tragedy, not just illness, but also opportunities to figure out what went wrong, how to avoid making those same mistakes, and how to protect all of us the next time tragedy strikes. i'm dr. sanjay gupta. i'm dr. sanjay gupta. thanks for watching. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com tonight, keeping america great. two men with very strong opinions about this country and president obama. he says a president, tiger woods is off his game and says 9/11

was a lost opportunity for america. i asked tom freeman what it will take to solve the jobs crisis. plus rudy giuliani, what he thinks the president should say to get america working again. >> this speech the next night is going to be really important. it's his last chance to be moderate. it's his last chance to do a bill clinton. >> and why he says 9/11 was not the end of the terror threat to america. >> there have been at least 40 attempts to do such attacks in the united states since then. a lot more than people realize. >> rudy giuliani, tom friedman, serious people with serious times. this is "piers morgan tonight." on the eve of one of the most important speeches of the obama presidency, days away from the tenth anniversary of 9/11, a critical time for this country and for the white house. when the president goes to capitol hill tomorrow night he's expected to unveil a huge $300 billion jobs program. with new spending on highways and rail systems and targeted

tax cuts paid for in part by closing corporate loopholes and raising taxes on the wealthiest americans. democrats familiar with the plan. with some congressional republicans already planning to skip the speech, will this be a turning point for america or business as usual in war torn washington? joining me a man with strong opini opinions. tom friedman, author of "that used to be us." how america fell behind in the world and invented and how we came back. you wrote a damning column this morning in "the new york times" basically saying as all the middle eastern dictators get toppled because they've been found wanting in the truth department, so the same thing is happening to democracies because the wider public armed with social networking and so on can now see through the lies. >> well, i was actually quoting a singaporian diplomat who made the point, piers. the real point of the column was to look at two different

republican presidents had dealt with two great his ttorical turning points. dwight eisenhower use the the cold war basically as a vehicle to pull the american people together and to inspire us to do nation building at home. to build out our highway system, to develop space program, to put massive research into science, foreign languages. and we basically use the cold war to make us stronger as a country. i contrasted that with how we dealt with 9/11 under another republican president, george w. bush who basically used 9/11 to put through two tax cuts we couldn't afford. not pay for two wars. and have a medicare entitlement program. one left us with a much stronger country. one left us with a much weaker country. >> yeah, but it's an interesting point. i think if president obama's planning this big speech as he know he is and stuff is leaking

out already, he must be thinking, how do i want to be remembered? if i'm going to be a one-term president, what will my legacy be? because at the moment there isn't going to be much of one other than the economy got marginally worse than when he took over. >> yeah, you almost wish that the president today or tomorrow, piers, would put out a plan that in some ways would be so big, so exciting and so demanding that he would basically say if i'm here for two more years or four more years or, you know, ten more years, i can't finish it. this plan is so big, it's going to take it so far, it needs my term to finish it and the next president to finish it. i sense this is something a little more immediate to juice the economy. that's a good thing. we certainly need the economy juiced. but the question is how much muscle building is going to be involved in the plan as well? we'll have to wait and see until tomorrow. i'm still hopeful. >> yeah, i mean, look, everyone's hopeful. it's a very difficult situation for him to find himself in. no one's pretending that his tenure has been remotely easy

with this huge global financial crisis. i was struck in your column, again, by the sense of trying to offer americans something to aspire to, give them hope again, to give them something to dream about. the space mission for all its faults was an incredibly exciting thing. i was a young lad, myself, when the rockets went up. the world stopped to watch these things. as it soared up to the moon, all you thought is, isn't america a fantastic country? i don't see that sense anymore. it's crying out for something of magnitude like you say. >> i think that's one of the challenges we have today. what is the great national project we could undertake that would pull us all together like the space program? what we argue, and that used to be us, is that really what we want to be doing today is what america was, sorry, what cape canaveral was for america in the 1960s, the place where we launched our big single moon shot. we think america should be in the 21st century for the whole world. what do i mean by that?

