Rudy Giuliani Says He Would've Booted Occupy Wall Street On 'Day One'
Rudy Giuliani said if he were still mayor of New York City, he would've booted the protesters out of Zuccotti Park on "day one" of the occupation, describing the demonstrators as "bums" and "leftover hippies."
Giuliani (who is NOT running for president) told Sean Hannity in a radio interview (listen below), "I would have handled this differently. I took over a city that had had two riots in the two years before I was mayor. I didn't have a riot, because I didn't let it start."
He was less sympathetic to protesters' invocation of the First Amendment than Mayor Bloomberg, who let the protesters occupy Zuccotti for almost two months before evicting them Tuesday. "You have no right to pitch a tent in the middle of New York City, I'm sorry," Giuliani said. "That is not the First Amendment."
Giuliani also expressed disbelief over violence in the park, noting, "The minute you have any place where you have to put up a place [to] protect a woman against rape, then you've got to come in and get rid of those people. You can't tolerate that in a civilized city."
And in describing the protesters, he said, "When I see them on television sometimes, particularly the older ones, it looks like I’m seeing the leftover effects of having taken too many drugs when they were 20 years old," he said. "They make no sense. They babble."
The former mayor hasn't been quiet about his distaste for the Occupy Wall Street movement, which he says "would not have happened but for [Barack Obama's] class warfare." Earlier this month, at the Defending The American Dream Summit, Giuliani mocked protesters. "How about you occupy a job," he said. "How about working? Working. Woohoo, working. I know that's tough. Woodstock is more fun, right? Woodstock is a lot more fun than working eight hours a day."
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First Posted: 11/18/11 04:42 PM ET Updated: 11/18/11 04:42 PM ET