‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Dec. 9, 2007

MR. GIULIANI:  No it wasn’t.  You got it all—no, it wasn’t.

MR. RUSSERT:  Bernard Kerik, police commissioner, said there was no protection given before December 2000, and that is not a true statement.

MR. GIULIANI:  No, but, Tim, our, our relationship became public in May of 2000.  So when he said before 2000 is a whole big portion of 2000 where our relationship was public, there were threats, they had to be responded to.  The police department did every single thing that was done for Judith, or for me, or for anybody else close to me, was based upon threat assessments made by other people who are professionals here, and they’ve made it very clear that that, that that’s the case.  And this is beyond any doubt the way it was done.

MR. RUSSERT:  Using that reasoning, would it be appropriate for a president to provide Secret Service protection for his mistress?

MR. GIULIANI:  It would not be appropriate to, to do it for that reason, Tim, and that isn’t, that, that isn’t the right way to—you know, that isn’t the right way to, to analyze it or to say this.  The reason it’s done is because somebody threatens to do harm, and the people who assess it come to the conclusion that it is necessary to do this.  The reality is that it all came about because of my public position, because of the fact that when people are public or celebrities these kinds of threats take place.  And the New York City Police Department has rules; they applied the rules, they applied them in exactly the same way as they always apply them.  I did not make the judgment. I didn’t ask for it.  Judith didn’t particularly want it, but it was done because they took the view that it was serious and it had to be done this way. And it was done the way they wanted to do it.

In fact, when you get security like this—and many people think, you know, this is a great convenience.  And, and this is not at all to suggest that I don’t have great respect for the processionals who do this.  Honestly, Tim, I know how it gets played in the media.  This is not something you would want. You would not want to have this security, because it is coming about because somebody has threatened to do terrible things to you or your family and professionals have evaluated it that way and feel you need the security.  And you say to them, “Can I do this?  Can I do that?  Can I go here?  Can I go there?” And they tell you, “No, you can’t.” So this is not something—I know how it gets played, but this is not something that anybody ever desires.  I remember the first time it happened with me.  I mean, the things that I liked to do, I couldn’t, I couldn’t do any more, because they would tell me “You can’t do it this way.  You have to do it another way.”

MR. RUSSERT:  We’re going to have to take another quick break.

MR. GIULIANI:  Thank you.

MR. RUSSERT:  More of our discussion with Mayor Rudy Giuliani right after this.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  And we’re back.  Our remaining minutes with Rudy Giuliani.

Mike Huckabee, leading the field in Iowa, told the Associated Press back in the ‘90s that AIDS patients should be quarantined and that “homosexuality was aberrant, unnatural and a sinful lifestyle.” What’s your reaction?

MR. GIULIANI:  My reaction is that I haven’t seen—on the second of that, I haven’t seen Mike’s comment.  The first one I think he says that he didn’t have the information, that he’s changed his mind about it, it’s not his current position.  Look, I got enough of my own statements and issues, as we’ve seen, that I have to deal with.  I think Mike has to...

MR. RUSSERT:  But you don’t believe homosexuality is aberrant...

MR. GIULIANI:  Oh, no, no, no.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...unnatural or sinful.

MR. GIULIANI:  My, my, my—no, I don’t believe it’s sinful.  My, my moral views on this come from the, you know, from the Catholic Church, and I believe that homosexuality, heterosexuality as a, as a way that somebody leads their life is not—isn’t sinful.  It’s the acts, it’s the various acts that people perform that are sinful, not the—not the orientation that they have.

MR. RUSSERT:  The Congress is discussing and...

MR. GIULIANI:  Which includes me, by the way.  I mean, you know, unfortunately, I’ve had my own sins that I’ve had to confess and had to deal with and try to overcome and so I’m very, very empathetic with people, and that we’re all, we’re all imperfect human beings struggling to, to try to be better.

MR. RUSSERT:  Congress—the House has passed an energy bill which would mandate 35 miles per gallon per automobiles by the year 2020.  Would you support that?

MR. GIULIANI:  That isn’t the way I think it should be done.  I think what we should be doing is developing the alternatives so it’s possible to accomplish that as opposed to just setting mandates and not having the support there for expansion of hybrid vehicles, expansion of biofuels, including ethanol. Expansion...

MR. RUSSERT:  But you’re against increasing miles per gallon.

MR. GIULIANI:  I would not do it that way, yes.  I would do it with heavy expansion of hybrid vehicles, which move some of the sources over to electricity, then deal with clean coal, nuclear power, hybrid vehicles, expansion of hydroelectric power, more oil refineries, more domestic oil.  All of those things are the things that we should be supporting.  And we should be selling that to the, to the rest of the world, because if, if—no matter what we do, if China and India and these other countries that are developing don’t start to get control on this, it’s going to wipe out any good that we do.  So the real emphasis here should be on developing energy independence and creating these alternative industries.

MR. RUSSERT:  Would you pledge to balance the budget if you were elected president?

MR. GIULIANI:  Sure, I would make the goal—I would make it a goal of...

MR. RUSSERT:  But not a pledge.

MR. GIULIANI:  I don’t do pledges.  I didn’t do a pledge on taxes.  I stated my intention.  I said my intention is to lower taxes.  I have a record of lowering taxes.  My intention would be to balance the budget.  I have a record of eight balanced budgets in a city where we had some serious economic and financial difficulties at various times, and we figured out a way to balance the budget.  So I have a really good record on that.

MR. RUSSERT:  Now, you have been well known as a New York Yankee fan. However, we have done our research.

MR. GIULIANI:  Oh, my goodness.

MR. RUSSERT:  This is Rudy Giuliani as a young man wearing a Red Sox uniform.

MR. GIULIANI:  You caught me.

MR. RUSSERT:  You were a Red Sox fan before you were a Yankee fan.

MR. GIULIANI:  I played on a Little League team that was called the Red Sox. And I’m going to tell you—I don’t know if you have the picture—I also played on a Little League team—and that was, that was not the tough one then.  I played on a Little League team called the Dodgers also, which caused me a lot, a lot of grief with my Yankee fans.  But, but I was—it was one of the happiest parts of my life when I played Little League.

MR. RUSSERT:  I won’t show you the pictures from the Inner Circle dinner with the wig on.

Mayor Rudy Giuliani, we’re out of time.  Be safe on the campaign trail.

MR. GIULIANI:  Thanks, Tim.  Thank you.

MR. RUSSERT:  And as part of our Meet the Candidates 2008 series we’ve invited all the major candidates for president to appear here for an in-depth interview.  Next Sunday, Republican candidate Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, will be here for the full hour.  That’s next Sunday, Mitt Romney, here for his first appearance on MEET THE PRESS.

We’re also archiving the transcripts and videos of our entire series on our Web site.  Voters can review the candidates’ responses and positions throughout the campaign.  We’ve posted the full results of the new MSNBC Mason-Dixon poll on our Web site as well.  Click on Firstread link at mtp.msnbc.com.

That’s all for today.  We’ll be back next week.  If it’s Sunday, it’s MEET THE PRESS.

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