said, talk to your doctor. A lot of people are very appreciative of that. 

HOOVER: The Food and Drug Administration just this week gave guidelines that hydroxychloroquine should not be used except for in a hospital setting because of this fear of heart rhythm problems. Now I think that I’ve seen you promote hydroxychloroquine, I’ve seen the president promote hydroxychloroquine, and of course, to have a therapeutic that could help the American people would also be helpful to President Trump. But the flip side is, if the studies show that there is a danger to using it, it could also be detrimental.

GIULIANI: Please don’t think that the Food and Drug Administration isn’t a somewhat politicized organization. I mean, I dealt with them. I dealt with them over West Nile virus, them and the CDC. And they both told me for 10 days that there was no West Nile virus. So I deal. I deal with them like they’re regular human beings, not like they’re gods. So I have a study here from Turkey that says that by giving hydroxychloroquine to the very people that they’re saying shouldn’t get it. The people that are not in the hospital, they reduced the number of deaths. 

HOOVER: Do you think that the FDA is not reviewing the same studies that you’re reviewing?

GIULIANI: I think the FDA has a bias because the president revealed it. I think they want him to pay a price for it.

HOOVER: Wait, do you think the FDA has a bias against the president? 

GIULIANI: This isn’t the first time the FDA has been political, Margaret. The FDA in these things gets political.

HOOVER: All right. So we should trust the audience, I think what you’re saying is the audience should doubt the FDA- 

[Crosstalk]

GIULIANI: Trust their doctor! Don’t trust the president, don’t trust me. I’m not telling you, I’m not telling you to trust me. I’m not telling you to trust the president. Trust your doctor. He’s going to be better than the FDA.

HOOVER: Look, if you were mayor of New York you said you’d rely on your health department. If you were president of The United States I think you would rely on your HHS, your CDC, your FDA. And I know that you’re looking at other studies. I think if you were president, you would probably be behind the scenes asking these same questions and now you’re doing it publicly, to elevate this question. But it goes towards this distrust in the institutions, which makes people even more confused. 

GIULIANI: Well, unfortunately, I do distrust the institutions because I’ve seen them fail. And they’re not gods. But they are part of the class of people that thinks they’re smarter than everyone else. And they certainly think they’re smarter than just mere doctors. And sometimes I think the mere doctors, who are closer to the scene, are smarter.

HOOVER: So let’s talk about reopening. Governor Cuomo has said that by May 15th, in a very phased and methodical way, New York will begin to open up some of its businesses. Some of the economy will begin to return. While New York is the hardest hit, a recent study by the investment bank Raymond James has found that only four states — Kansas, Montana, Washington and Wyoming — meet all of the criteria from the White House reopening guidelines. 

GIULIANI: Right

HOOVER: While there are other states that are already reopening — Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina —  that don’t meet the federal guidelines to begin reopening. How seriously should states be taking the White House reopening guidelines? 

GIULIANI: I think we should take the White House guidelines as exactly what they are, guidelines. Governors have their own discretion, right? So they can read them and apply them to their states. We have to assume that if they’re not following them, they’ve got a reason for it. Maybe they should articulate it, what the reason is. From New York’s point of view — and this doesn’t really answer the question, but it gives New York an advantage — I think Cuomo has, I think Cuomo’s right on what he did with May 15th. It gives him time to watch that, 

HOOVER: Right

GIULIANI: I mean, he’s going to have he can be. He’s going to be in a much better position. And he should be. New York should not have been the first to open up. The worst hit shouldn’t be the first to… We should probably be near the last or at least in the second half ‘cause he’ll get to see what, Georgia took a risk. The president was against Georgia opening up, which is kind of remarkable, right, ‘cause he wants us to open up quickly. President said he thinks he thinks you’re doing it too fast. Let’s see what happens in Georgia. If that works, then I guess we have to say, maybe we have to modify our opinion a bit. If Texas works, we do. If things get bad there in a week or two, then then the governor may have to push it back. But I hope that’s the way we’re approaching it. I mean, a few states, I can’t tell you if it was the right thing or the wrong thing to do. But from the point of view of an overall solution to it, it’s probably a good idea that a few states violated the guidelines and we can find out, for the other states, do we need them or don’t we need them? Let’s hope it doesn’t result in anything terrible. 

HOOVER: I know it brings laboratories of democracy to a whole  new level of meaning, doesn’t it? 

GIULIANI: And you know what? We can’t not open at a point where there’ll be no risk of disease. That just doesn’t exist. I mean, society, we live with the risk of disease, probably worse risks, every day. So we’ve got to we’ve got to, we’ve got to open when there’s no unreasonable risk of disease. 