we want america to be the place where everyone in the world should want to come to start something. to launch something. and we should want them to come here because we have the best infrastructure, because we have the best education. because we have the best rules for investing. you know, because we are the place where more people want to collaborate and can collaborate with more other people. i think what we want america to be today is that launching pad where everyone would come to start something. if that happens, there will be plenty of employment, directly and indirectly that would flow from that. there's not going to be one moon shot now. we want america to be that launching pad for startups by everyone. you'll know when we succeeded, piers, when a chinese company says we don't want to be in shanghai, we want to be in america because that's the place to launch something and collaborate with people. >> tell me this, tom. is it simply too late in the short term, does america have the money to do the kind of elaborate plan you're talking

about? can it compete with china anymore? >> oh, yeah. absolutely. piers, i really believe -- one of the reason we called this book "that used to be us," the main argument is we have within ourselves, within our history all the resources, all the ideas we need to go forward. we actually had a formula for success in this country. it goes back to alexander hamilton, abraham lincoln, all the successful presidents built on five basic principles. education, the best infrastructure, the best education, immigration, attracting the world's most energetic and talented people. the best rules for investing and government-funded research. where we've gone off the rails is if you look at all five of those pillars of success, and they are there throughout our history, you'll see that in the last two decades the arrow is pointing down on all five. i tell you, we start to turn the arrows up on all five and we do have the resources to do that if we can cut some spending, raise some revenue and invest where we

need to invest. we do that, i tell you, you turn this ship up i think rather quickly. to me america is like the space shuttle. all that thrust coming from below. but the booster rocket, washington, d.c., is cracked right now and the pilots in the cockpit are fighting over the flight plan. so we can't achieve the escape philosophy we need to get into the next industrial orbit. i tell you, you fix that booster rocket, you get people to come together and you get the pilots to agree on a flight plan, this country takes off from the bottom up. >> you see, i think what everyone's crying out for is proper leadership. this is where i take issue with president obama and the way he's played this summer, in particular. because first over this whole debt ceiling supposed crisis. should never have been the crisis it became. it was driven by the republican party, speaker boehner and others and the tea party. then you lead into this ridiculous fast over when he can have the speech, where he can make the speech. he was bullied into changing the day. i feel quite strongly, i'm not

even american, but i feel strongly that i want the president to stand up and be the boss. and i would have called the bluff on the republicans. if they were going to be that -- you mentioned they're about raising revenue. now, many republicans are completely opposed to any increased taxation whatsoever. exactly the point you made about george bush in your column today which is in times of crisis you have to consider the unpalatable reality. and i just think most americans are decent civilized people and they get it and they would not mind paying a little bit more if they saw a reward for the extra taxation that was put upon them. what do you think? >> i agree with every word you just said, piers, including and and the. that's what i think. okay? this is what frustrated me about the president as well. he's played this inside game with congress all along and he's actually never leveraged the american people. he's never truly made the big

case to the american people. i compared him in a recent column to a golfer who in match play is playing not to lose. not playing to win. just playing not to loose. playing to get 50.000001% of the vote. and to me that's been a losing hand. if he's for a grand bargain, as he negotiated privately with boehner about, and boehner walked away from it, lay it on the table. i was for this. call your congressman. if he believed in that, because i think the american people understand that that grand bargain, $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in revenue, tax increases, was a perfectly fair and sensible deal. and i guarantee you, piers, had we passed that, as part of this debt dealing, this economy would be taking off right now. and that's the frustration. and i think a lot of people feel today -- you do a test with the american people, hold up a pick her of the president and say,

what comes to mind? for a lot of people it's something fuzzy. it's something not clear. he's not in focus. and he needs to get in focus with what he believes, what he's really heady to fight for. >> the advantage president obama has is i don't detect this hatred toward him. i don't detect necessarily the american public wanted him thrown out of office in igdymineous defeat. they don't want to be let down by a man. when they watched him be inaugurated they looked to the guy promising hope, chain, audacity, all these things which i think he has in it. when you see what happened with the killing of osama bin laden, there you saw a president absolutely on fire, taking this incredibly risky, bold decision, ordering the head and being successful. and america went crazy. supporting him. and praising him. i thought that would embolden him. it doesn't seem to have done it. you're right. it seems to have pushed him into this weird trap with the republicans.

