Rudy Giuliani expresses deep depression over the NYC mayoral election, fearing Zohran Mamdani's victory will usher in socialism and Islamic extremism. He attacks Mamdani's alleged ties to an imam linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and condemns Democratic corruption spanning 170 years, including Cuomo's parole laws. Giuliani dismisses Mamdani's economic plans as unconstitutional tax hikes that will destroy the city, while acknowledging a potential Republican gain in Congress if Mamdani wins. Ultimately, he portrays the race as a existential struggle against communism and terrorism. [Automatically generated summary]
I feel to some extent, like people have said to me occasionally in sympathy rather than in some kind of condemnation.
They said, all the work you've done has been, they've reversed it between de Blasio.
Adams tried a little, but was totally ineffective.
And now what this guy is promising, it's as if I was never mayor, Bloomberg was never mayor, and we never had maybe the best 20 years in our history.
I mean, I remember New York City in 1998 being on the front cover of Time magazine as the resurgence of urban America after having been on the cover in 1990 as the rotting of the big apple.
I mean, I remember the seven-year turnaround.
I mean, I guided it.
And it wasn't magic.
It was just very, very solid, practical policies.
And something very important to this: honesty.
New York City has been a corrupt Democratic machine for most of 170 years, with a few interruptions where a Republican occasionally wins for an independent.
Like I was the third Republican elected in the 20th century.
In the 19th century, New York didn't vote for Lincoln.
Boss Tweed is from New York.
So we either, I mean, we have been plagued with a thoroughly dishonest government almost consistently in our history and still emerged as the greatest city in the world to be burdened now with socialism.
And there's another part of him that's maybe even more dangerous, Islamic extremism.
He is a very enthusiastic supporter of Islamics who are dedicated to killing us.
I mean, that's remarkable.
The socialism, we might be able to work around.
A lot of it's got to get the approval of the state legislature.
Trump can cut off and defund a lot of it.
And I think he'll be voted out.
So I am worried about him on the socialist side, but I'm more worried about him on the part that isn't emphasized as much.
I've never seen anybody as enthusiastically support Islamic terrorism as he does.
The Imam that he was with a week or two ago, I know him from when I was a U.S. attorney.
He has such a long history.
He is officially considered an enemy of the United States.
What does this all tell you about the changing electorate of New York City?
Meaning that people saw, you know, some, you know, a decade that was pretty good under Ed Koch in the 80s.
Then they go the other way with Dinkins.
And he was really, he, in essence, was a Democrat socialist.
He's the one that largely destroyed the city that led to Rudy Giuliani.
You cleaned it up.
I remember that vividly.
As you know, I grew up in the suburbs, but I had grandparents and great-grandparents and cousins in New York City.
We basically didn't go to the city those Dinkin years.
They would come to us, but then we could go back in when you took over.
But right now, it seems like they're just going with all of the wrong ideas.
What does that tell you about the average New Yorker?
You know, when we think of the New Yorker that's out there, you know, dropping the F-bomb every other word and doesn't, you know, and is like, that cares, that cares, the stereotypical New Yorker.
There's no doubt the makeup of the city has changed pretty significantly from when I was mayor.
But the worst part about New York is apathy.
I mean, the worst part is New Yorkers take it for granted.
They take it for granted they're the greatest city in the world and it'll always work out.
The turnout today is likely to be the highest turnout since I ran against Dinkins.
Since those races, all through the Bloomberg years, they went down and down and down.
I think we were 29 or 30% when we re-elected de Blasio.
I mean, that's absurd.
And a lot of the people that stay home are the non-ideological people that would reject the incredible lack of common sense in the left-wing agenda.
You know, free buses.
Well, who the hell is going to pay for them?
Free grocery stores.
Who's going to pay for them?
Tax the rich.
Well, eventually you'll have nobody to tax.
And, you know, if we're not there, we're pretty close to it.
I know the budget of New York City.
I had to memorize it.
I had to spend more time on the budget than crime.
The budget of New York City is a complete disaster.
The one thing Adams didn't fix at all is the budget.
In fact, a lot of the reasons for his investigations are that these contracts will cost him two and three times more in New York than elsewhere, which creates a suspicion that New York was operating, as it has in most of its 170 years, with kickbacks.
And there's no question that Zondami, whether he does or not, he's so incompetent, among other things.
The city will become even more crooked.
They'll steal everything from under his nose or he'll be complicit in.
Well, the only good moment, it seems to me, that Cuomo has had in this entire candidacy or this entire run has been at the debate a week and a half ago where he finally called out Momdami for just being flatly unqualified, if nothing else.
But I want to read this post that Donald Trump put on Truth Social because it references something that you just said.
He wrote, if communist candidate Zorhan Mamdani wins the election for mayor of New York City, it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing federal funds other than the very minimum as required to my beloved first home because of the fact that as a communist, this once great city has zero chance of success or even survival.
It can only get worse with a communist at the helm, and I don't want to send as president good money after bad.
It is my obligation to run the nation, and it is my strong conviction that New York City will be a complete and total economic and social disaster should Momdami win.
His principles have been tested for over a thousand years and never once have they been successful.
I would much rather see a Democrat who has a record of success win than a communist with no experience and a record of complete and total failure.
