Giuliani: Trump challenged blacks to break Dem monopoly

Supporter and former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani sounds off on Donald Trump's 'bold' law enforcement speech in Milwaukee and gave the inside story on the GOP nominee's roundtable discussion with various law enforcement leaders

This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," August 17, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: And you are looking inside a Trump Tower board room.

Donald Trump says he only works with the best. And today he brought together a prominent group for a round table and defeating radical Islamic terrorism.

A few of those big names: former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn and Congressman Pete King.

But that's not all. Just a few moments ago, Mayor Giuliani went ON THE RECORD to tell us what happened inside.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VAN SUSTEREN: Mr. Mayor, nice to see you, sir.

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: Nice to see you, Greta.

How are you?

VAN SUSTEREN: I'm very well.

So I know you were at that round table discussion today with Donald Trump at Trump Tower.

So tell me, what do you think was the most important point driven home to Donald Trump. And what point did he drive home most to the people who are his advisors around that table?

GIULIANI: What I would say the most important point was the one that he made and that virtually everyone there agreed with, which is that we have to be on offense against Islamic terrorism, that we haven't put ourselves in the position under Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama or in John Kerry.

We have put ourselves in a position on being on defense. I mean, all we are doing, basically, is a few very restricted kind of military actions. And sitting around and waiting for the next attack. That's where we were 1999, 2,000, leading up to the 2001 attack.

We were not responding with the kind of force that we should. And basic recommendation to him is that, you know, they are at war with us.

Well, if they are at war with us, we have no other choice but to be at war with them. And use all of our capacity, military and intellectual and cyber and everything imaginable to win this.

VAN SUSTEREN: What does that actually mean? I mean, I got the concept of defense versus offense. But, you know, the enemy has changed a lot in the last few years.

You know, a few years ago, it was pretty much located in Syria and Iraq. Now it has metastasized in the other parts of the world. We have seen terrorism erupt like in Brussels and Paris and Nice, San Bernardino. We have seen it all over.

So, I mean, what are the specifics? What actually is the offense?

GIULIANI: Well, I mean, there are specific places where they organize. It is true they strike almost anywhere they want, it seems now. But they have maybe 12, 15 areas where they organize. Some very obvious ones like Libya, which we turned in to a haven for terrorist groups.

I mean, before Hillary Clinton convinced Barack Obama to take out Gadhafi, Libya was not a haven for terrorism. It now is.

Those are the places where we're going to have to, with our allies, engage. And have them on defense. It's hard for them to organize strikes against us. It's hard for them to use the Internet and organize people and encourage people when they are, you know, when they are in a cave fighting for their lives. So they have to be put back on defense.

And when they were on defense, after the attack of September 11th, from September 11 until Fort Hood, we did not have a successful Islamic terrorist attack in the United States.

Those attacks have only occurred, you know, since September 11 under Barack Obama and his policy and Hillary Clinton's policies, which I would regard as policies of appeasement.

And I would say that group, which was an extraordinarily distinguished group of former generals, people, the president head of and the past head of the House Homeland Committee, several former members of Congress who were on the National Security Committee, almost everyone there has had top secret clearance and has had access, including former Attorney General Mukasey. And has had access to top secret material and pretty much everything about what's going on.

VAN SUSTEREN: What would you recommend? Because, I mean, there is obviously, you know, on the ground is one issue. But, in addition to this whole fight trying to fight it on so many different levels, there's the Internet. And you've got the inspiration, recruitment. You've got fundraising on the Internet.

And have you thought of anything of how to be offensive in dealing with that element of this fight?

GIULIANI: Yes. One of the recommendations that should be put out shortly, I haven't actually -- right in front of me on my iPad because I edited them based on the different discussions that went on.

The discussion lasted for two more hours after Donald Trump had to leave for his security briefing. We have to monitor social media. I mean, we have to a lot of the hints and a lot of the clues and a lot of the things that can tell us about terrorist attack before it takes place is found on the social media. And we have to start monitoring that.

