Breaking Point with David Zere - September 13, 2025

Summary

Real America’s Voice: Breaking Point with David Zere — September 13, 2025

Main Theme & Purpose

This special episode of "Breaking Point" with David Zere commemorates the 24th anniversary of 9/11, featuring in-depth interviews with two central figures from the tragedy: retired FDNY Deputy Commissioner Rich Rotanz and former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The discussion centers on first-hand accounts of the attacks, operational responses, personal losses, and the long-term consequences for first responders and the city. It also ventures into the broader history of terrorism in New York, reflections on political leadership, and the ongoing impact of 9/11 on American society.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Part 1: The First Responders’ Perspective

Guest: Rich Rotanz, Retired FDNY Captain & Deputy Commissioner of Emergency Operations Center (EOC) during 9/11

The Morning of September 11, 2001

• Where He Was: On the 23rd floor of Building 7, prepping for a biodefense drill.
  • “I could see out the window a plane flying very low. I go, this guy is kind of low. And all of a sudden you hear him plowing over our heads and hit Tower One. And we all knew right away that this is not an accident.” — Rich Rotanz (04:28)
• Quick activation of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC), staff ordered to prepare without yet calling in outside personnel.
• Immediate establishment of a command post with city officials.

Chaos and Realization

• Early, incomplete information: No knowledge of hijackings or Pentagon/Shanksville at the time.
• Scenes of devastation, including building jumpers:
  • “The big problem about going to and from Tower One and Tower Seven was the jumpers. The first fireman that was killed was killed by a jumper.” — Rich Rotanz (05:31)
• Urgent evacuation of Building 7 and adjacent towers amid confusion and unknown scope of attacks.

Building 7 Collapse and Aftermath

• Structural assessment showed catastrophic damage to Building 7:
  • “You could see numerous holes bigger than Mack trucks, you know, for a couple of floors. So this building was going to definitely come down.” — Rich Rotanz (07:51)
• Lack of water pressure contributed to letting fires burn unchecked; decision prioritized prevention of more loss of firefighter lives.
• The grim toll on first responders:
  • 410,000 first responders involved; 70,000+ now ill; nearly 8,000 have died due to exposure-related diseases.

Memories and Long-Term Loss

• Ongoing loss in the FDNY family post-9/11; monthly funerals and memorial services.
• Personal stories of confusion, as Rotanz and his sons—also on site—were each told the other had been killed.
• Systemic public health legacy: Cancer, COPD, mesothelioma, emerging diseases not all recognized by victim compensation funds.

Lessons Learned & Needs of Survivors

• Communications breakdowns and catastrophic loss of equipment hampered response.
• Survivor care seen as generally good, with medical monitoring and support for diagnosed 9/11-related illnesses.
  • “If you have something that you have to go for surgery for or procedures done, they can't do enough for you.” — Rich Rotanz (11:26)

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Part 2: The Political, Operational, and Human Story

Guest: Rudy Giuliani, Former Mayor of New York City

Personal Reflections on 9/11

• Giuliani’s minute-by-minute recollection of 9/11 morning, detailing his breakfast meeting, first notification of the attack, and immediate mobilization toward the scene.
  • “I went to breakfast that morning... And all of a sudden at the end of breakfast, I would say nine o'clock, a little after nine, one of my security detail... a twin engine plane has hit the north tower. It's very bad. I know you gotta get down there.” — Rudy Giuliani (20:32)
• Early recognition—after the second plane—that it was a terrorist attack, likely al-Qaeda/bin Laden.
  • “We saw this thing. We had no idea it was the second plane. He said, boss, it was a big, a big liner. And he immediately said, either he or one of us said terrorism. The other said bin Laden. We knew it was bin Laden...” — Rudy Giuliani (26:13)

Crisis Coordination and Decision Making

• Rapid closure of bridges and tunnels to prevent further attacks and facilitate emergency responses; coordination issues due to overloaded/nonfunctional comms.
  • “Our communicating by cell phone wasn’t working. Get us a live center right near the, right near the Barclay street, right near there so we can have direct lines.” — Rudy Giuliani (25:14)
• Establishing unified command structures across city agencies; avoidance of blame games:
  • “First thing you do in an emergency is set up. The commander and the mayor makes the order and they listen to it.” — Rudy Giuliani (37:06)

Addressing 9/11 Conspiracies

• Giuliani firmly denied claims of explosives pre-planted in World Trade Center buildings:
  • “I say there's no evidence of that. There's nothing that suggests that there were explosives in the building except it came down. The coming down is perfectly explainable by what it was hit with.” — Rudy Giuliani (47:30)

Trauma and Loss Among First Responders

• Personal impact:
  • “I must personally know 50 people that died, either for sure or arguably because of their involvement down there.” — Rudy Giuliani (49:06)
• Tribute to police and fire leadership, especially Bernie Kerik.

Donald Trump’s Role After 9/11

• Praised Trump for logistical support at Ground Zero and for longstanding political support:
  • “You get Donald Trump, you get all of Donald Trump's friends. Not only that, he was a supporter of my policies. He agreed with all the crime things he's doing now are the crime things I did then.” — Rudy Giuliani (51:27)

Broader Terrorism Context in NYC

• Detailed history of foiled terrorist plots, undercover counterterror ops, and lessons from both 1993 and 2001 attacks.
• NYC’s preparedness: Creation of the Office of Emergency Management, intensive interagency drills, and imported Israeli expertise in counter-terrorism.

Reflections on Leadership and Society

• Strong statements on the need for moral leadership, faith, and unity in emergencies.
  • “You throw God out, you can't have morality.” — Rudy Giuliani (55:25)
• The importance of bipartisan teamwork between Mayor, Governor, and their staffs during the crisis:
  • “There was a team for four months. We were not outside of each other's sight more than two hours a day. If something went wrong... we both have to defend it.” — Rudy Giuliani (53:22)
• Final note on gratitude for staff and the collective effort during the 9/11 response.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Rich Rotanz on Immediate Realization:
  “We all knew right away that this is not an accident.” — (04:28)
• Ben Ferguson on Visiting Ground Zero:
  “I'll never get the smell out of my head of the debris... There were no survivors.” — (03:38)
• Rudy Giuliani on the Emotional Toll:
  “My fire commissioner lost 372 of his firefighters. I would say that 10 of them were his lifetime friends.” — (19:11)
• Rich Rotanz on Building 7's Fate:
  “So this building was going to definitely come down.” — (07:51)
• Rudy Giuliani on First Response Leadership:
  “They worked without sleep that I ever discerned for two straight months. They were rocks of granite.” — (49:47)
• Rudy Giuliani on “Explosives” Claims:
  “There's nothing that suggests that there were explosives in the building except it came down. The coming down is perfectly explainable by what it was hit with.” — (47:30)
• Giuliani’s Testimony to Staff Teamwork:
  “I did get very, very lucky in having a terrific staff. And I had a great speaker... This is probably a core principle of how you deal with an emergency. There's gotta be a joint [response].” — (52:25, 53:36)
• On Faith and Morality:
  “You throw God out, you can't have morality... Most people need God.” — (55:25)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Rich Rotanz Interview Begins: 02:48

