In an exclusive Newsmax interview, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani delivered a blistering attack on President Barack Obama for his lack of leadership in resolving the debt and deficit crisis.
Giuliani charges that Obama has been a “politician, not a leader,” says he’ll have to sign the deficit plan proposed by House Speaker John Boehner if Congress passes it, calls Obama’s exaggerated warnings about Social Security “horrendous” — and declares that he is the weakest president of the former mayor’s lifetime.
The hero of 9/11 also discloses that he will likely decide in September if he will seek the Republican nomination for president in 2012.
Giuliani served as mayor from 1994 to 2001, and unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. His book “Leadership” was published in 2005.
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Speaker Boehner’s plan would raise the debt ceiling and cut spending, with no new taxes. In his interview with Newsmax.TV, Giuliani was asked why Obama is reluctant to sign on.
“I think in this economic crisis the president has provided no leadership,” says Giuliani, whose extensive interview discussing 9/11 and terrorism will be featured in the September issue of Newsmax magazine.
“The president’s been a politician, not a leader. He doesn’t want to get his hands dirty and be stuck with any plan.
“I’ve never heard of that before. Presidents of the United States propose, then Congress debates. Presidents don’t wait for Congress to work these things out.
“We didn’t have President Reagan get his tax cuts by waiting for Congress to debate it. He presented a tax program. President Clinton didn’t get his tax increases by waiting for Congress to decide. He presented a plan for tax increases and took the political heat for that. President Bush didn’t get his tax cuts by waiting for Congress to do it. He proposed it and took the heat for it to the extent that people disagreed with it.
“This president has left a vacuum by not taking a position. We still don’t have a position in writing from the President of the United States. That is totally unthinkable to me as someone who’s written a book on leadership.
“That leaves a vacuum, and that vacuum is being taken up by a lot of people on the extremes and some people that want to be responsible. And I think the Boehner proposal is the best of the proposals that I’ve seen, not because it does everything that needs to be done — far from it — but because it’s the most practical thing that can get passed in the short period of time that we have.
“It makes real cuts, increases the debt ceiling, and allows a review of that in eight, nine months, which is absolutely necessary because Republicans at least don’t trust the president to make the cuts.”
If Boehner’s plan passes both houses of Congress the president “will have to sign it, because nothing else can pass,” according to Giuliani.
“The [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid plan is not going to pass the Senate — he’s not going to get 60 votes. If it passes the Senate Boehner couldn’t get it through the House even if he wanted to. So the only game in town would be the Boehner plan — unless and president and Reid want to put us in what they claim would be catastrophic default.
“They may be the victims of their own rhetoric here in having told us that August 2, unless they extend the debt ceiling, is going to be apocalypse now. They exaggerated the impact of it.
“I think it will be bad, but some of the things they said are just not true. The whole idea that the president says to the American people, you’re not going to get your Social Security check after August 2, is horrendous. It’s totally ridiculous. They’ve lost credibility because they exaggerate. That’s a terrible mistake in a time of crisis.
“One of the things I tried to remember all through September 11 was, don’t lose the confidence of the people by exaggerating in either direction. Don’t underestimate but don’t overestimate it either. The president has lost the confidence of everyone now because he just hasn’t told the truth about the consequences. They’re real bad, but they’re not as bad as he and [Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner have made them out to be.”
Asked if he considers Obama among the weakest presidents in American history, Giuliani responds: “I would say in my lifetime he is the weakest leader we’ve had in the White House. The only one who would challenge that is Jimmy Carter, and he’s weaker than Jimmy Carter.
“Even Jimmy Carter presented financial plans and took his own proposals to Congress. He didn’t wait for Congress to endlessly debate before took a position.
“The president sees himself more as a referee than a leader. But the Republicans are on one gridiron, the Democrats are on another gridiron, so you can’t referee the darn thing.
“Particularly in this debate we needed a White House proposal. The wisdom of a White House proposal, which Reagan understood and Clinton understood and I understood, is you can compromise off that and give everyone a victory.
“When I needed cuts from the city council, I would go in and ask for two or three times more cuts than I needed, so that at the end of the day the city council — and the head of the city council, a Democrat — could say: I beat the mayor. He wanted $3 billion in cuts and he only got a billion.
“And I didn’t care that it looked like I lost because I got a billion dollars in cuts.
“But he’s not capable of giving John Boehner a victory. He’s not capable of giving Harry Reid a victory. He’s always afraid of, gee, what’s it going to look like if I back something that doesn’t happen, so he doesn’t back anything. That’s being a politician over and above being president of the United States.”
Regarding a possible run for the White House in 2012, Giuliani says: “I haven’t thought about it in a couple of weeks, so I don’t think I’m any closer to making a decision.
“But I’ll make a decision sometime in September, maybe early October, probably September. I sort of set that as a timeline for myself.”
Giuliani adds that he never envisioned a day when the United States faced the prospect of having the nation’s credit rating downgraded.
“No, I never thought that would happen. I think that is the responsibility of the people in Washington, and I’m really ashamed of them.
“This is unnecessary. This is a self-inflicted wound. This is something that’s been predicted for the past year and it can be solved by the art of compromise, sensible compromise, where everybody can get a little bit of what they want.
“I don’t assign all the blame for this to the president, but I do assign the major portion of the blame to the president because he’s supposed to be the leader.”
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