Giuliani warns of 'institutionalized political correctness'

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," April 24, 2013. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Here is what we've now learned in just the past 24 hours. Now yesterday, Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss, who is the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, revealed to a local news station in Atlanta that at least one federal agency might have been aware of the Boston bomber's intentions before the attack.

Now this is what he said, quote, "There are now appears that there may have been some evidence that was obtained by one of the law enforcement agencies that did not get shared in a way that it would have been helpful. Now it turns out if -- if that's the case, then we have to determine whether or not that would have made a difference. That's pretty unbelievable.

But unfortunately, there is more tonight. According to Reuters, the eldest bombing suspect was on a government list of suspected terrorists. That report reads in, quote, "The name of one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects was listed on the U.S. government's highly classified central database of people it views as potential terrorists.

But the list is so vast that this did not mean that authorities would automatically keep close tabs on him. What's the point of having a database then in the first place? Now the Obama administration has a lot of explaining to do here because listen to what Homeland Security Secretary Janet "Sherlock" Napolitano said earlier today when talking about immigration and the Boston bombers. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANET NAPOLITANO, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: They are vetted from the time they apply to the time between when they're told they're going to be a citizen and actually take the oath at a ceremony. So we're continually re- vetting, going back, checking, checking, checking, and checking. In this instance, in Boston, the systems contained no derogatory information as to either brother.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Excuse me. Nothing came up? Then why was the older brother's name on a government watch list? Also breaking just hours ago, the Washington Post is reporting, quote, "The CIA asked the main U.S. counterterrorism agency to add the name of one of these suspected Boston Marathon bombers to a watch list more than one year before this attack, according to the U.S. officials.

Now, you, the American people, want and rightly so deserve answers. Joining me now with reaction is former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

I'm angry on a lot of different levels. We can't admit its terrorism. They still want us to believe that Fort Hood was workplace violence. There was evidence after evidence after evidence about this guy.

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: Sean, I thought at the time that Fort Hood would lead to some bad things within the bureaucracy and now I'm convinced that it did. The failure to describe what happens accurately sends a signal to the bureaucracy, we've got to be very careful that we don't make a mistake and incorrectly identify someone as a Muslim extremist.

I'm not even sure you can use that name or that description any longer. Bureaucracy is very sensitive to what goes on at the top. And the signal being sent to this bureacracy, whether it's the military in the case of Hasan or law enforcement in the case of the Boston bombing, is boy, you better be very, very careful about how you classify people. So careful that you are so far on the side of caution that you neglect doing basic things,

When the Russian government tells us that this guy is a suspected terrorist that should ring all kind of alarm bells. First of all, who would know better than the Russian intelligence about the connection to Chechnya and what's going on there?

Second, he was on the list. According to Janet Napolitano, he was on the list when he left for Russia. He was taken off the list, so he wasn't on the list when he came back from Russia. Should his going to Russia have put him further ahead on the list?

Where is Russia? He's not going to Russia to go see the Moscow symphony. He's going there to go to Chechnya. Obviously that should have added to the probable cause, to the circumstantial evidence that would indicate that this man is a dangerous man rather than detract from it.

HANNITY: Here is what we learned from the Boston Globe. Russia tried to alert the administration -- I'm reading, quote, "multiple times" about the older brother. One other thing, I interviewed Michele Bachmann. Michele Bachmann looked at the FBI training manuals prior to Obama being in office, they've been purged. Every reference to Islamic Jihadism is removed. What alter reality is this president living in?

GIULIANI: But that has an impact on the bureaucracy. That has an impact on the people who are doing their work day in and day out and don't want to be criticized or get in trouble, don't want to make a mistake or afraid of erring too far on the side of classifying someone.

So they make some crucial mistakes, like they did with Major Hasan promoting him all the way up through the military, or like with this guy by not properly following him. Had they kept him on that list, had they followed him after he came back from Russia, had they kept surveillance on him, who knows? They may have been able to prevent this.

HANNITY: If I can put this in really just blunt, pure terms, Barack Obama has institutionalized lying to the American people by saying Major Hasan's incident was workplace violence and we have also institutionalized political correctness.