where they're pushing him around and the american public are wanting him to round the chops. >> he's never really summoned him and laid the cards out on the table for him. we always said about the president, i think so many people voted for him because they thought he could change the polls and not just read the polls. there's been a lot more reading of the polls than changing the polls, than fundamentally redefining public opinion. that's what people are hungry for. >> we have a short break. i want to talk to you more about china. i want to know whether they're more of a potential friend, business partner than they are enemy and what we should in america, perhaps, envy about china and the way they've gone about their extraordinary economic growth. i couldn't conceive this as a heart attack. the doctor leaned over and said to me,

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for medicare made clear, we're here to answer all of your questions. call unitedhealthcare medicare solutions. it makes no sense for china to have better rail systems than us and singapore having better airports than us. we just learned that china now has the fastest super computer on earth. that used to be us. >> that was president obama, november 2010. a comment that inspired the

title of tom friedman's new book "that used to be us." tom friedman's back with me now. big words from the president but not much has changed. heading toward a year later and china has, if anything, got even further away from america in many key areas that america used to be so dominant. there's lots of views about china. donald trump views them very passionately as the enemy in terms of the way they go about business and the way they've taken american jobs. others i think, maybe those who have been there a lot and i've been there, see it as a very exciting, vibrant place, breaking out of the shackles of maoism and enjoying being very aggressive, skilled, and hard-working businesspeople. where do you sit? >> i'm very much in the second category. and i really believe china is more of a frenemy. more really of our siamese twin.

they're obviously a rapidly growing, a developing country. what we say in the book, piers, is that china -- we wish china well, but we think china has enormous challenges before it. and whether china succeeds or doesn't succeed really doesn't change anything for us. our view basically is that china is going to have to move much more toward our political system, ultimately. i really believe that. but right now china's getting 90% out of what i would call an inferior political system and we're getting 50% out of a superior political system. that's my frustration right now. that we should be getting so much more out of our democracy. so, you know, i wish china well. it will be a more stable world if they're a growing and vibrant country. but it doesn't hurt us. economics isn't war. they can win and we can win at the same time. but whose workers do best will depend on how we educate our people, what infrastructure we provide for them, what are the rules that we have, how much government research we have. we've got to get our house in order. if we do that, we'll be fine whether china thrives or doesn't thrive. >> i want to play a clip from

mitt romney yesterday who says pretty harsh things about china. listen to this. and i'll come to you afterwards. >> clamp down on the cheaters. and china's the worst example of that. they've -- [ applause ] they have manipulated their currency to make their products artificially inexpensive. it's hollowed out many of our manufacturing facilities in this country. that's unacceptable. i will label china as it is. a currency manipulator, and i will go after them for stealing our intellectual property and they will recognize if they cheat, there's a price to pay. i don't want a trade war with anybody. but we can't have a trade surrender either. >> i don't know about you but i found it a little undignified actually for a presidential candidate who has a real chance of becoming the republican nominee to just brand china the worst cheats in the world. i mean, i just thought it was a rather crass thing to say about a country which actually in many

ways america should be learning from at the moment. >> you know, my view on this whole thing, obviously where china is stealing intellectual property it should be challenged. if it's artificially keeping its currency low, we should be taking it up with them. but ultimately, i always think about china -- there's all these stories about them stealing this, them stealing that. i always feel like, you know, the only thing i worry about china is when they steal the things that are hiding in plain sight in america. when they steal the declaration of independence, the constitution, the jefferson memorial, the lincoln memorial, the washington monument. when they start to rip off those, when they start to copy those, that's when i'll worry about china. but if their plan to get rich is to steal our intellectual property, i tell you, piers, we'll always be developing something new faster than that. >> isn't their plan, though,

tom, they don't want to be dominant militarily, necessarily, or imperialistic. they don't want to rampage around the world invading countries. what they want to do, i believe, ethos that runs through that country at the top, they want to be number one in as many businesses as they can. i've been to cities in china, i can't remember their name, but they produce 85% of the world's duvets or 90% of the world's buttons, so on. when i went to shanghai, it was vibrant, it was exciting. everyone was positive. they're all fired up. i didn't get the sense it was, how can we cheat and defraud america? it's, how can we be number one in business? something america for a very long time has taken for granted. i don't really buy into this whole, they're just a bunch of cheats and should be treated as such. it's too easy and simplistic to say that. >> i'm not saying that either. what i am saying, though, is ultimately what matters, i think, all of these things are at the margin. what is their currency valuation?