We have to expand vastly our ability, cyber defense and cyber offense. We do it, but we don't do it under a unified command. Israel does. We should.

This war against them and their war against us is beginning to become, and I predict four or five years from now, is going to start becoming a cyber war. So we should start getting ready for that now.

And, you know, we are obviously not. I mean, this is an administration that had the identities of what was it five, 10 million federal employees stolen. So this is obviously not an administration that is particularly good at guarding secret information.

Of course, we have a candidate for president who exposed national security information on a scale that is unprecedented. And a political party that doesn't seem to know how to protect itself. So, why the American people would want someone like Hillary Clinton who was extremely careless with national security information, at a time in which we are going into what I predict four or five years from now is going to be a cyber war to me is perplexing.

I mean, I think you've got to be a little bit not paying attention to vote for her.

VAN SUSTEREN: You mentioned the briefing today. Some of the Democrats will use the nicer word saying that they are uneasy with Donald Trump having an Intel briefing and, perhaps, being the president and making important decisions on national security. Some of the other Democrats will say he's unhinged.

You know, when you meet with Donald Trump, you know, what can you tell the American to make them feel comfortable that he's not, you know --

(CROSSTALK)

GIULIANI: Number one, I spent the last few days with Donald Trump, and then part of today with Donald Trump. He's perfectly focused and completely capable human being. Capable of giving -- you know, having long days and giving long speeches and not like Hillary Clinton who has got to take, you know, three days off and one day on and seems to be sitting in a chair most of the time when she is getting ready for a speech.

The man is an enormously responsible man. He asked really insightful questions. And I think everyone -- everyone at that meeting, most of them are his supporters, but some haven't yet made a decision, came away enormously impressed with, you know, with the questions that he asked.

On the other hand, how someone can even raise that question. Can we trust Donald Trump with national security information when we have a candidate on the Democratic Party that we have trusted with national security information, and she was in the words of the FBI director, extremely careless? It's absurd for Democrats to be raising that.

We have a candidate -- we have a candidate that at least hasn't been found to be extremely careless in the handling of information. They have one that should have been indicted for the way in which she put our national secrets at great risk.

And with all the deletions now, and what's been sent to the FBI, knowing good deal about top security information, because I have had top security clearances many times in my role in the Justice Department, if they are deleting things they are sending to Congress, she must have exposed some pretty darn dangerous stuff.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right.

Let me ask you about last night's speech by Donald Trump.

In last night's speech, Trump said that Democrats have failed and betrayed African-Americans in inner cities.

Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The Democratic Party has run nearly every inner city in this country for 50 years and run them into financial ruin. Virtually every single one.

They have ruined the schools. They have driven out the jobs. They have tolerated a level of crime no American should consider acceptable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAN SUSTEREN: Now ON THE RECORD decided to fact check Donald Trump's claims about the Democrats running the cities.

We have looked at major urban areas plagued by poverty going all the way back to 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson declared the now lost war on poverty.

So take a look at this map. I randomly selected Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis, Chicago, Gary, Indiana and New York, and the number of Democratic mayors are shown in blue and the number of Republican mayors, and there aren't many, except for maybe you, Mr. Mayor, in New York for a period, are shown in red.

One quick note, in two cases, a mayor switched to become an independent and ran for re-election. Now those two mayors are counted twice with an additional grey number on the map.

But you can see very clearly, it is mostly blue or Democratic mayors in these cities.

And so, as I look at this, you can see that the Democrats did lead these cities. They are plagued by poverty going back to 1965.

But what is the different strategy that a Donald Trump would bring to these cities?

GIULIANI: Well, we are going to bring them, we are going to bring the things that work in America. That's what I do to New York. I mean, New York is an exception.

New York is a city that's thriving. And the communities in New York that were most affected: Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant, these are all places that are now safe places.