• First Account of 9/11 Attack: 04:28

• Evacuation of Building 7: 06:05

• Assessment of Building 7 Damage: 07:40

• On Illnesses & Losses Among First Responders: 08:59

• Discussion of 1993 WTC Bombing: 11:42

• End of Rotanz Interview: 14:35

• Rudy Giuliani Interview Begins: 17:58

• Giuliani’s Recollection of 9/11 Morning: 20:32

• Recognition of Bin Laden as Attacker: 26:13

• Reflections on Response, Coordination: 33:49, 37:06

• Q&A on Conspiracy Theories: 47:30

• Health Impacts After 9/11: 48:41

• Commentary on Team & Staff: 52:25–53:41

• On Faith and the Moral Climate: 55:25–55:53

• End of Giuliani Interview: 56:05

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Conclusion

This anniversary special provides a deeply personal, granular look at the events of September 11, 2001, from both operational and emotional standpoints. Rich Rotanz offers a vivid on-the-ground responder’s account, while Rudy Giuliani gives an overview spanning pre-9/11 preparedness, the response, and lasting impact. The episode stresses unity, leadership, and resilience, honoring those lost and exploring what was learned—with relevance for both New Yorkers and the nation as a whole.

For listeners seeking first-hand perspectives on 9/11’s most pivotal moments, detailed explorations of NYC’s emergency response, and candid conversations about leadership and societal values, this episode delivers an engaging, comprehensive, and human account.

Transcript

[Ben Ferguson]

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[Ben Ferguson]

Thank you for watching Breaking Point. A very special week, 24th anniversary of 9 11. Check this out. September 11, 2001. And here to discuss the day's events, I have a very special man. He's the grandfather to 17 children. You're the father of 14 children. That in and of itself is just mind blowing. But you are retired captain in the fdny, correct? You are also the Deputy Commissioner of the Emergency Operations center at the time of 9 11, working under Rich Shearer, who has since passed since 9 11. And you were headquartered in Building 7. I want to talk about those days events. How are you Rich? Rich Rotanz, everybody. Rich Rotants.

[Rich Rotanz]

Thanks for having me.

[Ben Ferguson]

It's an honor. We've had many conversations over the years and people need to understand the gravity of what happened on that day. 16 acre debris field. 5 buildings fully collapsed. Another 3 partially collapsed. 11 buildings suffered major damage. Another 37 buildings suffered damage. The destruction, you know, I got a chance to go down to the pile three days after 9 11. Never get that out of my head. I'll never get the smell out of my head of the debris and anything else that was going on and, and all the ambulances sitting on the Marine terminal driveway, none of them moving. There were no survivors. Tell us about that day. Rich Rotanz. Where were you that morning?

[Rich Rotanz]

That morning I was with two of my colleagues on the 23rd floor discussing about a drill we're going to have the next day. It was going to be a biodefense.

[Ben Ferguson]

Drill in building seven.

[Rich Rotanz]

Building seven. And then we're going to have this biodefense drill over at Pier 92, having all the cadets and probationary firemen from fire police, about 1500 of them, and see how fast we can give out medications, M&MS. But we're doing a time series study on that. And as we're discussing, I could see out the window a plane flying very low. I go, this guy is kind of low. And all of a sudden you hear him plowing over our heads and hit Tower One. And we all knew right away that this is not an accident.

[Ben Ferguson]

Wow.

[Rich Rotanz]

So with that I had my staff fire up the oc. Don't call anybody in, but just get it going. And I went downstairs to the the lobby of Tower One to meet with the fire city director to start a command post for the fire PD and Giuliani. With that I met my friend Joe Pfeiffer, the battalion chief that was. He was with two French Photographers filling up the life of a probationary photographer.

[Ben Ferguson]

Who can forget that footage?

[Rich Rotanz]

Now I'm gonna go back to towers, to Tower 7 with that. We heard another explosion, and that was a second plane hitting the second tower. The big problem about going to and from Tower One and Tower Seven was the jumpers. The first fireman that was killed was killed by a jumper. And you have to really watch where they're coming because they're coming out in the dozens on the east side of the building where you really couldn't see from West Street. So when I went back to Tower 7, got upstairs to the 23rd floor, and I told the staff, you're out of here. Downstairs, take the stairs and go north. Don't go south, go north.

[Ben Ferguson]

So you evacuated Building seven.

[Rich Rotanz]

I told the security from Tower seven and six and five to get everybody out of the buildings because we have no idea what's going on. We knew we were under attack. We didn't know about Shanksville. We didn't know about the Pentagon. We knew that New York City's getting hit.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah. And just an hour or so before Betty Ong called, and she was the stewardess of Flight 11, fully loaded with fuel taken off of Boston. She said that we've been hijacked and a flight attendant was stabbed. He was in critical condition. Other people were killed. They've taken control of the airplane. But you guys didn't know that.

[Rich Rotanz]

No, not at all. We have to. All we knew that the planes are flying into our buildings and that we're under attack. And we had to set up operations to get out of seven and go set up our command post. Not down the street at the command vehicle. That's what we were doing.

[Ben Ferguson]

Initially you tried to go back in to Building 7, right.

[Rich Rotanz]

I was ordered to go back.

[Ben Ferguson]

That was after the Tower 2 fell.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Right.

[Rich Rotanz]

When all the towers were gone. Chief Hayden at the time, one of the surviving chiefs, Pete Hayden. Right. Great guy, outstanding man. Asked me and two of the chiefs to take a look at Tower Seven. All right? And we did that. And we went up as far as the eighth floor and you could hear the billing creek and crack and hear things upstairs falling apart. And what was kind of bizarre, we saw an elevator box down the hallway from the elevator shaft. We thought that was bizarre. So we had. We had tools. So we popped up the. The roof and there was nobody in it, fortunately. And we looked around, there was numerous columns and beams missing on the south side of Tower of Seven. And so the chief goes, time to get out of here. I go, no problem, Chief.

[Ben Ferguson]

And you described to me that there were chunks taken out of Building 7 the size of trucks from the debris field as well as all the surrounding buildings that were damaged. The building was gravely damaged, I would.

[Rich Rotanz]

Say big time, because you could see numerous holes bigger than Mack trucks, you know, for a couple of floors. So this building was going to definitely come down.

[Ben Ferguson]

There was no water pressure in that 16 acre debris field. Is that why?

