5/11/00 6:30 p.m.
Giuliani to Reporters: “Get Lost”
“Do you realize that you embarrass yourself doing this, in the eyes of just about everybody?”

By National Review Staff

ave you no decency, sir? The famous line from the McCarthy hearings was reprised in New York today as mayor Rudy Giuliani hit back at the press. He told reporters to “get lost” and sarcastically noted that “I don’t ask you where you sleep.” A partial transcript of the jousting after a food drive Giuliani attended in the city follows:

QUESTION: Mr. Mayor, some of these might be personal, but the reason why your wife’s accusation about Lategano is relevant is because after she left the job at City Hall, she got a nice job, paid very well, without any experience on the job that she was assigned, so there are suspicions that it might be some criminality involved.

GIULIANI: Oh, get out of here. Get lost. That’s a - that’s a sneaky way of trying to invade somebody’s personal life. Oh, come on. Don’t you have guys have the slightest bit of decency? Do you realize that you embarrass yourself doing this, in the eyes of just about everybody? …

QUESTION: … Hanover’s suggestion yesterday that she was appalled by your announcement yesterday, any regrets on the way you handled your announcement yesterday?

GIULIANI: No, I think I handled it the only way that I possibly could.

QUESTION: Did you she know in advance that you were going to make that announcement?

GIULIANI: Everything that I said publicly I said to her.

QUESTION: Are you sleeping in Gracie Mansion?

GIULIANI: I’m not going to answer that question. I don’t ask you where you sleep. …

QUESTION: Do you ever feel like that little girl who’s overwhelmed with all the problems and troubles and feels like crying sometimes?

GIULIANI: Do I feel like crying sometimes? Yes, of course.

QUESTION: Have you cried?

GIULIANI: Of course I’ve cried, yes. …

QUESTION: Are you romantically involved in …

GIULIANI: I’m not going to answer any more questions about that. I think I’ve said everything that I can say about it. I think I’ve been as honest and as forthright … Please let me finish. I think I’ve been as honest and as forthright as you should be under these circumstances … handling it in a decent and honorable way.

QUESTION: … the question of an executive perhaps having a romantic relationship with the staff, why is that not …

GIULIANI: I think you’re trying to dredge up history that was covered a long, long time ago. You’ve all covered this many, many times. You’ve all asked me about it. I’ve answered it. And it has no bearing, no relationship, not the slightest bearing or relation, to what’s going on right now. I think that what’s going on right now has to do with Donna and me. And what you’re trying to do is a back-door way of trying to dredge this all up so you can write more salacious stuff.