Sean and Alan Talk With Rudy Giuliani After GOP Debate

This is a partial transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," May 15, 2007, that has been edited for clarity.

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Mr. Mayor I know you are getting set up here. We just replayed the line that you gave to Ron Paul and his statement. You were indignant.

RUDY GIULIANI: It was sincere and it came from the heart. I mean, it reminded me of the Saudi prince who gave me the $10 million. He did the same thing. This is America's fault. The way America has outraged the world.

Look, it's real simple what happened. These people came here and killed us because of our freedom of religion, because of our freedom for women, because they hate us. And all we have to do is look at last week and these people in Fort Dix who are still here planning to kill us, three of them illegal immigrants, the other three here in other ways.

But the reality is, if you are confused about this, I think you put our country in much greater jeopardy. The reality is, these people are planning to kill us because, and this is hard for people to recognize, I usually hear this on the Democratic side. Don't usually hear it on the Republican side. You have got to face reality. If you can't face reality, you can't lead.

HANNITY: You wanted him to retract the statement.

GIULIANI: I really did.

HANNITY: And he went back and defended it more.

GIULIANI: I don't know what he said after he said that. What I wanted to say is this is precisely what that Saudi prince said, that American foreign policy has caused the attack of September 11th. We gave his $10 million back. And I never expected to hear it on a Republican presidential debate.

HANNITY: Last night you gave an answer I had not heard before on the issue of abortion, which has come up a lot for you because you have a different position from some of the other candidates. And you talked about your record in New York, about how abortions went down; adoptions went up significantly, and that you keep saying you want to reduce abortions.

GIULIANI: I respect the right to choose. But I do think that one of the things that can bring us together, Republicans and Democrats; I think most Democrats agree with this. Let's reduce abortions. We are all going to sit around and wait for the court to decide this, the court to decide that. Right now what we can do is reduce abortions and increase adoptions.

Adoptions went up over the eight years that I was mayor, compared to the eight years before, 133 percent. I think from something like 17,000 to 28,000 or 11,000 to 28,000. So I think that's the way to go; give people more information. Try to explain to them they can make a free choice against abortions.

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Mayor, when you were mayor of New York and you were running for Senate, Michael Long, the head of the Conservative Party, begged you, please come out against partial birth abortion. You didn't want to do it at that time. You even stood by your belief that a woman should have a right to choose even late term abortion. Have you changed your view and why did you change your view on late term abortion?

GIULIANI: I changed it, as I explained when I went through the 2003 testimony in Congress where they made very adequate provision for the life of the mother, which is one of the things I was concerned about. And they made findings about the health of the mother, that it wouldn't be necessary for the health of the mother. I agreed with that legislation. I agreed with Justice Kennedy's decision.

It seems to me this is one of the things that we can constructively do. It doesn't eliminate the right to choose. The right to choose remains. I think, you know, many Democrats kind of come to the same conclusion I have come to. That partial birth abortion is not an acceptable thing. And that is consistent with a right to choose.

COLMES: You know, I want to talk about what you said about Fort Dix both here with Sean just a few moments ago and in this debate tonight.

GIULIANI: Sure, be happy to.

COLMES: Calling them illegal immigrants, two of them – I mean three of the brothers came when they were one and six and in single digits chronologically. They didn't come here to commit jihad. They came here when they were kids. They grew up in the United States.

GIULIANI: This whole thing is a tremendous danger for us, abroad and here. It isn't just limited to illegal immigrants. But the reality is if we had the measures that I talk about, a tamper-proof I.D. card. A database in which everybody was entered so we knew who these people were.

I'm not saying - and I have talked to the U.S. attorney in great detail about this case. I'm not saying that we couldn't have picked this up earlier. But we may have. It would give us a better chance. I don't think anybody really opposes that, a tamper-proof I.D. card. Let everybody come forward and get that card. If they don't come forward, then let's throw them out.

The other thing we can agree on, let's throw the illegal immigrants who commit crimes out of the country. Let's stop debating that. That we can do right now.

COLMES: Toward the end of the debate, the issue of techniques of interrogation came up, more muscular techniques. How far does one go? The issue of waterboarding came up. Would you agree that you would do more muscular interrogation, more ardent interrogation? How far would you go?

GIULIANI: These are things that since the Church Committee we’ve exposed so much that we really hurt ourselves. The reality is that the hypothetical they gave, the president of the United States should say to the head of the CIA or whoever is in charge, you do what's necessary, use your judgment, save those 3,000 people.

COLMES: One person, the president, makes that decision?

GIULIANI: That's why we have a president. That's why he takes the oath of office to preserve and protect the United States of America. And if you can't take that responsibility, that's not a job you should be running for.

HANNITY: Mr. Mayor, did you have fun up there tonight?

GIULIANI: Yeah, I did.

HANNITY: You enjoy doing these debates?

GIULIANI: I thought, you know, honestly — that is not because it's FOX or whatever — I thought the questioning was fair, in the sense that it gave us all a chance to answer, and either give a good answer or a bad answer. But most of my colleagues that I had a chance to speak to afterwards, five or six of them, all were very, very pleased with the idea that we — the three questioners gave us more of a fair chance to answer. At least I felt less constrained.

HANNITY: Mr. Mayor, good to see you. Thank you for stopping by.

GIULIANI: Thank you.

HANNITY: We appreciate it.

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