[Rich Rotanz]

I assume so. But no one was fighting the fires anymore. No one was going into Tower 7. So they just let it burn. I mean, the chief is. We knew we lost a lot of men, had no idea how many at the time, but we're not gonna lose any more. That's why he said this fell down like 5:30 in the evening. We were there at 10, 12:30.

[Ben Ferguson]

12:30? Yeah. Okay. You know, such a tragic day. 410,000 first responders came through the pile. 70,000 have cancer, COPD, mesothelioma, showing up 20 years later now, new diseases that they're not even classifying as part of the Victim Victims compensation fund and PTSD. Almost 8,000 have died so far, including that day, either from illness or that day. The loss for you and your friends and family tell us the depth and the breadth of that loss and watching people around you suffer long term.

[Rich Rotanz]

I just buried a friend of mine not too long ago. He was a fireman with me in 289 engine. Chris Revere, great guy. And it just seems like every month we're burying one or two other guys. Fireman and caps and Port Authority. So Tokus fireman just did a memorial for a new 911 memorial. And they read off the names of those died since it was over a thousand. Over a thousand. Cops, atf, but state troopers and fire, it's disheartening. So at the scene we had trouble with communications, but my two sons were on the job, they're captains now. And they were at the scene and they were told I was killed. And I was told they were killed. And we met each other at Weston Vesey.

[Ben Ferguson]

You know, there's a 40 year history of terrorism in New York. And at that point there were so many attacks broken up. And I talk about that in depth in my Giuliani interview. You know, so many attacks, so many things. The Brooklyn Bridge, the Holland Tunnel, the St. Regis Hotel, the UN, the FBI headquarters, the GW Bridge, Midtown Tunnel. You know, 13 synagogues in Brooklyn. You know, so many. So many plots were foiled, you know, in the past. And then you had the 20th, February 26th, 1993 bombing. My friend Pete Brennan died I think going up in Tower 2 in the 74th floor. Last seen, you know, you know, with gear on his back charging up the.

[Rich Rotanz]

Radio communications were good. Patty Brown okay, who died in the lot of three? He was ordered by the chief to evacuate Dutch floor. He goes, I'm not leaving these people that burned or injured. So he's on the upper floors like the 60s or 70s floor. So the communications a lot of times are pretty good. Eventually died when tower one came down because the large antenna everything else sure went to okay.

[Ben Ferguson]

Is there anything that you can think of in 2020 hindsight that would have made a difference when 911 happened or was it just so catastrophic it really didn't matter?

[Rich Rotanz]

I don't think anything mattered. It was very catastrophic. I mean we, we lost water, we lost our radios, we lost a lot of manpower, vehicles. We lost the bulk of our special operations crew that was there. It was unfortunate. Ray Downey, God bless him, he was the most famous rescue chief in history. And Pete Gancy, the chief of department. Yeah, he wasn't leaving. He's not going to leave his men, you know, and Bill Feehan. So you have the most famous fire officers in history were lost.

[Ben Ferguson]

Have the needs of the survivors and those who are sick generally taken care of?

[Rich Rotanz]

I think so. I was diagnosed with skin cancer from 911 and they took care of me. I go to my 911 medical at the 911 medical facilities and they can't do enough for you. So if there's anything going on, if you have something that you have to go for surgery for or procedures done.

[Ben Ferguson]

Where were you in the first World Trade center bombing?

[Rich Rotanz]

I was a covering captain that sent me to the site so long.

[Ben Ferguson]

Wow. So you got there. There were six floors blown out of the. Now they parked the truck in the wrong garage. Right at the hotel, not in the main garage. Probably would have done a lot more deaths right if they did it right?

[Rich Rotanz]

I think so, yeah. And it's a fun something how they discovered the car. So the guy didn't get rid of the truck right away.

[Ben Ferguson]

Well so okay, so the FBI didn't solve that. They pulled the axle out of the van and it was a New York City high school educated motor pool guy because the FBI couldn't identify the VIN number on it. And he said no, there's a book, it's masked because it's a rental. You have to go to another book. And that's how they discovered that it was a rental. And they called up Mahmoud Abi Halima and Mohamed Salameh to come pick up their, what, $500 deposit at the truck rental place in Jersey. And they actually showed up for their deposit. That's how they were caught.

[Rich Rotanz]

That's how smart they were.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah, well, Ramzi Yousef was the mastermind behind that. And he was the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and bin Laden. The first plot for 911 was to break El Sayed Noser out of Attica Prison, who got sentenced there on a gun charge for killing Mayor Kahan or the married east side Hotel. And then the second string of attacks were going to be to kidnap Aldomaro's daughter, blow up 13 synagogues. But Ramsay Yousef got involved with bin Laden, ordering him to come here to teach him. He said, go teach him how to make that bomb. Right. Pretty, pretty incredible, the history when you look into it. And they were recruiting in the Al Farouk Mosque and the Sahadi spice market for the mujahideen to fight in Afghanistan for years, right under our noses. You know, blind sheikh allowed to come here legally in 1990. Have you been back to the site? Do you go to the anniversary or.

[Rich Rotanz]

I don't go to the anniversary, per se. I just go to the site once in a while. You know, the museum, which I think did a great job. Yeah, they did a very good job. And they treat all the respondents, you know, they don't pay tickets, whatever. They give you a hat and a badge, and they did a great job. And I just see all the guys that we lost. They have great photographs of their rigs and so on.

[Ben Ferguson]

These people are the best of the best, the greatest generation. How about going forward at the fdny? Are they in good shape?

[Rich Rotanz]

I think they're in great shape. I mean, I have two of my boys that are captains on the job. They love it. Does things change? Do people change? Yeah, all the time. When I came on a job in the 70s, the guys go, eh, you missed the warriors.

[Ben Ferguson]

A lot of the children of the lost firefighters are FDNY now.

[Rich Rotanz]

Yep, it should be.

[Ben Ferguson]

Wow. All right, everybody. Richard Rotanz, former FDNY captain. He was the deputy director that day at 911 in the emergency Operations center under the leadership of Rudy Giuliani. Thank you for taking the time.

[Rich Rotanz]

Thank you for having me.

[NFL Announcer]

The 2025 NFL season is underway. Don't miss your chance to be a part of the action. Tickets to all regular season are on sale now. Be there live to support your favorite team. See every epic showdown, every classic rivalry and Every primetime game. 17 games for all 32 teams. Visit NFL.com tickets to purchase tickets today. Verified tickets are available through the NFL Ticket Network, including Ticketmaster, seatgeek and Sports Illustrated.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Tickets take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world.

[Emily Maitlis]

The News Agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening. We're but why? From me, Emily Maitlis and me, John Sopel with Global's award winning podcast the News Agents Dropping daily covering everything you need to know about politics and current.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Affairs and the newsagents USA listening to.