He was nothing as an assemblyman, ranked at the bottom of the class, and as mayor of potentially, again, the greatest city in the world, he has no chance to bring it back to its former glory.
We must also remember this: a vote for Curtis Sliwa, who looks much better without the beret, is a vote for Mamdani.
Whether you personally like Cuomo or not, you really have no choice.
You must vote for him and hope he does a fantastic job.
He is capable of it.
Momdami is not.
Now, the interesting part of that is, if I'm not mistaken, you are supporting Curtis Sleewa, correct?
And the COVID disaster and having to step down in a sexy and all that.
So I don't think anyone watching this has any love lost for Andrew Cuomo.
But what would you say to the person that would say, Rudy, Rudy, if Slewa takes 10 or 12% of the vote, that will ensure the Momdami win, where in essence he has no real chance of winning, Cuomo is now only seemingly within a couple points.
I mean, what's your counterargument to that?
Because I think, because I get it on the idea level, but at a pure political level.
I thought about it, talked about it, have gotten a lot of pressure to do it.
As a matter of conscience, I can't vote for a man that I know was responsible for killing so many people.
I cannot vote for a man who became an extreme left-wing destroyer of New York as governor because he thought he was going to run for president.
All of the criminal laws that Adams is operating under that are destroying New York and a lot of the country, he signed them, claiming he was a moderate Democrat, but sucking up to the crazy socialist left wing of his party.
I know you have a long day of media hits today, but I just do want to do one or two more things with you, because I want to talk about the media component as it relates to all of this.
And you know probably better than anybody except for Donald Trump himself the way the media lies about things.
He's threatened by it because like his, we've diagnosed the crisis in working class New Yorkers' lives, the cost of living.
But unlike him, we're actually going to deliver on that.
And that is a contrast that he can't bear to see.
Because while he is spending $300 million remodeling a White House ballroom, the same amount of money that could provide snap benefits for 100,000 New Yorkers, he's trying to make it harder for Americans across the country to actually afford groceries.
And this money that we're talking about, it's money that New York City is owed.
It's not Donald Trump's to decide which city or state will get what money.
This is the money that New Yorkers are owed, and this is the money that we're going to fight for.
In some ways, even worse than Mamdani, it makes Mamdani possible.
She's completely corrupt.
The question was an obvious one, no matter what your prejudice is.
You know, Mr. Mamdani, it's known to everyone that this is being done with private money, so it's not costing the taxpayers anything.
And also, the president doesn't owe New York City anything.
There are all kinds of rules and regulations surrounding this money.
And everyone knows New York City is the most corrupt city in the world.
So of course the federal government's going to have to hold up money.
I mean, when I was a U.S. attorney in New York, there probably wasn't a government program from the great society that wasn't corrupt.
It's the reason I changed parties way back in 1970.
I saw the Great Society.
I thought this was wonderful.
The first thing I'm investigating, half the money is going to Democratic crooks.
And that is true throughout.
Why did they spend more money on aliens?
They spent more money on aliens so they could have a little overage for kickbacks.
Just go look at the contracts.
New York city with 8 million people has the same budget as Florida with 22 million people.
What do you think the difference is?
Corruption.
And of course the president has to stop that.
In fact, the Constitution says he has to make sure the laws are faithfully executed.
If he didn't do it, he could be impeached.
So the man is, among other things, highly unqualified.
If he were a Republican conservative, they shouldn't make him mayor.
He's highly unqualified.
He's a child.
He's a rich boy who's never had a job, probably never paid attention in school, doesn't seem to have much of an intellect.
And he's clearly unqualified for maybe, I don't know if it's the second most difficult job in America, certainly one of the 10 most difficult, and requires, even at a minimum, a person of reasonable intellect and integrity.
I've proposed is that we raise $10 billion to pay for our entire economic agenda and start to Trump-proof our city because we know he'll use federal funding as leverage over this city.
And we will do so in two key ways.
The first is to match the state's top corporate tax rate to that of New Jersey.
We are at 7.25%.
They're at 11.5%.
Corporations can pay it over there.
They can pay it over here.
And the beauty of it is that it doesn't just apply to corporations headquartered in New York City.
Because when you say this, people will say, well, they're going to go to Florida.
Wherever you are headquartered, as long as you do business in the state of New York, you are taxable for that corporate tax.
We're talking about corporations that are making millions of dollars, not in revenue, but in profit.
And the second is taxing the top 1% of New Yorkers.
We're talking about people who make a million dollars a year or more, taxing them just by a flat 2% tax increase.
And I know if 50 Cent is listening, he's not going to be happy about this.
He tends to not like this tax policy, but I want to be very clear.
This is about $20,000 a year.
It's a rounding error.
And all of these things together, they make every New Yorker's life better, including those who are actually getting taxed.
And he does it with a smile while he's trying to tax the high hell out of everybody and that he will come after you, even if you are actually not headquartered in New York City.
Mr. Mayor, I actually have great admiration for the president doing this, even though I think he's wrong, because it would be in his interest for Zondami to get elected.
He virtually assures the Congress for us.
I mean, I remember in 2010 when we won the Congress with Pelosi before she reformed.
It's just such a crazy thing to think about that in a weird way, him winning causes the Republicans to keep the House because everything, oh, God, politics is insane.