whether they're stealing 70% of microsoft windows or 80%, ultimately it's what we do. whether we generate that kind of high aspiration to be number one again. whether we do the things that are in our power. build up our infrastructure. build up our education. you know, too often now you fly from shanghai to l.a.x., from zurich to jfk, it's like flying from the jetsons to the flintstones. you feel like you're flying from the future into the past. and that's what worries me. i'm really focused on what we do. if we get our house in order, things will work out with china and their fate will be determined by them. but we've got to focus on us. >> we'll come back and talk to you about global warming. does it exist? is the education system on its knees? and who is going to be the republican nominee, do you think, as things stand?

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i do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized. i think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into

their projects. >> texas governor republican presidential hopeful rick perry with something of a conspiracy theory on global warming. back with me now is tom friedman. tom, what do you hear of the guy who is streets ahead at the moment in the republican nomination race just dismissing global warming as politicized nonsense? what do you think of that? >> you know what's so funny about all this, piers? when you think of all these oil companies giving millions and millions of dollars in donations to buy basically every politician to deny climate change, then you have the politicians complaining about some poor tenured scientist who probably is struggling filling out 100 forms to maybe get a $25,000 grant over 10 years from the national science foundation. do you know how much money an m.i.t. scientist could make from oil companies if he came out tomorrow and said, climate change doesn't exist? by the way, if there were this conspiracy, do you think by now

somebody would have come clean? somebody would have reported that all the world's scientists are in a conspiracy? and what's really doubly absurd about it, rick perry's state is on fire. okay? it's now experiencing the worst -- tragically the worst wildfires in its history. which fits in exactly with the predictions of climate change that the hots will get hotter, the droughts will get longer, the wets will get wetter. you get these extremes in temperature. it's actually happening under his nose, climate change, and he's out denying it. i wrote a book before this called "hot, flat and crowded" about this climate issue. when i wrote it, when i speak to crowds that don't believe in it, i basically say, you don't believe in hot, you don't believe in climate change? anyone got an eraser? that's between you and your beach house.

you better believe? flat and crowds. believe that we've got 7 billion people on the planet, 9.5 billion by 2050. more of them, flat, can see how we live, aspire to how we live, live in american-size homes, drive american-size cars, eat american-sized big macs. what do you think is going to happen to energy production when we go from 7 billion people to 9 billion people and more of them can live like us? whether climate change exists or doesn't exist -- of course it does -- you're still going to have a huge demand for clean energy. what is this nonsense? >> when you see, as i say, rick perry espouse that nonsense as you put it, and he's way ahead in these polls to be republican nominee, could you actually imagine a scenario where either he or one of the other tea party candidates is chosen as the person to take on barack obama in the next election? >> i'm sure it's possible. but it's scary to me because as an italian proverb we quote, in our book, arithmetic is not an opinion.

>> barack obama's made a big deal since he came into the presidency about education. most people's view -- i read one statistic which i found pretty alarming from your book. 1 in 4 applicants to the u.s. army fails the entrance exam because they can't get through the three rs. reading, writing, arithmetic. that's sobering to read that kind of statistic. what is the truth about the current state of america's education system? >> what we try to do in this book, piers, is really start the discussion where we think it should start. what world are we living in? that's not where the discussion starts in this country. it often starts between the two political parties of how i can take this bar and stick it into the wheel of the other party. what world are we living in? we're living in a world that's not just connect, it's hyperconnected. what that means for employers is i can have access to more machines, more automation, more software, more robots. not only just cheap labor, but cheap genius anywhere in the world. this is posing a huge challenge to our workers.

we have a chapter in the book called "average is over." everyone needs to think, first of all, of themselves when it comes to education like an immigrant. how does an immigrant think? he thinks, nothing is owed me. i don't have a place waiting for me at harvard. i better understand the world i'm living in, and boy, i'd better work harder than the next guy because i've got nothing else going for me. you think like an immigrant. tell your kids that. secondly, think like an artisan. how does the artisan think? this is an idea of larry katz at harvard. artisans were the people before mass production in the middle ages. they made every individual saddle. they made every individual shoe. they were so proud of what they did, piers, they carved their initials into it. when you are doing your job today, think of what you're doing, whether you're so proud of how you're doing your job today you carve your initials in it. everyone's got to bring their extra. because average is officially over. >> finally, give me a one-word answer to this. does barack obama have it in him to beat his chest with this jobs

speech, re-energize america, galvanize the people, and maybe carve the initials "b.o." into the white house wall in a few months' time, yes or no? >> yes. he didn't get here by accident. i got to believe yes. >> tom friedman, thank you very much indeed. >> pleasure, piers, thank you. coming up, rudy giuliani on president obama. whether america is safer since 9/11. [ bell tolls ]

