Rudy Giuliani photo

Excerpt of an Interview on the Mike Gallagher Show

November 01, 2007

MIKE GALLAGHER: "I found the word of the day. The Boston Herald writes that on the subject of illegal immigration, clearly Senator Clinton is for-gainst. I like that word."

MAYOR GIULIANI: "Mike, we've been making this point for nine months. Hillary Clinton says one thing to one group, another thing to another group. She acquires Southern accents and Northern accents and Brooklyn accents."

GALLAGHER: "She's in favor of the war, she's not in favor of the war."

MAYOR GIULIANI: "She has voted. She voted in favor of removing Saddam Hussein, now she's against removing Saddam Hussein as if we should put Saddam Hussein back there if we could, right? She's had four or five different positions on Iran. She couldn't answer Russert's questions two debates ago on whether she would take military action against Iran if she had to. Obama said he would."

GALLAGHER: "Right. I know."

MAYOR GIULIANI: "She couldn't answer the question."

GALLAGHER: "She wouldn't even answer it. See here's—"

MAYOR GIULIANI: "This one she proved what we're all saying."

GALLAGHER: "How does a New York senator—here's what I don't get. How does a U.S. senator from that state, from New York, where this whole issue is exploding nationally with Eliot Spitzer, how does she not prepare to answer that?"

MAYOR GIULIANI: "It is a fundamental flaw, trying to be all things to all people. We all want to say things in the light most favorable to us. There are times in which we change our minds about things or circumstances change, but we don't do it all the time, every time."

GALLAGHER: "And within one minute."

MAYOR GIULIANI: "And in front of the same audience."

GALLAGHER: "In front of the same audience within a period of a minute."

MAYOR GIULIANI: "And not a tough question."

GALLAGHER: "No, it can't be tough."

MAYOR GIULIANI: "We get asked tough questions about war and peace, life and death those are tough questions. A driver's license is not a tough question. I'm sorry. You're either for it or against it. If you're for it, I think you're wrong. I think it's a real big mistake to give illegal immigrants a driver's license. But if you're for it, I can respect you for being for it."

GALLAGHER: "You know I had a friend of mine, we were out for dinner the other night—my wife and I—and a friend of mine who's a huge Rudy Giuliani supporter and a fundraiser, he said, 'You know something, Rudy Giuliani doesn't get credit for something and I want to tell you what he should be getting credit for. He was the wildly successful mayor of a city that is the centerpiece of immigration. I mean let's face it. We all know about the melting pot of New York and all the different cultures and the vast, the languages and all that, but yet as a mayor of New York, he's able to recognize as a presidential candidate that millions and millions of Americans are real upset and frustrated over illegal aliens and what it's doing to our economy nationally and all of that. And he's been able to embrace that and realize that and say, listen, as President we can't do things like give driver's licenses to illegals.' I think that was a great point he made."

MAYOR GIULIANI: "Absolutely right. And this is something where I fully realize, this is completely the responsibility of the federal government. The state and local governments can't handle it. When I was mayor of New York City, I had to work around it because I couldn't stop illegal immigration. I had to deal with the consequences of it and I think I dealt with it very successfully because I took a city that was the crime capital, made it into the safest large city in the country. But as a President, what you have to do is stop illegal immigration and the reason that giving a driver's license to illegals is a terrible mistake is it is going to take a picture of multiple documents and forged documents and it's going to make this picture hopelessly worse. It's going to make it impossible to do employer sanctions."

GALLAGHER: "Oh, it would be a nightmare."

MAYOR GIULIANI: "It's going to put TSA into a state of total confusion. Think of how often you have to use your driver's license for identification when you get on an airplane nowadays." …

Rudy Giuliani, Excerpt of an Interview on the Mike Gallagher Show Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/295747

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