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September 26, 2008

Giuliani & Wexler on "Hannity & Colmes"

Hannity & Colmes

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: But up first tonight with reaction is former New York City mayor and presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani.

Mr. Mayor, good to see you.

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK: Hi, Sean.

HANNITY: All right. Your -- just your initial impressions, reactions.

GIULIANI: I thought John scored a very big victory here. One way to judge a debate is who's on offense, who's on defense. Eight times Senator Barack Obama began his answer by saying, "Senator McCain, you're right."

HANNITY: We actually have -- the McCain campaign came out with an ad already. You want to see the ad?

GIULIANI: And, you know, the reason -- and how about five times Senator McCain had to say to him, "Well, you just don't understand."

And the reality is, in that area of foreign policy, he just doesn't understand. And I think this will reaffirm what people believe going into it. That John McCain is ready to be commander in chief, whether you're talking about Georgia, you're talking about Iraq, you're talking about Iran. And -- and Senator Obama is not.

The most extraordinary thing I think that came out of this debate, I think, is when John McCain kind of pinned him into the following position.

Senator Obama's theory about Afghanistan is that we have to lose in Iraq in order to win in Afghanistan. And Senator McCain made it very clear that, if we lose in Iraq, winning Afghanistan can be very difficult. We've got to win in Iraq in order to win also in Afghanistan.

HANNITY: Here's my general view, my general impression. And tell me if you think I'm wrong here. And I watched the entire debate and it was clear to me that Senator Obama -- he reminded me of a college students in, sort of like in a debate class.

GIULIANI: No question about it.

HANNITY: He had studied his lines.

GIULIANI: Absolutely.

HANNITY: He regurgitated his lines. But every job he's had, immediately after getting that job, he starts positioning for the next job. And what became very clear throughout the evening is that Senator McCain has real-life experience, and the only thing that Barack Obama had were the lines that were fed to him by his debate team.

GIULIANI: But I think Senator McCain was much more relaxed. He was the only one who introduced humor into the debate.

HANNITY: True.

GIULIANI: And he seemed much more...

HANNITY: Presidential?

GIULIANI: Much more, in the sense of basically explaining the reasons for his positions, rather than -- rather than slogans. And I thought -- and I thought he kind of nailed him on negotiating without pre-conditions.

HANNITY: He said it.

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: I thought that was the debate there (ph). The bottom line there...

GIULIANI: He's being duplicitous about that. He did say that.

HANNITY: He did say it.

GIULIANI: And he constantly said he didn't say it. Well, he said it. You have it on tape. You have it on tape twice. And it is a very dangerous position to take. And it is at the core of the way he looks at things.

COLMES: Mayor, the -- it seems to me -- I don't think many minds were changed tonight. You obviously, and Sean, you both support John McCain. You're a McCain supporter.

If you're a McCain supporter, did you see anything different to change your mind? If you're an Obama supporter, did you see anything different tonight to change your mind?

GIULIANI: I -- if you want to go back to the economy, I thought John labeled him, quite correctly, the most liberal member of the Senate.

COLMES: But that's been debunked.

GIULIANI: It hasn't been debunked. He has the most liberal voting record.

COLMES: The National Journal said -- the National Journal did that survey, and they cherry-picked...

GIULIANI: Well, I'll tell you what Barack Obama did to help that. Barack Obama, when asked, "What would you cut? What program would you cut?" Did not come up with a program to cut. Added three new programs, three new spending programs when he was being asked by Jim Lehrer what will you cut. Rather than saying, "I'll cut ethanol" or "I'll cut -- I'll do an across-the-board cut with agencies," which he'd opposed, he added $250 billion in spending.

So he quite accurately labels himself a big spending liberal.

COLMES: This idea of calling him liberal, liberal, liberal. The Republicans have tried this in almost every presidential race. The National Journal cherry-picked certain -- certain votes.

And John McCain they couldn't even rate, because he wasn't there for any of the votes in that particular survey.

GIULIANI: Wait a second. You guys are constantly doing right-wing, extreme right-wing, right-wing ideologue, neocon.

COLMES: Tell me where I'm wrong about that.

GIULIANI: Maybe you're wrong or right about a certain person. The simple fact is that he has a very liberal voting record, has had throughout. Even going back to the time he was in the Illinois legislature.

But the thing about tonight's debate is, in terms of the economy, where I think they both did very well -- and I was proud of both of them -- neither one of them demagogued on the economy. Neither one of them tried to take advantage of the crisis. I think John McCain laid out a conservative viewpoint, lower spending, be aggressive about it. And I think, quite honestly, Barack Obama laid out his viewpoint.

COLMES: And by the way, we showed...

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: ... alone, too.

HANNITY: You know something? One of the things that became clear is, on Russia, on Iraq, on Iran, on the economy, these are two very different visions for the American people.

GIULIANI: Isn't it -- isn't it because Barack Obama's never been to Georgia? Barack Obama's never been to Russia?

COLMES: Sarah Palin can say it, though, and it's OK on the other side.

GIULIANI: We're talking about president right now, Alan. We're talking about president of the United States. I think our ticket has the experience in the right order. We have the most experienced guy on top. They have someone with no experience. He demonstrated that tonight.

We have someone with less experience No. 2, but a very decisive person. They have somebody with a lot of experience, which I think she's going to demonstrate next week, is the wrong experience.

HANNITY: Mr. Mayor, good to see you. Thank you for being with us.

COLMES: Thank you, Mayor.

...

And joining us now for more analysis, we have Florida Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler.

Nice to see you in person.

REP. ROBERT WEXLER (D), FLORIDA: Hi, Alan.

COLMES: Hope your book is doing well.

WEXLER: It is.