[Emily Maitlis]

The newsagents on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search the newsagents to start listening.

[Propane Advertiser]

The US electric grid is approaching a breaking point as demand soars from data centers and home energy use. Our aging infrastructure can't keep up and the Department of Energy warns that without action, blackouts could surge 100 fold by 2030. The good news? One solution is already here. Propane. It's American made, stored on site and always ready, powering homes and businesses with cleaner, reliable energy that doesn't depend on the grid or the weather. Learn [e-mail] shout out to Sonos for supporting today's show.

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[Rudy Giuliani]

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[Ben Ferguson]

Welcome back. You're watching Breaking Point. I went to 38 states with the network where Real America's voice around the country following the Trump campaign and every blue city, I went to even small places like across Wisconsin or Albuquerque, New Mexico. Incredible crime. But I called out the crime a year ago on the ground in North Carolina, in Charlotte, when Trump was endorsed by the police over there. This murder on the light rail is just tragic and heartbreaking. They got to get their act together. But now I want to share with you my sit down with Rudy Giuliani on 9 11. Mayor Rudy Giuliani, it's an honor to be with you today. And I want to thank you for taking the time out to talk with us at Real America's Voice.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Thank you very much.

[Ben Ferguson]

911 is here again, the 24th anniversary solemn date in our history. Right.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Probably one of the primary dates that'll be remembered by us 3, 400 years from now.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah, yeah. Truly incredible day. And after the attacks, you coordinated the city response with the state and federal agencies and then dealing with counterterrorism measures and the cleanup of the site. And almost everyone in the New York area was affected, some more than others. But whether you witnessed the attacks or you were there that day or you lost a friend or a family member, everyone knew somebody who died or escaped. And we lost almost 500 Long Islanders where I'm from.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Yeah, sure.

[Ben Ferguson]

And. And having lost a very close friend, one of my best friends as a teenager, Peter Brennan in Rescue 4, and my sister lost 80 clients, my co workers and employees and friends all lost fathers and sisters and brothers.

[Rudy Giuliani]

You're saying you know, you have to pause on all of them when you lose one person, if somebody calls you and says your best friend died or your parent, it's devastating.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Imagine when you hear that you lost. My fire commissioner lost 372 of his firefighters. I would say that 10 of them were his lifetime friends.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yes.

[Rudy Giuliani]

And many of them were his close friends and neighbors. The boy who used to do babysitting for his children was a fire captain, one of the bravest in our department who died on September 11th. And he had to go on and run the department during its by far worst time in history. And he brought it such glory and honor that when I was knighted by the Queen of England, so was he. Because when the queen gave me the order, the request to be knighted, I said, I didn't do this. I stood on the shoulder of giants, and I've got to take a few of them. I want you to knight them all. But you got to take the fire commissioner, Police commissioner. And they did. They knighted Tom Von Essen and dearly departed Bernie Kerik.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah. Everybody misses Bernie Kerik. And I wanted to get into that with you in a little bit here. I wanted to ask you if you can tell us that day you woke up, you went to work.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Tell us, walk us through that morning without exaggerating. I don't not think unless I was extremely sick after that. There was a day I haven't thought about it, in fact when I was extremely sick and had Covid and had 103 or 104 temperature and I was kind of, I guess you might call it hallucination. I was talking about September 11th and when I went under anesthesia for an operation. The doctors and Dr. Maria have given me a whole account of what I was saying. I was ordering people around at ground zero and it was accurate. I mean from what I could tell, I have a complete subconscious memory of it. So in any event, I was. First of all I should set the scene. It was primary day in New York City. The Democrat party and the Republican Party was selecting a candidate for mayor. I was term limited, I had four months to go. And it was going to be a contested primary because although I was only the third Republican elected in the 20th century and had lost narrowly, won narrowly, but then I won a big, big victory in my reelection. I won by 18 points, which were what we call LaGuardia numbers. So the party had revived. We had a Republican governor and we had a candidate who could self fund Michael Bloomberg. But he was losing by about 8 to 10 points to the reflexive Democrat candidate. Primary day comes. Mike had a primary, a contested one, and the Democrats had a big contested primary. I went to breakfast that morning at the Peninsula Hotel to meet with a former assistant of mine, Bill Simon, who within six months ran for governor of California. And that's what I was talking to her about with my counsel Dennis and Young. And I went there because it was going to be an easy day, primary day, not much happens until late in the day and then everybody complains about the voting and we have to get involved and send the police and whatever. But it didn't start until 4. So I had my staff committed too and I decided to have a. I was going to have breakfast then I think I was going to take a ride to. Oh, I was going to a meeting and all of a sudden at the end of breakfast, I would say nine o'. Clock, a little after nine, one of my security detailed, Detective Patty Verone walked in and whispered to Denny And I said what? She came over to me and she said together with Denny, a twin engine plane has hit the north tower. It's very bad I know you got to get down there. I said, of course, of course. Let's go. I immediately got up. I walked out with Bill for a reason that you'll have to ask Bill. He had the impulse to say to me, God bless you. Now Bill is a very religious Catholic and a good man, but we've been together a hundred times, a thousand times. I've prosecuted cases with him and he would occasionally say, I'm praying for you. But that wasn't like a comment. There was something he got about how this is going to be different. When I walked outside, I looked up, not quite when I walked outside, I got outside, I saw smoke, got in the car, Denny got in the car. We started driving down from 50, from 54th street to lower Manhattan. We could see more flame than you'd have with a twin engine plane. And both Jenny and I said, I think it's worse. So I thought out loud, I said, like two possibilities. Terrorist accident. Don't think it's a deliberate attack. The sky is too blue. I called the police commissioner and without even saying hello, I said, bernie, you agree, terrorist attack or accident? He says, absolutely, boss, but we're preparing for terrorist attack. Let's play that it's a terrorist attack because if it isn't, what do we lose, right? We don't lose anything. I said, well, that means you cut off the bridge. He said, well, I hadn't. I wanted. But I cut off both bridges. Nobody's coming into Manhattan right now. You come into Manhattan right now, you're going to be sitting in prison. If we have terrorists here to do follow up attacks, we don't want any more. And you know the problem we have in New Jersey. I said, I got it. He said, that one I got really sealed off. You better tell people, don't come in from New Jersey, you're not getting in. Whatever problems we have, we want to solve them. Meanwhile, I brought cops in and we're moving them out. I want as few people on this island today so we can limit it. We can have free access. Who knows, there could be follow up attacks. He said, you better call the White House too. I've been trying, can't get through. We think there are other attacks. We've been hearing rumors. I said, okay, Bern, but get a center ready because our communicating by cell phone wasn't working. Get us a live center right near the, right near the Barclay street, right near there so we can have direct lines. I start driving toward it. We're watching it. We go by St. Vincent's Hospital. And we see all these, we see all of these doctors and nurses and stretchers on the street. And it says, look like a war zone. Looks like something I saw in Israel. When I would go there when there were attacks, I used to go at the request of the mayor to give them support. Bernie called me again, and then third time he called me. We were less than a mile away. And he said, boss, that was the second plane that just hit. I said, God, I thought it was a secondary fire because the first building sort of blocked the second. You couldn't see it. Exactly.

