Mayor Rudy Giuliani On CNN

"An open invitation to Assad, to Ahmadinejad, to Castro, to Chavez. This is absurd." -- Mayor Giuliani

Mayor Rudy Giuliani
CNN's "American Morning"
May 21, 2008

MAYOR GIULIANI: "Not having preconditions is doing what Barack Obama wants to do. If I remember the first time he said this during a debate and Hillary pounced on him, he said I'll meet with them without preconditions. I'll just meet with them. I'll invite them to the White House in Washington the first year that I'm president. An open invitation to Assad, to Ahmadinejad, to Castro, to Chavez. This is absurd. An American president has never done that."


CNN'S KYRA PHILLIPS: "So you'd be open to certain conditions?"


MAYOR GIULIANI: "Every American President has negotiated, but always with very severe preconditions. Things that have to be met, and with certain terrorists maybe you don't negotiate at all. But certainly if you're negotiating with your enemies, there have to be preconditions on the table. Go back to the debates between Nixon and Kennedy -- Kennedy understood this. I think Hillary Clinton's comments really display the difference between experience and lack of experience. And I think John is also illustrating that Senator Obama really has very little experience in the area of foreign policy, foreign affairs, and his instincts seem to be wrong. That's the wrong instinct. The instinct should be we'll demand a lot of them before we have a sit-down at a table with them."

Watch Mayor Rudy Giuliani On CNN