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this election will get determined, like most re-elections of presidents, based on our economy. doesn't matter if somebody's right wing, middle wing, or no wing, they're going to beat them. because the american people will say, let's get something else to change, this isn't working. >> that was rudy giuliani speaking to the national press club yesterday and he joins me now. rudy, how are you? >> how are you, piers? >> very good. you remain and continue to be my most visited guest on the show. i know that's something you're very proud of, you keep coming back. let's talk jobs. you clearly were implying yesterday there may be one new name added to the job figures next november, of that one barack obama. how important do you think the

speech is tomorrow in terms of whether he will or will not be re-elected? >> i think it's really important. i think you can always say, it's the last chance. but that's not true, there's a long way to go. it's really important for him to lay out a program that's realistic, that actually can pass, that people believe in, and that moves away from some of the ways in which they've been banging their heads together in the past. he's got to do -- tomorrow, i believe he has to do a bill clinton. he has to recognize the reality that he's got a republican house of representatives, and he's going to have to meet them maybe even more than halfway. the way bill clinton did with the newt gingrich congress. and that's how he got himself re-elected. if he fails to do that and he wants to stick to his liberal talking points, i think he's going to be doomed. >> here's the problem, really. however good this speech is and however dramatic his plans are,

given the incredibly hostile partisan nature of what's been going on in washington the past few months, there's not a cat in hell's chance of any republicans standing up to praise or laud him. you're all going to queue up to say the whole thing is a complete farce, total failure, and he should be gone by next christmas. >> it depends on what he says. >> it doesn't, though. >> it depends on what he says. if he says, i'm going to cut government spending by a real 1% or 2% this year, i'd be the first one to applaud him. if he could show some real discipline over his addiction to spending, i would be the first one to say yes, you know, we should do that. if he takes the corporate tax and cuts it to something like 15%, if he does something like says we could repatriate money, american corporations can bring money back to the united states, they won't bear any penalty, i'd say that's a really smart thing to do. if he were to take the capital gains tax and do away with it

i would stand up and applaud and say, boy, that's really going to reignite wall street. if he shows some understanding for -- >> rudy, what you're reciting there is a list of things republicans would love to do, but you're not in office. what if he says, for example, that he's going to take warren buffett's advice and he's going to heavily increase taxation on the super-rich in america, which is i believe what may be in the speech, and he's also going to cut out a lot of corporate loopholes so they end up paying more tax? what would you say to that, given warren buffett, one of the richest men in the country, has advocated it? >> it's easy for the richest man in the country to advocate that. it's for the rest of the people that have to pay it that's going to have a hard time with that. it would say to me barack obama has demonstrated that he's still addicted to spending and he wants more money to spend. and he's going to take it from the most convenient people to take it from, the rich. but the problem that this country has, the problem that europe has, that it has to come under control, is spending

addiction. the reason people don't invest in america is not because we're not taxing the rich. the reason people don't invest in america is because we don't have a plan that makes it look like our economy is going to grow. because the government is taking too much of the pie. the government is up to 23%, 24% of our gdp. it should be more at 18%, 19% of our gdp. these are things that president obama, with his very left-wing approach to the economy, doesn't understand. and he's ruined us and the proof is in the pudding. he's put these policies into effect and these policies have been a disaster. >> there will be many people listening to this, rudy, and say hang on a second. you talk about ruining the economy. it was, of course, your party that effectively brought country's economy to its knees, wasn't it? you can't absolve yourselves of responsibility -- >> of course not. the policies of the republican congress got them knocked out of office, were terrible, they spent too much money. the president with president

