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Rudy Brings His Campaign to Letterman
By
Jen Chung
Published May 22, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Chung
Published May 22, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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Last night, Rudy Giuliani appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman. It took about 2 minutes for Rudy to invoke September 11. Until someone uploads the whole segment on YouTube, we've only got Giuliani's thoughts on Iraq, which prompted applause from the audience. And made us wonder how many Late Show attendees are out of towners. Anyway, it was a very welcoming stage for Giuliani (as it is with many candidates on the campaign trail), as Letterman basically let Giuliani give a stump speech. Here's the AP's transcript of Giuliani's thoughts on rising gas prices:
The situation in the Middle East has something to do with it, the fact that we don't have enough refineries has something to do with it," said Guiliani. "There's sort of a bottleneck that occurs – even if we find more oil, it's going to be tough to get it to where it needs to go because we haven't built a refinery in 20, 25 years, 30 years."
"It's because we haven't pursued energy independence – maybe a better way to describe it, energy diversity," he continued. "We haven't pursued ethanol the way we should, we haven't licensed a new nuclear power plant in 30 years, France is 80 percent nuclear power, we haven't done a new one in 30 years, licensed a new one in 30 years. China's going to build 40 nuclear power plants. We haven't licensed one in 30 years."
"All those things probably combine to put us in a situation where not only the price of gasoline is high, but money has to go to our enemies," said Guiliani. "It [oil] used to always be a problem for our economy, going back to Jimmy Carter and even Richard Nixon. But now, it's a problem of national security."
"One of the things I'd commit myself to doing is to achieve energy diversity, or, let's call it – as much energy independence as we can," he said. "And we've gotta do it over the next ten years, like we put a man on the moon."
And when Letterman asked whether Giuliani thinks about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton before falling asleep, "That is not my last thought before I go to sleep at night. It could be, it could be Sen. Clinton, it could be Sen. Obama, it could be Sen. Edwards, or, who knows, it could be former Vice President Gore. Who knows?"
What we found Giuliani's body language interesting: He seemed uncomfortable and cramped, almost hunched to be closer to Letterman. If you watch this clip of Obama on Letterman, Obama is leaning back in his chair, rather relaxed. Just an observation about the differing styles of the candidates.
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Politics
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rudy giuliani
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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