GIULIANI: Well, we institutionalized political correctness to the detriment of the safety of the American people that's what he's done. Having been in charge of law enforcement bureaucracies both in the Justice Department and as mayor of New York City, the signal you send to them has a big impact on how they act.

Most of them are going to be careful to protect their jobs and they don't want to make mistakes. You don't want them to make mistakes, but you also want them to take the risks necessary to protect us. This is not much of a risk.

This guy, specific information from the Russian government, only aware recently of the fact it was multiple notifications by the Russian government. And then, I consider the act of going to Russia like a tipoff. Why would a guy who is suspected of being a Chechen terrorist be going to Russia?

Chechens hate Russia. He's not going there. He's not going to Moscow. He's going to Dagestan. You should have to be able to figure that out. The minute you know he's going to Dagestan, now he jumps way up the list of suspected terrorists.

HANNITY: After the multiple warnings, there is this whole YouTube video page where, for example, he's highlighting the Australian radical sheik, Fayaz Mohammad, who himself was calling on young people to -- calling them to martyrdom. So once they're warned multiple times, you would think they could just -- and they did go interview him, maybe just take a look at what he's posting on the Internet maybe once a year.

GIULIANI: It would be very, very helpful to straightening out a lot of this confusion and going forward in a way in which we really protect the American people. The president of the United States would just acknowledge that this act, no matter whether other people helped or not, it's not just terrorists, it's not just terrorism, it's terrorism in aid of Islamic Jihad. This guy joined that movement, the reason these people were killed in Boston, was to further Jihad.

HANNITY: Let's say that if this terrorist at the Boston Marathon bombing turned out to be a Fox News watcher or Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin listener or bought Ann Coulter's book, do you think the media would be all over that saying somehow in spite of the fact none of us would ever support or inspire?

GIULIANI:" It comes from your rhetoric. You shouldn't say the things you say. It leads to this kind of thing," and they would describe him as a right-wing killer or right-wing terrorist.

HANNITY: Why won't they say --

GIULIANI: Or white supremacist terrorist. This guy was an Islamic Jihad terrorist.

HANNITY: Why won't they say that? Why? I don't get it. Help me out.

GIULIANI: I don't understand why they don't say it. I know the implications of not saying it. That's to force political correctness down into the bureaucracy so that except for the most heroic FBI agents, CIA agents, everybody is going to be treading very carefully in making these determinations.

HANNITY: This president, by doing this has let our guard dawn and we are now back to a pre-9-11 mentality, true or false?

GIULIANI: I think worse than pre-9-11 mentality. Before that you could see we weren't on notice about these things. Now we're on notice about this. You don't have the excuses that existed before 9/11 about -- you don't really understand the full implications.

We now know the full implications of this. If you come to our soil, they've killed Americans. They're killing Americans for a purpose. Not just for the heck of it. Not just because they're insane. There is a purpose to this.

And if you don't recognize the purpose, it's very, very hard to detect them. It's very hard to keep a coherent program of monitoring them, watching them. This is not just terrorism for terrorism sake.

This is terrorism for further the cause of Islamic extremism and that does not demean in any way legitimate members of the Islamic religion. I think if you don't understand that, there is a certain degree of prejudice involved.

HANNITY: I think the people that should be most angry are those that are having their religion hijacked. And that's exactly what's happening. I would be angry if I was a peaceful moderate Muslim and people were doing this in the name of my religion. I'd be angry.

GIULIANI: I remember when I first started pursuing the mafia as U.S. attorney. There was a great deal of concern that I had used a word mafia. By using that word, I was demeaning all Italian Americans. Of course, I'm an Italian American. So I said just the opposite. By using the word, I'm showing I'm not afraid to say it because most Italian Americans have nothing to do with it. Don't want to have anything to do with it. This is a perversion and much better for us to be honest and straightforward about it.

HANNITY: That's a good analogy. Thank you for being with us.

Mr. President, say the words, radical Islamic Jihadists. You got to say it. You got to accept it or else we're continue to have incidents like this happen. That's the danger.

Content and Programming Copyright 2013 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2013 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.