obama is, instead of correcting what president bush and the republican congress was doing, which was spending too much money, he's made them look like amateurs. he has incurred more debt as president than all the american presidents combined. he's taken whatever the republicans did in terms of their mistakes in spending money and made them look like they really didn't know how to spend money. he's been doing it at rates that set records. obama has taken -- inherited a problem, i agree with that. gosh, when i was mayor i inherited a problem. the question is not did he inherit a problem. that's why we elected him because we had a problem. he's made the problem substantially and quantitatively worse than it was, qualitatively worse than it was than before he came into office. unemployment is worse now. our debt is extremely higher now. confidence in the american economy is lower than it was. 70% of americans believe america is worse off now than it was the day he started off in office. yes, he's inherited a problem. that's why he got elected. but all he's been talking about is now this problem is so big

that he inherited. the real question is, what did he do with the problem? he's made the problem much worse. >> let's move to the republican nomination battle. at the moment, rick perry, who i know you're a supporter of, is storming ahead. you've been in that position of being a front-runner early on. is it a curse when this happens to any candidate, do you think? >> well, you know, over the last three or four days i've seen many people put up little signs and the charts showing that at this point four years ago i was ahead and hillary clinton was ahead. of course, neither one of us got nominated. so yes, being a front-runner can be a curse because you get picked on more, you get pushed more, everybody attacks you. but it doesn't have to be. president bush got nominated, he was the front-runner basically from the beginning. i think it's a question of how rick performs in these debates and how good a job he does.

and are his programs realistic? is he going to talk about the things that really matter? from a republican point of view, somebody's got to talk about reducing entitlement spending. i know that's very dangerous and people get really upset about it. but you cannot straighten out the economy of this country without getting control of health care spending. if you don't get control of the out of control 10%, 12%, 15% increases if health care spending there's nothing you'll be able to do about the economy of this country. that was missing from mitt romney's plan and it was a massive hole in his economic plan. if rick perry -- >> rudy, here's the question for you, i guess, which is an obvious one. many people believe that despite all the media hype around the tea party candidates, in the end most republicans will view them as slightly too extreme to put into battle with obama for the next election campaign. and therefore, the party will steer naturally to a more moderate course for its candidate. as you say, mitt romney carries with him some baggage. we've seen jon huntsman's

campaign not really getting going yet. many people say, what about rudy giuliani? the whole events of, we're going to come to this after the break, 9/11 and the anniversary reminding people under a great crisis this country faced you showed great leadership. have you 100% ruled out -- >> no. >> -- the possibility -- you won't decide yet. have you ruled it out? >> i haven't ruled it out. i do think in my case, you know, the chance of getting nominated is really the hard thing to assess because although on economic issues and national security issues i'm about as conservative as anybody in the republican party, on social issues i'm a lot more moderate. and i'm not somebody who's going to change all my positions just to get nominated or just to be president. i can't do it. so i think you'd be an awful president when you went against the things you really believe in just in order to get nominated. so i have to kind of -- >> rudy, paint for me the

picture in which you could be tempted to run. >> if i thought that we couldn't beat obama with the candidates that we had. i'm going to listen to the debates. we're going to have two or three the next couple of weeks. i'm going to listen to those and come to my own conclusion about who's the best candidate. can somebody beat him? if i think we can't, if people are refusing to take up some of the challenges that are out there which include really dealing with spending -- because if the next president doesn't have the courage to deal with entitlement spending along with everything else, and particularly health care. because that's really the key. then we're not straightening out the problems in our economy. and somebody's got to have the courage to step up and talk about that. that person would be more likely than not to get my support. >> and if you were to run, do you think you could beat barack obama? >> who knows? barack obama could be very different a year from now. he could be much more popular. he could be much more unpopular. it could go either direction. if barack obama remained where he roughly is now, sure, i think

i could beat him. but i think three or four republicans could beat him right now, given how weak he is and how his approval numbers have pretty much dipped below 40%. worse than that for him, people are losing confidence in him as someone who can guide our economy. 60%, 70% of the american people think we're headed in the wrong direction. >> a short break. when we come back, i want to talk to you about the tenth anniversary of 9/11 which is coming up. whether you think america is safer today than it was ten years ago. >> put your mask on. put your mask on. >> mayor, what's the situation right now? >> the situation is that two airplanes have attacked apparently -- what? all right. let's go north then. my name is robin. and i was a pack-a-day smoker for 25 years. i do remember sitting down with my boys, and i'm like, "oh, promise mommy you'll never ever pick up a cigarette."