[Ben Ferguson]

Sure.

[Rudy Giuliani]

We saw this thing. We had no idea it was the second plan. He said, boss, it was a big, a big liner. And he immediately said, either heone of us said terrorism. The other said bin Laden. We knew it was bin Laden because he had threatened to bomb us a year and a half ago. He was a constant threat to the courthouse, federal courthouse, because the trial was going on.

[Ben Ferguson]

Sure.

[Rudy Giuliani]

I mean, the only one who treated bin Laden lightly was Bill Clinton.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Who has never gotten the appropriate scrutiny for having done a Chamberlain.

[Ben Ferguson]

He passed up on the opportunity.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Well, I mean, we blame Chamberlain for disregarding Hitler. This guy disregarded Ben Lauden. He also declared war in the United States. And he killed American sailors. Yeah, you don't kill American sailors.

[Ben Ferguson]

Kenya, Tanzania, the embassies. Americans were killed.

[Rudy Giuliani]

It was when they talk about Biden's disgraceful turning his back on Americans, leaving them behind and getting them killed in Afghanistan. Bill Clinton did it multiple times. And I was friendly with Bill Clinton. I had to be. I didn't have respect for him. I mean, he's a terrible president.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah. He admitted on Long island at a luncheon in front of 1500 people that they wanted to bring bin Laden here, but he turned it down.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Yeah, it's all because they were sucking up to Islam. The Democrat party has become, it always has been, partial to communism and Marxism. Big segments of it. They always had opponents of that. Now they're all there. Second, it's a pro Islamic extremist party, no doubt about it. Which makes it an anti Semitic party. You can't be a Jew and speak out about Israel or Judaism. They'll throw you out.

[Ben Ferguson]

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[Rudy Giuliani]

Tickets Take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world.

[Emily Maitlis]

The News Agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening, but why? From me, Emily Maitlis and me, John Sopel with Global's award winning podcast the News Agents Dropping daily covering everything you need to know about politics and current.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Affairs and the newsagents USA.

[Emily Maitlis]

Listening to the newsagents on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search the newsagents to start listening.

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[Sarah]

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[Carol Markowitz]

Look, I'm standing out front of a.m. p.m. Right now and well, you're sweet and all, but I found something more fulfilling. Even kind of cheesy. But I like it. Sure, you met some of my dietary needs, but they've just got it all. So farewell. Oatmeal. So long you strange soggy.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Break up with bland breakfast and taste AM PM's bacon, egg and cheese biscuit made with cage free eggs, smoked bacon and melty cheese on a buttery biscuit. AM P M. Too much. Good stuff.

[Ben Ferguson]

New York city has a 40 year history of Islamic terror. There's been hundreds of attacks foiled and intercepted over the years. They got away with a couple of them, but Rudy Giuliani was on the forefront of that. Here's part two of my interview with Rudy Giuliani. So I wanted to get into the terrorist aspect of it, but before I get into that.

[Rudy Giuliani]

But we weren't that bad then.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah, well, you know there's a 40 year history of terrorism in New York City, right?

[Rudy Giuliani]

Yeah. And I was involved in it from. So was day one.

[Ben Ferguson]

Remember? I wanted to ask you that.

[Rudy Giuliani]

My career was non politics. My career was. I was. I had every position in the Justice.

[Ben Ferguson]

Department, Associate Attorney General.

[Rudy Giuliani]

I started as a law clerk to a federal judge. I became an assistant U.S. attorney, a line prosecutor for six years, tried 100 cases. Then I was in law practice for a few years and Ronald Reagan may be the number three person in the Justice Department. And I gave that up to be U.S. attorney in Manhattan. All during that time I prosecuted terrorism cases. Now I was known for prosecuting the Mafia and Wall Street. Those got the big, big publicity. But I prosecuted numerous terrorism cases and international drug dealing cases. I have an award from the Colombian government for helping to break up the cartels in Colombia. I have an award from the Mexican government for helping them with the cartel involvement with terrorist groups. People just don't know that didn't get as much publicity. But I and my assistants and then the ones who were there, who were there, in other words, when New York had to take up terrorism, not only me, but the police department, the FBI, joint. We had a joint terrorism task force. Specifically 90% of it was Islamic terrorism. That's really the only real terrorism. They were experts on it. So okay, we'd been attacked in 93.

[Ben Ferguson]

Where were you in the. February 26, 1993?

[Rudy Giuliani]

I was running for mayor.

[Ben Ferguson]

You were running for mayor.

[Rudy Giuliani]

And it was one of the things that likened me because Dinkins was in Japan, like the mayor of. The mayor of Los Angeles was in. Where was it? Uganda, when Los Angeles burned down.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah, yeah. Basso. Right. So the history of 9 11. I think it's important for the audience to know. Right. Mayor Kahana was murdered by El Sayd Nasser in the Marriott Hotel.

[Rudy Giuliani]

That's when I was a law student.

[Ben Ferguson]

Right. So he gets sent to Attica on a gun charge. El Salina said the first attack was planning to break him out of Attica by Mohammed Salameh and Mahmoud Abu Halimah, the Blind Sheikh. Right. And that was foiled by Navy Intelligence, I believe. And then the second plot was to kidnap Aldomaro's daughter and blow up 13 synagogues. But bin Laden got wind of that and he sent KSM's nephew, Ramzi Yousef, who was in the Philippines, here.

[Rudy Giuliani]

You know. You know the guys I was prosecuting.

[Ben Ferguson]

In terrorism to teach him how to make the ammonium nitrate diesel fertilizer bomb.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Al d' Amato at the time was a great friend.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah. And you know, they did that. And then three months later, the Day of Terror, they were going to blow up the GW Bridge, the Holland Tunnel.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Yeah. But here's the good thing. The Democrat administration ignored it to the extent of empowering it. It wouldn't have happened if they had struck back. They weren't that powerful at the beginning. Always much easier to take these bastards out early than wait. Like, you wait on Hitler, he controls the Wall. You wait on Stalin, he controls half the world. You wait on bin Laden, he's capable of taking down buildings. You go after banal and six years earlier, nothing. And they wouldn't. They should have taken him out six years earlier. But New York City didn't do the same thing. Because the year of the attack, I was running for mayor. First day I got in office, my first priority was to build the best terrorism defense in the world. And I created an Office of Emergency Management, which we never had before. I got the biggest expert I could get to manage it. And we spent a very large amount of time studying what could happen to us and practicing. We brought in people from other cities, we brought in people from others from the country. We brought in people. We brought in people from Israel. We had Israelis come and train us on how to deal with suicide bombings. We had never dealt with suicide bombings. We had had A terrorist attack almost about a year and a half earlier, when. When Howard Safer was police commissioner, where they had explosives that could have blown up an entire subway station. The guy was caught four blocks away in an apartment building and he was shot dead on the way to hitting a toggle switch.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yes.