COLMES: So what did you think? Did any minds changed get changed tonight? That's my big issue. Because you've got 70 percent of undecided voters, and that's the people you've got to reach. What happened tonight?

WEXLER: I think, to the extent people are looking at Barack Obama and is he ready to be president, does he have the judgment to be president, does he have the composure to be president, they would say yes.

COLMES: You have Rudy and you have Dick Morris going after Obama on foreign policy. Of course, they're both McCain supporters.

But I thought, once again, he pointed out that he had the right judgment about Iraq. The surge, yes, the military part of it worked but the whole idea was for political reconciliation. That part hasn't happened. Timeline, Maliki says, "We want you guys out. We want a timeline." That's Obama's plan that Maliki's now saying he wants.

WEXLER: I agree with you. I think he did even better than that, because he established why John McCain was wrong in Afghanistan by taking his eye off the ball, wrong in Pakistan by putting his eggs in all Musharraf's basket, wrong in Iran by refusing to engage in direct diplomacy, even though six secretaries of state have said we should engage.

COLMES: He also said we get out -- McCain said you get out of Iraq and Iraq is more vulnerable to Iran. He made Iraq vulnerable to Iran by going in in the first place. And now the Iranian influence in Iraq, and Maliki's good friend is Ahmadinejad. So I don't buy that argument.

I thought he did better on foreign policy if you really look at the facts and the context.

WEXLER: I agree. And what I also think Barack did was he showed it was in America's interests, as well as Israel's interest, to engage in direct strong diplomacy with Iran. But that's a much sensible -- more of a sensible way to develop a program to stop their nuclear weapons.

HANNITY: Let me ask you a question, because I thought there was such an obvious difference in terms of the life experience of Senator McCain versus -- it almost seemed like book knowledge, if you will, of Barack Obama. Which, by the way, there's nothing wrong with book knowledge.

But when Senator McCain would say, "I was there. I was there; I was there; I was there; I was there. I was there; I was there; I was there. And I have experience with these things, and you didn't go to Afghanistan in 900 days."

Tell us what real experience Senator Obama has had, since half the time he's been in the Senate he's been running for president. What experience does he have?

WEXLER: He's a United States Senator. He's a state senator. He was a constitutional law professor. Community organizer.

HANNITY: Community organizer. What has he accomplished specifically in the U.S. Senate that we can point to on foreign policy that will instill confidence that he can fight this war to terror?

WEXLER: Well, just last week the United States Senate put up Barack Obama's policy on Iran, which is the correct policy, which six secretaries of state, Henry Kissinger, James Baker and the Democrats, as well, agreed is the policy of choice.

HANNITY: By the way, actually -- exactly. He took out of context what Kissinger said. We'll say that in a minute.

But he also said that he would speak with rogue dictators without pre- conditions. And he once said Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, they're tiny countries. They're not a serious threat.

And like a lot of issues that, you know, he's brought up on the campaign, he's changed his mind. Do you think Iran is a tiny country and not a serious threat? That's what he said.

WEXLER: No, no, no. Iran poses a grave threat. I believe that.

HANNITY: Why do you say that? That's not what he said.

WEXLER: That's what Senator Obama believes. And ironically, six secretaries of state have endorsed what, in effect, is Barack Obama's policy for Iran and rejected the so-called experienced candidate on foreign policy, John McCain's policy.

Isn't it remarkable that -- there you go. On Pakistan, on Pakistan. Barack Obama said we need to be more aggressive to go after al Qaeda and get Usama bin Laden.

HANNITY: This is amazing. Look, I'm all for, you know, finding Usama bin Laden, wherever he is. But here's the problem. When he made that comment, Hillary Clinton said it was naive and irresponsible at the time. He's talking about invading an allied country which could result in the possible overthrow of an ally, create a theocracy, an Iranian style theocracy, with nuclear weapons. That seemed to be really, really naive.

WEXLER: Sean, I'm sorry you've become such a dove. But let's remember who hit us on 9/11. Barack Obama...

HANNITY: You want to bomb allied countries? You want to invade allied countries?

WEXLER: No.

HANNITY: Oh, OK.

WEXLER: When we have al Qaeda in our sights, when we see Usama bin Laden, we go in and get him. I'm sorry that John McCain doesn't believe that. But Barack Obama believes that he should.

HANNITY: But on issues, as we went through every issue, one of the things that I think the American people are going to benefit from -- and I'm taking off my partisan hat here for a second.

On the economy, on Georgia, on Russia, on Iraq, on Iran, on every issue that came up tonight, there are distinct, significant, major differences, not only on the issues, but on the experience and the background and the decision-making that will be necessary to move this country in these transformative, consequential times.

WEXLER: I would agree that there are distinct differences. And John McCain tonight, if I had to say his biggest failure was he lined up with George Bush, effectively, on all of those issues. And John McCain did not talk...

HANNITY: I want to show you something.

WEXLER: John McCain didn't talk about middle class Americans once.

HANNITY: We have Barack Obama eight times. The McCain campaign came up with an ad repeatedly saying, "John, you're right. You're right John. You're right. Can we have that, and we'll roll that tape.

Oh, I guess they don't have it. They're telling me they don't have it.

WEXLER: OK. The bottom line is what Barack Obama established was that John McCain was wrong on Pakistan, wrong on Afghanistan.

HANNITY: You're dreaming. He was right about the surge. And wait a minute. Joe Biden even said the presidency doesn't lend itself to on-the- job training. Hillary Clinton said the same thing. These are his fellow Democrats.

COLMES: We've got to break, guys. Guys, we've got to break.

WEXLER: Barack Obama talked -- Barack Obama talked about...

COLMES: We've got to break. We've got to run. We're got to run.

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