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today is obviously one of the most difficult days in the history of the city and the country. the tragedy that we're all undergoing right now is something we've had nightmares about and probably thought wouldn't happen. >> that was rudy giuliani on 9/11, the day he says was the worst of his life and the worst for the city of new york. rudy, obviously a very emotional time for you i would imagine this week leading up to the tenth anniversary and for everyone connected with 9/11. what are your thoughts as we head toward the day? >> well, it is very emotional. i don't know what all my feelings are going to be. they're very complicated sometim sometimes. very angry, very sad. sometimes very uplifted by all the heroism that took place that day. but, you know, i think this country has gotten stronger as a result of it. i think that we learned that we

can take the worst attack, you know, that we ever have. we mourn and have a hole in our hearts that will always be there, but we got through it. president obama said about a year, year and a half ago that i really agree with. he said if america were attacked again, we'd be able to handle it. something like that. some people criticized him and said, oh, that was kind of an inappropriate statement. it was absolutely the right statement. we proved that we can handle it and resiliency is an important part of the defense get terrorism because if they think they can destroy you, destroy your spirit, then the chances of another attack diminish somewhat. i think we're stronger than we were before and i think we're safer than we were before but we're sure not out of this yet. we can't let our guard down. >> i remember coming to new york three weeks after 9/11 and getting a helicopter around near ground zero and just being like

everybody else. >> right. >> appalled, devastated. astonished. all of the emotions everyone went through when they saw it. what i'm surprised about, and, you know -- there's no great rebuilding. wouldn't it have sent absolutely the right message to these terrorists if within two or three years there had been, here we are a decade later, there's still this gaping hole. i find it extraordinary. >> sure. it would have been better if we got it up in three years, four years, five years, six years. i never expected we would, though. i remember what happened in oklahoma city and all the confusion about how the memorial should be. finally they had a beautiful one. if you asked me, a few people did, how long do you think it's going to take when i was leaving office in 2001, i would is a said, maybe 10, 12, 15 years. too many emotions attached to d including my own about what

should be there. this was a very hard thing to keep on a schedule because of all the passion about it. >> where will you be, rudy, on the tenth anniversary? >> i'll be there. i'll be there for the memorial service that i've been at now, you know, for nine years where we read all the names and several people do readings from great works of literature. i'll do one. and then that night i'll have dinner with all the people i was with the day of september 11th. i mean, we were trapped in the building, got out together. and get together every evening on the 11th. i think to reminisce and to talk about it and to remember, you know, how fortunate we were to get through and how difficult it is going to be for so many of us because we've lost people that we love. so we talk about them and it kind of helps us. i very much believe that you're much better off if you talk about these things than if you keep them inside. and i mean, i do it all the time, but on the night of

september 11th we spend a lot of time talking about what happen. >> it will be a very moving occasion, rudy. i think you're right. i think it's an opportunity as well for america to reassess, regroup, move on and america is going through a tough time now. but as you saw in new york after that event on 9/11, the power of americans to recover from these things is pretty formidable and incredibly impressiimpressive. that's what is required now. >> we sure remember how united we were after september 11th. and we should kind of maybe take some of that and have it move over into having to deal with our economic problems and some of our other problems and try to find a way to meet each other in the middle. i have very strong views, as you know. i've expressed them on your show many times. i've always been more than willing to reach a really good bargain where i have to give up a little of mine to get a little bit of yours. and that's the way you govern in this country. that's the way i governed new york city in a city that was 5-1

democratic and got through very conservative programs. i had to give up certain things in order to do that. we have to have that kind of realism if we want this country to really work. >> yep. rudy, as always, it's been a pleasure. thank you very much. >> thank you, piers. coming up, my preview of my exclusive primetime interview with amy winehouse's father, mitch, and a surprising fact about amy. ♪ been torn apart ♪ got so many scratches and scars ♪ ♪ maybe time can mend us together again ♪ ♪ it's not what we've done but how far we've come ♪ ♪ i know that we will recover [ male announcer ] here when you need us most.

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