[Rudy Giuliani]

I had another five or six once it never became public.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah. And people don't talk about that.

[Rudy Giuliani]

We were ready for it. Here's what we weren't ready for. We weren't. I always, when I say this in a speech, we anticipated everything, but you never anticipate everything.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Rudy Giuliani]

We had never prepared for or envisioned airplanes being used as missiles to go into the middle of the buildings. You're gonna hit the bottom of a building, you're gonna do a suicide bombing throughout the building. Yeah, sure.

[Ben Ferguson]

Imagine they hit an hour later, 30 stories lower. There'd be 50,000 people dead.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Right, yeah, of course, of course. By the time I was there, I asked Bernie put in the hard lines. By the time I was there, the first thing I said to him when I got out of the first thing is, how bad is it at hell? And my deputy mayor, chief deputy mayor who helped me to run it, Joe Ota, who runs Langone Hospital. Now, Joe said, boston jumping out of windows, it's so bad. I said, did you get the hard lines? And he says, look, because he's very proud of how he would do things quickly. I look down the street in Berkeley street and I see all these police trucks there. And they were all. I gave this order, like five minutes ago, and they were already there putting their lines in. They said, boss, what do we do? I said, first thing we do, we go see Gancy, make sure he's got everything. I want you and Gancy to be one here. I don't want any problem with a cop saying, we're in charge. I said, right now, Commissioner, what do you tell me? What's your call? We had a very strict rule. First thing you do in an emergency is set up. The commander and the mayor makes the order and they listen to it. That's why I used to go, right. We had a situation in the city four or five years earlier when fire and police were fighting with each other as Cooper's gonna go save the people in the river. And nobody was going. People are yelling in the river and they're punching each other out.

[Ben Ferguson]

So you were in the EOC when the first building collapse, you were trapped in there, right? For a while.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Oh. I'll tell you what happened. We go with Gansey, we Set up everything. I wish him luck. I give him my advice. He gives me his advice, which was more important. He arranges things with Bernie. We come back. Now that at Center Two walks away is set up. We walk in and everybody's on a phone trying to get information. And also we're trying to get the White House. I get the White House, they tell me, one of the top aides there tells me they're evacuating the White House. Yes, there are other attacks. Could be seven to 12 planes. We're going to have airplanes over your city very shortly. I said, do we have aircon? I want to talk to the vice President because I have some things I want to do and I want to make sure the President agrees. He said, the president is. President is being taken to a secure location. Can you imagine how that starts, putting the weight on you? It's like, okay, this is real. We're on our own. That's what I said. I get off the phone, I call Bernie and I said, bernie, we're on our own. He said, why? Federal government's protecting the President? And we agreed with that. We thought they should take him in here. Remember, remember, our mentality then is not now. Our mentality then is, this is such a big attack, more are going to happen. What's next? They're going to hit us again. They're going to hit Chicago, they're going to hit Philadelphia. They're going to come and try to take out. Their main target in New York was always the stock exchange. They're going to come back and get that.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Rudy Giuliani]

What else are they going to hit? St. Patrick's St. John the Divine. Are they going to go for? They've gone after military, they've gone after political, they've gone after economic. Are they going to go after religion? I mean, the Muslims hate all that. And religion's the biggest. And they've been dedicated. I mean, I was not a naive, euphemistic suck up on the Muslim religion. I knew the bad and the good of it, and there's a lot there.

[Ben Ferguson]

They were caught mixing the explosives in a midtown warehouse near Murray Hill to take out FBI headquarters. The Holland Tunnel, the GW Bridge. I heard the Sudanese embassy may have given them the keys to the parking garage of the United Nations.

[Rudy Giuliani]

The United nations is controlled by them?

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Some of those agencies should be designated as terrorist groups. People have no idea of the depth of the infiltration of the democratic regimes and then the deep state toward Islamic terrorism, including the completely euphemistic way in which they Hide from the American people the truth about the Muslim religion, which everything these people did, they could find justification for in their holy book.

[Ben Ferguson]

They were allowed to lie, right?

[Rudy Giuliani]

They could find justification for it in their holy spirit. And the ones who couldn't find there, they could find it in Karl Marx.

[Ben Ferguson]

So going back to the Al Farouk Mosque was a recruiting place for the mujahideen. Go fight in Afghanistan, Atlantic Avenue, the spice markets. You know, they had recruiting videos where we had celebrations. So there was a long history, going back to the 80s, of recruitment. Right.

[Rudy Giuliani]

For Al Qaeda, you have exactly the place. You're really very knowledgeable. The two major places that we had to worry about eventually, Queensland, and then under Bloomberg, Queens got worse. If I were there five years later, Queens would have been a heavy. But when I was there, it was downtown, inner Brooklyn, where I went to high school. I knew that geography really well. And then bigger time, New Jersey, because that's where they played.

[Ben Ferguson]

So the Jersey City Mosque, the Manhattan Mosque, the Brooklyn Mosque, all run by the blind sheikh.

[Rudy Giuliani]

I authorized something very controversial for which Bloomberg got blamed. But then I stood up for it. I put New York City police in New Jersey undercover. I recruited them on purpose. I had the FBI help me. We trained them in Arabic. If they didn't know it, we made them look like.

[Ben Ferguson]

I didn't know that.

[Rudy Giuliani]

We made them look like what the hell they were. And we had. By 1997, 98, when we had one of our first warnings that we would be attacked, I was able to check and be very secure. It wasn't coming from New Jersey, and Bernie was very secure. By the time I got down, this hadn't come from New Jersey because we had covered it so well. Eventually, years later, Christie discovered it, got very angry that we had him there, didn't tell him about it, and we didn't overlap much. When he was mayor, I said, why would they tell you about it? It's top secret. They need to know. You didn't have the need to know. He said, suppose we ran into them. He said, have you ever done undercover work? We run into people all the time. What do we do? Inform everybody.

[Ben Ferguson]

So there was a $23 million weapons ring broken up out of Jersey City, Correct?

[Rudy Giuliani]

Yep. And there was a shooting in Brooklyn. I'd say legitimately about exaggeration. Ten seconds before, the entire building was broken down by a Al Qaeda guy who was going to take out an entire subway station and then two buildings. He was killed on the way to the toggle switch.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yes.

