Fox News Sunday, "Choosing the President" interviews: on Government Reform

Rudy Giuliani: Line item veto is unconstitutional; beat Clinton’s in 1990s

A: Correct.

Q: And yet, when you were mayor, Pres. Clinton--when he had that power back in the mid-’90s, he used it to line-item veto what he said was excessive Medicaid spending. You not only opposed it, you took him to the Supreme Court and you got it ruled unconstitutional. So it’s because of you we don’t have the line-item veto.

A: The line-item veto is unconstitutional, and I’m a strict constructionist. If we want the line-item veto, it has to be done by constitutional amendment. The reality is it so fundamentally alters the separation of powers, it’s unconstitutional. The Supreme Court decided that. I believe that. And of course, it was in the interest of my city to advocate for it. It was my job to protect the people of NYC, and I did it vigorously and strongly and we were correct in our interpretation of the Constitution. And the president was incorrect.

John McCain: 527s are clearly illegal; reform intended for small donors

A: We’ve strengthened the parties. There’s millions more small donors. We have taken soft money, which was rampant in Washington, out of the game. The 527s are a violation of the 1974 law. The 527s are clearly illegal. It’s not a problem with law. It’s a problem with the FEC who will not enforce the law. So, yeah, we made significant progress, absolutely, and I’m proud of a lot of the results of this. I lived in the environment where a powerful committee chairman would call and say, “I need a check for seven figures from you, and by the way, your bill is up before my committee next week.” That was routine operation in Washington, and we’re still seeing manifestations of this kind of corruption.

Fred Thompson: Reasonable limitations on soft money

A: I came from the outside to Congress. And it always seemed strange to me. We’ve got a situation where people could give politicians huge sums of money, which is the soft money situation at that time, and then come before those same politicians and ask them to pass legislation for them. I mean, you get thrown in jail for stuff like that in the real world. And so I always thought that there was some reasonable limitation that ought to be put on that, and you know, looking back on history, Barry Goldwater in his heyday felt the same thing. So that’s not a non-conservative position, although I agree that a lot of people have interpreted it that way.

Fred Thompson: Scooter Libby trial was a miscarriage of justice

A: That’s right.

Q: And you helped raise millions of dollars for his extraordinary legal expenses. Would Pres. Thompson pardon Libby now or would you wait until all of his legal appeals are exhausted?

A: I’d do it now. This is a trial that never would have been brought in any other part of the world. This is a miscarriage of justice. One man is bearing the brunt of a political maelstrom here that produced something that never should have come about. This Justice Dept. knew in the very beginning that the thing that was creating the controversy, who leaked Valerie Plame’s name, did not constitute a violation of the law. Mr. Armitage leaked the name. It wasn’t Scooter Libby. They spent the next year drilling in a dry well and finally got some inconsistencies or some failure to remember out of Libby and made a prosecution out of it. It’s not fair. I would do anything that I could to alleviate that.