And when I came into office in Harlem, there was no national chain there. No business that was a national business would be in Harlem, because it was too dangerous or Bedford-Stuyvesant. Now there are plenty there because we made them safe.

We improved education there. We started charter schools. And then Mike Bloomberg expanded charter schools quite dramatically although the present mayor has tried to put a stop on it. These are the things we have to do.

We have -- here's the way I did --

(CROSSTALK)

VAN SUSTEREN: Can that be done on the federal level by a president? Because you look at these numbers, Mr. Mayor, and it is true, with the exception of the Republicans in New York, I will give that you one. But you look at these cities, they have literally been run by Democrats and some 65 or before.

GIULIANI: Well, there are things you can do.

First of all, the president can advocate for strongly, for vouchers, for choice and for charter schools and go up against and fight the battle against the National Education Association and all the education bureaucrats.

It's a tragedy that, you know -- I hate to get personal, but it was true of me, too. My children went to private school and President Obama's children go to private school.

But children that don't have parents that have the means to do that can't. Well, I always felt guilty about that. And I always felt that meant I should be in favor of vouchers. And he should be in favor of vouchers if he really cares about the African-American community, because the public school system has let them down. And vouchers, which would allow you to choose the school that your child would go to and charter schools would create the kind of competition that we need to fix our school system.

We need a revolution in our public school system if we're going to save the next generation of young people.

VAN SUSTEREN: When I look at this, Mr. Mayor, when I look at this going back to 1965 with Lyndon Johnson declaring the mayor on poverty. And when I see the money that's given to these cities, and I see the number of Democratic mayor versus Republican mayor, and I have been to these areas, these inner cities, and I see the incredible suffering.

And yet, I don't know, the Democrats -- Republicans don't visit and a lot of Democrats just do drive by every four years. But these numbers are staggering at how much they are suffering, and they are Democratic mayors.

GIULIANI: Well, I think what you will find in Donald Trump is you're going to find a mayor who comes from the city. He knows what the city is like. He knows what a city is all about. And a president can have a vast impact on choice for schools, charter schools.

He can have a vast impact in creating jobs and renegotiating our trade agreements so the jobs aren't ripped out of the United States and taken overseas.

He can bring back the steel industry. There are a whole host of things that a president can do that would have a big, big impact on cities that haven't been done.

And also create encouragement for mayors, whether they are Republicans or Democrats. I mean, so set up a program in which you have a scholarship program for students so that parents can choose the school that they want their child to go to.

When I did that in New York City, Ted Forstmann underwrote that. I had 2,000 slots for scholarships. For children in public school.

Do you know how many applications I had for those 2,000 slots? 127,000. 127,000 parents who were dissatisfied with the public school their child was at and wanted to participate in a scholarship program where, by the way, you had to put in some money.

It wasn't a complete scholarship. You had to put in some money, really basically so that you got the parent engaged in the education of the child.

Now, there hasn't been a Republican who has talked about this since Jack Kemp. And I think last night's speech by Donald Trump was a really, really historic speech.

First of all, he went to a place that, you know, he went right into the eye of the storm. I don't see Hillary ever doing that. And he gave a very bold speech. It was a tough, law enforcement speech, because you need safety before anything else happens.

But then it was an attempt to challenge the African-American community to break up this monopoly, the Democratic Party has established with them. So they don't get anything out of the Democratic Party.

VAN SUSTEREN: That's why I went back and I checked those cities, and anybody with complaints and thinks I pick cities just to tilt in favor of the Republicans. So those are random off the top of my head. I just picked them. Anyway --

GIULIANI: Those three red Democrats there in New York, LaGuardia, I think maybe you know who that is, right?

VAN SUSTEREN: Lindsay.

GIULIANI: Lindsay and me. And only two of us remain Republicans. LaGuardia and me. And I don't think we were such bad mayors.

VAN SUSTEREN: Anyway, thank you very much for joining us, Mr. Mayor.

GIULIANI: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)