[Rudy Giuliani]

And when it was described. He was described as a terrorist, but no one described the dimension of what he had planned, which the FBI then was able to figure out by investigating.

[NFL Announcer]

The 2025 NFL season is underway. Don't miss your chance to be a part of the action. Tickets to all regular season games are on set. Be there live to support your favorite team. See every epic showdown, every classic rivalry and Every primetime game. 17 games for all 32 teams. Visit NFL.com tickets to purchase tickets today. Verified tickets are available through the NFL Ticket Network, including Ticketmaster, seatgeek and Sports Illustrated.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Tickets take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world.

[Emily Maitlis]

The News Agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening, but why? From me, Emily Maitlis and me, Jon Sopel with Global's award winning podcast the Newsagents Dropping Daily covering everything you need to know about politics and current affairs.

[Rudy Giuliani]

And the newsagents USA.

[Emily Maitlis]

Listening to the newsagents on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search the newsagents to start listening.

[Propane Advertiser]

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[Carol Markowitz]

Hey there, I'm Mary Kathryn Ham. And I'm Carol Markowitz. We've been in political media for a long time. Long enough to know that it's gotten.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Well, a little insane.

[Maria Lynn]

That's why we started normalely a podcast.

[Rudy Giuliani]

For people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.

[Carol Markowitz]

We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor. We don't take ourselves too seriously, but.

[Rudy Giuliani]

We do take the truth seriously.

[Carol Markowitz]

So if you're into common sense, sanity and some occasional sass, you're our kind of people. Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday.

[Rudy Giuliani]

And Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple.

[Carol Markowitz]

Podcasts, or wherever you listen.

[Ben Ferguson]

I sat down with Rudy Giuliani up in New Hampshire about the 911 and the day's events. The greatest mayor in American history. Here's the rest of it. On 9 11, five buildings collapsed down there in the Trade Center. Three partially collapsed. In addition, 11 buildings suffered major damage. 37 buildings had damage in addition to that. And chunks of Building 7 were taken out. From what I understand the size of trucks from when the building collapsed and the structural integrity of that building, it burned for seven hours. No water pressure in the 16 acre debris field, and it burned for all that time. And EOC members have told me that they tried to get back up to the 23rd floor in building seven, but stopped at the seventh floor, knowing that the building was creaking and was going to go down. I wanted to ask you, and this is really important, what do you say to people who say that there were explosives placed in the building prior to the planes hitting?

[Rudy Giuliani]

I say there's no evidence of that. There's nothing that suggests that there were explosives in the building except it came down. The coming down is perfectly explainable by what it was hit with. I was told it was going to come down the minute they saw it hit. In fact, that's the way Gancy thought the two towers were going to come down. They were going to come down, not implode, but come down over a period. He thought he had about two and a half days.

[Ben Ferguson]

Right.

[Rudy Giuliani]

When I got informed about that building, they said it was going to. They were pretty sure it was going to come down before the end of the night, if not the next morning.

[Ben Ferguson]

Sure. And they evacuated.

[Rudy Giuliani]

And I got that information the first time I went there because I wanted to go in. You know, my corporation counsel was the last person out of the building. Michael Hess?

[Ben Ferguson]

Yes. I wanted to ask you about 410,000 first responders came through the pile right that day. Subsequent to the events of that day. Almost 8,000 have died so far, including the people lost their lives that day. 70,000 plus are sick with cancer, COPD, PTSD, and mesothelioma showing up 20 years later.

[Rudy Giuliani]

I'm certain, and so is Dr. Maria, that Bernie's death was at least a causative factor. Was the five year lung damage he was being treated for. No one knew that Bernie was Very, very sick. Now, he also created a heart problem, and doctors feel that if the lung hadn't deteriorated like that, some of the kind he had, like a beating heart problem would not have happened.

[Ben Ferguson]

Sure.

[Rudy Giuliani]

I must personally know 50 people that died, either for sure or arguably because of their involvement down there. And I have a spot on my lung, but it's not.

[Ben Ferguson]

Wow.

[Rudy Giuliani]

I've had it for about five years and it hasn't spread, which gives me great, great confidence that I'll die with it.

[Ben Ferguson]

Wow. Well, let's talk about Bernie Carrick. He passed recently. We covered the funeral. Real America's voice, big asset. I always enjoyed talking to him about 9 11. What did it mean to you and how was it working with him in the midst of everything that happened at 911 and post 9 11?

[Rudy Giuliani]

Well, Bernie was a rock of solidity. That would not have made it possible for me to do the things I did without him or without Von Essen or without Richie Shearer. They were the three big ones. They were the heads of fire, police, emergency services. They worked without sleep that I ever discerned for two straight months. They were rocks of granite. All of them get great credit for what they did, and they all helped each other get it. And God just blessed me with just terrific people. Now, throughout the administration, I had people I had to take off. I had people have the nervous breakdowns. Right. At a meeting, I had to take people off duty. I had surprises, people I thought who could handle what I couldn't. People stepped up who I didn't think were heroes. But the three of them, I consider them like rocks of granite.

[Ben Ferguson]

Donald Trump, what was your interaction back then? I know he brought in a lot of Teamsters to help clean up the site. What was your experience?

[Rudy Giuliani]

Well, at that time, he'd been a friend for about 11 or 12 more than that. We became friends in 1986, and as the years went along, we got closer and closer because he was a Democrat and supported me immediately for mayor in 1988, supported me without fail in all of my. I ran twice, lost once, ran again. Democratic Party was very angry at him. He was one of my major supporters.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yes.

[Rudy Giuliani]

And you get Donald Trump, you get all of Donald Trump's friends. Not only that he was a supporter of my policies. You have to have described him as a conservative Democrat. He agreed with all the crime things he's doing now are the crime things I did then. And that he supported them. Yes. And that he applauded me for.

[Ben Ferguson]

How do we get leadership back in New York City?

[Rudy Giuliani]

The Elect one.

[Ben Ferguson]

I want to thank you so much for taking the time.

[Rudy Giuliani]

This is one of the best interviews I've had. I gotta say something. You know the background of this better than anybody's ever interviewed me.

[Ben Ferguson]

Wow. Well, it's near and dear to me.

[Rudy Giuliani]

So you should be in contact. I could use you.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah. Listen.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Thank you.

[Ben Ferguson]

You know, the people of New York were grateful for your leadership. Not only during 9 11.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Thank you.

[Ben Ferguson]

But turning it around to New York City.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Thank you. You know the message I'd like to leave them with?

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Look, I'm just a human being. I am very aware of the fact that I didn't do it by myself.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yes.

[Rudy Giuliani]

I did get very, very lucky in having a terrific staff. And I had a great speaker of the City Council, a Democrat, Peter Vallone. George Pataky did a lot.

[Ben Ferguson]

I like Peter Vallone.

