Oct. 9 Republican debate transcript

Giuliani: Pardon me?

Bartiromo: Is London going to replace New York as the financial capital of the world, and if so, what are you going to do to change that?

Giuliani: (Laughs.) No how, no way. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen.

(Applause.)

Bartiromo: Well, we're seeing an increased number --

Giuliani: Come on.

Bartiromo: We're seeing increased amounts of business go to London. (Cross talk, Laughter.)

Giuliani: Let's stop all this stuff with our head down. London going to replace New York? Give me a break. Of course, London's not going to replace New York.

Bartiromo: Well, the number of IPOs is higher in London in '07 than in New York.

Giuliani: Or is the U.K. going to replace the United States of America? This is the strongest economy on earth. It's the last best hope of humanity. We have been like that. If this generation can't keep it that way, shame on us. This country is the leader in the world. When Congressman Tancredo talks about the immigration problem, how about -- look at it this way.

What country do millions of people want to come to -- the United States of America. What country -- I don't care if they bash us all over the world. What country do they most want to come to? What country do they most want to copy? What are China and India trying to do? China and India are trying to develop themselves to be like us, which is why we've got a heck of a lot we can sell to them, if we just put on our entrepreneurial hats and act like confident Americans.

Bartiromo: So how do you explain the loss of business in New York going to London? How do you explain some companies complaining about Sarbanes-Oxley and complaining about -- (inaudible) -- society in America?

Giuliani: Well, I explain it based on some of the mistakes that we make when we overregulate and we overtax. Our corporate tax rate is the second highest in the world. The president of France wants to lower the corporate tax rate.

Everybody around the world wants to lower corporate tax rates but the leading Democratic candidates, who want to raise taxes 25 or 30 percent. (Applause.) That would be a disaster for this country.

Bartiromo: Governor Romney, same question.

Romney: Is London going to replace New York? Of course not. Should we fix Sarbanes-Oxley and take out Section 404 as it applies to smaller companies? Of course we should.

Is this country the hope of the world? Absolutely.
And would I support the Republican nominee? Of course. I want that nominee, however, to come out of the same mold as Ronald Reagan. And that's somebody who is strong for our military, strong for our economy and strong for our family values.

And by the way, in terms of supporting these guys -- (applause) -- I'd -- you know, I've come to know these people now over these debates. How many -- is this our sixth debate, I think, something like that? And this has a lot -- this is a lot like "Law and Order," Senator. (Laughter.) It --

Matthews: Okay, thank you.

Romney: No, it has a huge cast, the series seems to go on forever --

Matthews: Okay.

Senator --

Romney: -- and Fred Thompson shows up at the end. (Laughter, applause, cross talk.)

Matthews: Senator --

Thompson: And to think I thought I was going to be the best actor on the stage. (Laughter.)

Matthews: Okay. Let me ask you, Senator -- this is the first presidential debate up near the border. We're only a few minutes from the Canadian border. We're surrounded, in fact very close to our strongest trading partner. We buy more from Canada than we do from China. We sell them about four times as much as we buy from them.

They're incredibly friendly with us, although they don't share our foreign policy. Tell me about the prime minister of Canada, how we can get along with -- who is the prime minister of Canada?

Thompson: Harper.

Matthews: Okay. Tell me about him.

Thompson: Prime Minister Harper.

Matthews: What are relations going to be? We always ignore that relationship.

Thompson: Well, I've never met him, but our relationship is fine. (Laughter.)

Matthews: Just leave him alone. Just leave it alone. I mean, my point is, our friends don't get much attention. Do you have any thoughts?

Thompson: Well, our friends ought to get plenty of attention. I mean, the challenges that we're going to face internationally, especially in the future, are going to require our working better with our allies and realizing, for example, that in the global war on terror, this is a (fight ?) by the forces of civilization against the bad guys. And everybody's got a stake in it, whether they realize it or not.

So, certainly we ought to work with Canada economically. We -- we -- we get more oil from them, I guess, than anybody. And they have more potential oil to sell than an awful lot of people. So they're important economically, and all of our allies are important for our national security.

Matthews: Okay. Thank you, Senator.

Bartiromo: Government Huckabee, how do you fix airline travel in this country, and how do you pay for it?

Huckabee: Well, as president, that would be one of the first things I'd like to do, since I've spent most of my year on an airline this entire time. (Laughter.) First of all, we've got to have the kind of technology on the ground that we have in the cockpit. We've got Jetsons-level technology that's running the cockpit; we have the Flintstones technology on the ground that's controlling the airplanes. (Laughter.) And it's ridiculous.

And the second thing, we've got an incredibly archaic method of the controls where you have incredible traffic coming in to key hubs. I don't want to re-regulate the industry, but the industry's going to have to start either getting in the program -- and one thing they've got to stop doing is holding the passengers hostage on airplanes for hours and hours without any way of being able to get off those planes. And part of it, I think, is let's make sure that the consumer gets a voice in what happens. And it's out of control –