Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Moussaoui Sentencing

This is a partial transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," May 3, 2006, that has been edited for clarity.

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: And this is a FOX News alert.

Zacarias Moussaoui will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole; he will not be sentenced to death. This is the decision of a jury in Alexandria, Virginia.

Just a few minutes ago, I got reaction from the former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANNITY: Your initial reaction to Moussaoui, life in prison, no death penalty. You testified about four weeks ago in this penalty phase. What are your thoughts?

RUDOLPH GIULIANI, FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: Well, I have a conflicted reaction to it. I mean, one part of me is disappointed, because I thought he deserved the death penalty.

It seemed to me he knew about it, he lied about it. If he had told the truth about it, it's very possible all of these people would be alive who are now dead and all these children are growing up without fathers and mothers would have their fathers and mothers, and that seems to me a pretty heavy responsibility, for which I would think the death penalty is the right remedy.

But I respect the jury; I mean, I respect the jury system. I think there is something good that comes out of this. What comes out of it is a very, very dramatic demonstration that America is dedicated to the rule of law.

And that a lot of places where these terrorists come from, this is the kind of thing that's missing: They don't have the rule of law. And maybe, just maybe it will occur to some people that maybe have an open mind that we're not the demon that we're portrayed as in this radical world.

HANNITY: That's an interesting take on it, and I respect the jury verdict, too, here.

What surprised me, Mr. Mayor, about all of this, though, is, you know, based on what the jury saw — I mean, you know, you had a chance to stare this guy down. And we saw his conduct here: no regrets, no remorse about the 9/11 attacks at all.

We know his own planning and preparation, his own knowledge of the events that were to occur that day. Mocking this military woman who cried on the stand, in particular. "It was disgusting for her to cry," you know, although people with a heart would cry at the loss of life, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, and sons and daughters.

GIULIANI: I couldn't get through this without crying at different times. Sometimes I'd go off on the side or go into a little room when all of this was going on, and then I'd come back and not try to show it to people.

But how do you face what happened here without, you know, a tremendous sense of remorse, a tremendous sense of anger? I mean, innocent people were killed for no real reason.

Part of it was to demonstrate what a terrible country we are. Well, we just let this guy off the hook for murder. What kind of terrible country are we? I mean, we are obviously a country that practices what we preach.

HANNITY: Yes. You know, asked by the prosecutor, Rob Spencer, in this particular case, he was asked at one point if he'd like to see 9/11 happen again. And every day, he says, he hopes for it "until we get you."

And you think about the level of training that went on leading up to 9/11, the things we know about now, and his involvement in that regard. We've got to worry and you've got to worry — and I know you're concerned — is that happening now?

GIULIANI: I think we have to assume that it is. I mean, what we hope is that we now have improved our intelligence gathering and the cooperation we have from other countries, and that we can pick things up like this.

But I was in London last July 7, you know, half a block away from the bomb at the Liverpool Street station. And I know the kind of intelligence they have in the United Kingdom. It's world class. They couldn't pick up that bombing.

And there's nothing wrong with their intelligence. I mean, it's about as good as it gets. And it gives you a sense of how vulnerable we are.

If the intelligence in the U.K. can't pick something up, and we're a much more complex country to defend than the United Kingdom, just given the size of our borders and everything else, we have to assume that, given our very best efforts, they could still crack through and figure out a way to do what we haven't planned for, do what we haven't thought of, so we have to be on guard. I mean, we have to take very seriously the fact that we could be attacked again.

HANNITY: It's what the 9/11 Commission warned us: It's not a matter of if; it is a matter of when.

You know, it was funny. I was watching today, and when the verdict was read and he only got life, FOX News was showing images and video of that day, four and a half years ago, and there were even some images of you there. And I think back.

It seems that we don't ever show those pictures enough. It seems like in many ways America has forgotten. We've gotten back into our old routines. Are we letting our guard down? Do you have a sense that maybe we're letting our guard down?

GIULIANI: Well, you know, it's natural, Sean, when you get further away from an event that it doesn't have the impact that it has, you know, when you're closer to it. That's why I thought this movie, you know...

HANNITY: "Israel, that is pursuing nuclear weapons against the world community's, obviously, approval, if you tie this whole situation together, and how the war in Iraq has been politicized here, you know, it seems like, in one way, America is very divided as a result, and now in the aftermath of this attack. Do you see that?

GIULIANI: Much more divided than I thought we would be. As we came out of September 11, one of the things that I saw was tremendous cooperation, bipartisan cooperation, a real understanding that we had to come together. You know, the threat to us is from the outside, and we have to stand united against them.

I think as we've gotten away from it, and it's become more politicized, there's a lot more division. And the reality is that, you know, we maybe need more unity now.

Iran is a threat. I mean, Iran is kind of the nightmare we used to have during the Cold War, that nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of an irrational person. This guy is certainly an irrational person, and the government may very well be like that.

So, I mean, it really should just reinforce that we've got to do everything we can to keep nuclear capacity away from them, away from North Korea. The worst hands that it could be in are the hands of the people that are unpredictable.

HANNITY: Look at the debates we have now, immigration, we still haven't secured our borders 4 1/2 years later. We're debating what to do with a guy like Amadinejad. We're still debating the war in Iraq, whether or not it was the right or wrong thing to do.

In the political sense, is there anything you might do differently, if you were in a position where you could — and I'm not going to bring politics into this discussion today, but...

GIULIANI: I hope on immigration everybody will get together. I mean, I hope that my side, the other side, we can kind of sit down and figure out what's a comprehensive solution that makes us more secure, in a realistic way, and also deals with the economic pressures, the social pressures, and all of the other things?

And I think the Senate came pretty close to that. I mean, there were a lot of details that have to be worked out. And I hope that everybody will sit down and maybe compromise a little of what they want to achieve, in order to achieve a solution, which is the way you achieve a solution in a country that has very, very strong views either way.

HANNITY: But secure our borders now?

GIULIANI: Yes, you have got to secure our borders. You have to say, "How are we going to do a better job?"

And I think the way we secure our borders is a lot more information about the people who are coming in here. Identify them; photograph them; find out who they are; separate the good ones as best we can from the bad ones; get the problem down to a smaller number.

And then I think you have to create some kind of path to citizenship for people that are here that are legitimate people.

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