[Rudy Giuliani]

George couldn't accomplish as much. Cause he had the crook. Shelley Silver.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Rudy Giuliani]

I knew that. I always felt bad for George. After my original support for Cuomo, I regretted it somewhat because George turned out to be a great, great person and showed leadership. After nine months, he made one of the critical decisions in putting us together. Nobody knows this and it should be explained because people will follow it. We were a team for four months. We were not without. We were not outside of each other's sight more than two hours a day. We had our staff meetings together. He took the governor's staff meeting and the mayor's staff meeting. And we held it together because we knew we could get along. But we know government enough to know that our staffs are going to fight no matter what.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Rudy Giuliani]

And we put them there and made them work jointly on things. And here was the outcome of it. If something went wrong, had we not done that, his staff would have blamed me, my staff would have blamed him, and we never would have resolved it.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Now if it goes wrong, we both have to defend it.

[Ben Ferguson]

They're all in the same room and.

[Rudy Giuliani]

We gotta fix it.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Rudy Giuliani]

It was. And I think he came up with that idea. If he didn't, he agreed to it right away. And I think that is probably a core principle of how you deal with an emergency. There's gotta be a joint. If you see a hurricane and you see, like in Katrina, the governor in the Capitol and the mayor in a boat having a nervous breakdown, the federal government can't do anything about that. Right. Because they're not on the spot. The president's going to go off them and the people are going to die.

[Ben Ferguson]

Well, again, it means a lot that you took the time for us. I want to thank you and you know, this is very valuable. Reach out anytime.

[Rudy Giuliani]

That there. Real America's voice. Real America's voice. You're one of the prime 10, I'd say I put on a list of eight, 10 that saved free speech in America during the Dark Ages.

[Ben Ferguson]

We're in touch with the people.

[Rudy Giuliani]

The Dark Ages were.

[Ben Ferguson]

We listen to the real American voices across America. And that's what makes Rav a great.

[Rudy Giuliani]

You're just telling the truth.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yes.

[Rudy Giuliani]

You're using your common sense, as the President says, to try to figure out the truth. Look, there are times I disagree with him.

[Ben Ferguson]

Wear a mirror.

[Rudy Giuliani]

But I use the same process that he uses and then we eventually, eventually can figure out or he moderates it or you know, it's not that you agree with someone like that, who you admire. I've worked for Ronald Reagan. Yes, I agree with Ronald Reagan 80% of the time, 90% of the time, but that's more than enough. And he did monumental things like free Eastern Europe.

[Ben Ferguson]

You know what the core of it is? The good people of America are tired of being told they're the bad people and they just. That's why Donald Trump got elected again.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Yeah. Well, we could talk about this at some point, but I'm going to tell you the key thing to it. Throwing God out.

[Ben Ferguson]

Sure.

[Rudy Giuliani]

You throw God out, you can't have morality.

[Ben Ferguson]

Look what happened in Minneapolis today.

[Rudy Giuliani]

You need I say to people that don't believe in God, you're better off with a country that believes in God because it'll be a better country. Maybe you're special and you can figure out how to be very moral and high minded and contributory without God. Most people need God.

[Ben Ferguson]

100 million were killed under communism.

[Rudy Giuliani]

So I used to know atheists. I debated with. You used to say that. I learned that from an agnostic.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Rudy Giuliani]

You know, I, I'm, I don't think God exists. I can't quite get myself there. It isn't that. I'm sure he doesn't, but I don't. I can't see the proof, but I think it's much better than people do because it makes them better.

[Ben Ferguson]

There's no doubt about it. Thank you again.

[Rudy Giuliani]

All right, thank you.

[Ben Ferguson]

All right. I'm so excited to have Maria from switch2usa.com with us. Switch the number2usa.com she's been a long time supporter of the show and was so grateful. Maria, how are you?

[Rudy Giuliani]

I'm well.

[Maria Lynn]

Thank you for having me.

[Ben Ferguson]

David.

[Maria Lynn]

And I'm very excited to be here and let everyone know what's been going on.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah. So tell us about switch to USA American made products by American factory workers.

[Maria Lynn]

This is an extraordinary time for all of us to be in this mission. The mission is not only Maga but Maha.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Right.

[Maria Lynn]

And we've been in this business for maybe three and a half, four years, some of us maybe longer. We are an American manufacturer. We, we did the deep dive. We found an American manufacturer that's been doing business for 40 years. And it's a discount club membership. So you get between 45 and 47% off when you shop monthly. It's all wellness products, cleaning, laundry, toothpaste, mouthwash. The basic essentials for every American. So I always say if you have skin and hair and teeth, this is where you need to be. This is a mission where we can defund the BlackRock and the pyramid scheme. That's BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street. And this is an American owned, made in America manufacturer. They're all processed here in the usa, manufactured here in the usa. Everything is door delivered, including our ranch. We have a ranch and everything is USA processed right here from our ranch. They have a processing center.

[Ben Ferguson]

All right, tell our viewers how they can get involved and how do they find you?

[Maria Lynn]

Oh, please come to switch the number2usa.com. Either myself or my family and team will answer your call. Please schedule an appointment so expect to hear about the details. You get to pick and choose if you want beef or wellness or both. We'll sign you up and expect to shop with us on the very first time. And then every month thereafter you get to shop with all by yourself. And remember, this is a patriot mission and we're so grateful that we get to build America.

[Ben Ferguson]

All right, Maria Lynn, love to see you and go to the bottom of the screen there. Switch to USA.com and get it today. Thank you.

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[Rudy Giuliani]

Tickets take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world. The news agents.

[Emily Maitlis]

We're not just here to tell you what's happening, but why. From me, Emily Maitlis and me, Jon Sopel with Global's award winning podcast, the News Agents Dropping daily covering everything you need to know about politics and current.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Affairs and the newsagents USA listening to.

[Emily Maitlis]

The newsagents on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search the newsagents to start listening.

[Carol Markowitz]

You want smart political talk without the meltdowns? We got you.

[Rudy Giuliani]

And I'm Carol Markowitz.

[Carol Markowitz]

And I'm Mary Kathryn Hamm. We've been around the block in media and we're doing things differently.

[Rudy Giuliani]

Normally is about real conversations, thoughtful, try to be funny, grounded, and no panic.

[Carol Markowitz]

We'll keep you informed and entertained without ruining your day. Join us every Tuesday and Thursday Normally on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Rudy Giuliani]

I'm Ben Ferguson. And I'm Ted Cruz. Three times a week we do our podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz. Nationwide, we have millions of listeners. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court. And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else. We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family. So download Verdict with Ted Cruz now. Wherever you get your podcasts, this is.

[Carol Markowitz]

The story of the one As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast. It's why he partners with Grainger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers, all so that he can help students, staff and teachers stay healthy and focused. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. This is an iHeart podcast.