HOOVER: Do you, you’ve expressed a concern that some states restrictions are too stringent. And I want you to take a look at something you’ve said and then explain it to us on the back end. Let’s take a look. 

GIULIANI CLIP: We’re at the point now where the cases are declining, it’s all going in the other direction and we’re putting more restrictions on. That doesn’t make any sense. It’s starting to sound like they want to carry these restrictions into October and November, not to save lives, but for power and greed.

HOOVER: You said that there are leaders who are not just doing it, not just to save lives, but for power and for greed. 

GIULIANI: Absolutely right. 

HOOVER: Why? Can you explain that?

GIULIANI: For some of these lefties who want a government controlled state this is Nirvana and it’s gonna be hard for them to give it up. They love it. De Blasio’s been trying to get people out of prison for five years. He passed a bail law that’s ridiculous. Now we can just let him out. 

HOOVER: Do you really believe that a pandemic that’s killed thousands and thousands of people is a nirvana for anyone?

GIULIANI: No, no, I didn’t, I didn’t mean that they, that they are glorying in the deaths of people. 

HOOVER: Is it that all of their motivations are about power and greed or is it simply that these are sort of earnest, best attempts at trying to flatten the curve, stem the tide, tackle the pandemic? 

GIULIANI: Yes, to both. I think the overwhelming majority of people in this country — left, right and middle — want this thing cured for everybody. But there are people who take advantage of a crisis, a crisis usually means people are dying, take advantage of it. Horrible, horrible. I don’t do that. I never ran I never ran any of these emergencies, and I ran a lot more than they did, with the slightest political thought in my mind. 

HOOVER: Do you believe that there’s a way to balance individual liberties and privacy… 

GIULIANI: Yeah, there is. And it should be.

HOOVER: …with public health?  

GIULIANI: Individual liberty should prevail unless there’s a real emergency. And at this point, we’re almost out of the real emergency. Our healthcare system is not overwhelmed. New York sent the hospital ship back. There are hospital beds available in New York, the worst place. The rest of the country, the health care system isn’t overwhelmed. The putative reason for this extreme deprivation of civil liberties, overriding civil liberties in a way we’ve never done before, is now over. 

HOOVER: Mr. Mayor, we talked about this earlier and you talked about how you thought that New Yorkers had done a good job of voluntarily choosing to stay home. Look, nobody locked people in their homes. People are allowed to go to the grocery store. People are allowed to go outside. New Yorkers voluntarily flattened the curve.  And they’re getting their, their civil liberties aren’t gone. 

[crosstalk]

GIULIANI: That was true… But Margaret, that was true at the– that was true at the beginning.

HOOVER: Well, but could this re-occur? I mean, 53– more people have died now in the United States than died in Vietnam. So this wasn’t for no reason. 

GIULIANI: I didn’t say was for no reason. 

HOOVER: So–  

GIULIANI: There was a– there were different reasons for different things. The premise for keeping people so restricted, as they are now, is that we’re in this unbelievable emergency. And that emergency is that our healthcare system is overwhelmed. It isn’t. 

HOOVER: Or could be easily again. 

GIULIANI: Well, then we’ll do it again if we have to. 

HOOVER: This is such a contagious disease that we could be in a far worse position if we ease off. Look, we have to responsibly reengage in a way that won’t make it worse. It would be worse for Broadway to reopen now and then close again in the fall. Half of Broadway would go bankrupt.

GIULIANI: I agree with that. But Broadway should have a plan to reopen. And then we should start small. And if it works, then go forward. We should have an aggressive plan to reopen. Not all at once. But we shouldn’t resist it. 

HOOVER: I just want, I want to read you a headline that, sort of, brings us back to where we started, which is, “COVID-19 is our 9/11. Who will be our Rudy Giuliani?” And the author has some reflections on your time in leadership during 9/11, and the Rudy Giuliani that the public sees today. And I’m sure you’ve heard it. People who’ve known you for a long time, have wondered and they’ve said what’s happened to Rudy Giuliani? Has he changed in some way? 

GIULIANI: People mostly are angry at me because I represented Trump. I represented Trump as a lawyer, as his defense lawyer, to defend him with all the talent that I have, and with all the enthusiasm that I have, and with all the passion that I have. I do that for every client of mine. That makes me a great lawyer. In the old days, it’d have made me a hero. Trump was a controversial cause and I was the one willing to take up the controversial clause so he had the right to counsel. So that’s me, still me, same person. It’s just that people with political biases that they can’t get beyond make me a bad guy for it. 

HOOVER:Well, with that, Mayor Giuliani, you have been very generous with your time. Thank you for returning to Firing Line, and–  

GIULIANI: Well, I enjoyed it! 

HOOVER: –being super engaging.

GIULIANI: Thank you, Margaret. As usual, you were terrific.