BUCK: We have joining us now Andrew Giuliani. He is running for governor in my home state, the great state of New York. And, Andrew, I think if we did the math, I’ve known you now — I don’t know — 35 years, something like that. That sounds about right.

GIULIANI: Buck, I’m trying to keep my opponents away from you ’cause you have far too much dirt on me, but you’re absolutely right. (chuckles)

BUCK: We go way back, my friend. How was the…? I read some of the highlights of it. I can’t claim that I was able to watch it live. But I saw in some of the transcripts, things got a little fiery at the Republican primary debate last night here in New York.

GIULIANI: They certainly did, and, look, I tried to stay focused on the issues the entire time. We had some of my competitors that really were focused on the crossfire. And to me, going into it, my mind-set was simply this: “Look, whatever differences I may have with some of the other Republicans that are in the race vying to be the nominee, those weren’t gonna actually solve the issues that we’re seeing in the state of New York,” the fact that crime is rising all across the state, and we have bail reform and rogue DAs that won’t prosecute resisting arrest and armed robbery.

The fact that our education system is, frankly, broken, when you’re giving the teachers union $31 billion of a $220 billion budget in the state of New York. And so, for me, I tried to focus on the issues. But one of the bigger stories coming out of it, Buck, was, you know, there was a vaccine mandate that was in place. The other three candidates had, you know, handed over their papers and I said very clearly on this, I was not gonna do it. First off, I’ve gotten actual immunity and I’ve chosen not to get the jab.

And honestly, at this point, when I said, “Hey, look, I’d be willing to take a test if you want me to that morning. I’m happy to show you that I do have natural immunity on this,” they just said, “Well, you know what? We have a company policy on this.” I said, “Well, look, when’s truth gonna actually matter on this? When are we actually gonna follow the data and the science?” But it was more political theater just like we’re seeing with this January 6th committee hearing in prime time.

BUCK: So, Andrew, I gotta ask you, “How do you think you stack up?” ‘Cause look, you’re in the primary still and I know some of your — well, at least one or two of your opponents, they’re good guys, they’re patriots, right? But let’s just skip past that for a second and you tell me if you are in fact the Republican nominee for the governor’s race here in New York, you really think you can take Hochul?

GIULIANI: Absolutely. Look, I think more than anything — and this has been traveling the state for over the last year now — you have so many New Yorkers — and this isn’t just Republicans and conservatives. These are nonaffiliated, these are independents, even some Democrats who are looking and understand the dire straits that New York is in. I mentioned crime before.

But I pledged that on day one, I would sit down with the leader of the Assembly in the State Senate and tell them very simply: If there’s not a full repeal of bail reform on my desk, I’m not funding your top priorities in our upcoming budget negotiation. And I’ll fire Alvin Bragg on day one. The governor has the authority to do that under Article 8, section 13(b) of the New York State Constitution, as well as other rogue DAs who choose not to prosecute criminals — as well as from an economic perspective.

And, Buck, you know this very, very well: What I can tell you here is we continue to compete with California to be to be the highest taxed and most overregulated state in the country. We need to be fiscally responsible in New York. For comparison, New York. State budget is 220 billion. Florida, $98 billion, and they have a million more people than we do! It’s no wonder why New York leads the country in outmigration and Florida seems to be getting more and more New Yorkers by the month.

BUCK: We’re speaking to Andrew Giuliani. He’s a candidate for governor of New York. And, Andrew, to that end on the budget — and by the way, I agree with you. You’re a born-and-raised New Yorker, New York City kid just like me. We actually went to the same school growing up here in New York City. I get kind of sad when I see what’s happened not only to the city, but to all the people leaving the state, right?

You’ve got a lot of people that live within the general environs of New York City, commuters saying, “Enough.” The tax, the crime, the covid lockdown madness, they’ve enough. One, I mean, how do we turn that around? And then also maybe actually handle that second because I would ask first: Where does all the money go, right? You just said Florida, $90 billion in the state budget, New York $220 billion. What are New Yorkers spending…? What is the New York State government spending all the tax dollars on?

GIULIANI: Well, if you want to go through it Medicaid is one but then you end up looking at two and three. K through 12 education and then higher education. We look right there, and we know what the K through 12 education budget is. There’s a payoff to the teachers unions so that way they will come out and vote for Democratic politicians in November. To me, what I’ve proposed is very simply tax credit system.

That way any New Yorker, any New York parent that wants their child to go to parochial school like we went to or private school or yeshiva school if you’re Jewish or even homeschooling, they have the tax dollars in their hands. So, that way, they can truly be the primary stakeholder in their kids’ education. It brings the free market into education here. So for me when you look at everything that’s in the budget…

And, by the way, fourth in there is basically a massive slush fund for all these politicians to be able to earmark whatever they end up wanting to do, for the Assembly and the state senate. So you literally could go in on day one and say, “We need 15 to 20% cuts across the board for the state budget,” and honestly, it would be one of the most responsible things we can do for New York because, as you know, when we talk about this, Buck, you’re gonna have so many more New Yorkers leaving if we decide to raise taxes again.

And you’ll have more people thinking about coming back if we decide to lower taxes. It actually will be an inverse relationship in terms of what the tax rate is and how much you’ll end up taking in. We saw in New York City in the mid-nineties. Actually lower taxes and New York City ended up, in two years, taking more in tax revenue because more people actually wanted to be here. More businesses wanted to be here. There was more tax revenue from that standpoint. That’s the mind-set we need in New York State again.

BUCK: Speaking to Andrew Giuliani running for governor in New York. Andrew, what is the pathway to be able to win?

GIULIANI: Yeah.

BUCK: People think… I mean, look. You got a lot of New York listeners right now. But for folks in other parts of the country, you know, everywhere from Texas up to Washington State, down to Florida, they’re thinking, New York is, like, a lost cause politically, right? I mean, it’s just so blue, so Democrat. Explain to them how that may not be the case in this election, given what’s gone on and given the weakness with Hochul. Make your best case for that.

GIULIANI: Well, Kathy Hochul, in terms of her weakness right now, I think it’s 31% of voters think that she’s done a fair or good job, which tells you that nearly 70% of voters statewide think she’s done a poor job or even worse. So, to me, it’s pretty obvious. If you don’t know enough about Kathy Hochul, you can through her and say, “Well, this is kind of Andrew Cuomo 2.0.” One, in the sense that she’s happy to give away whatever she wants to in the budget and just kind of look at this as a quasi-socialist state, if you will.

And secondly, while she’s not there on a corruption standpoint, she just needs a little more time. You can look at her lieutenant governor who was literally taken away in handcuffs basically six months onto his job. And Bill Hochul, who is her husband, literally is profiting from this Buffalo Bills stadium deal. You could take Bill Hochul out and you could put in Hunter Biden, and it’s the same thing. So New Yorkers, in an overwhelming majority — over two to one — do not approve of the job that Kathy Hochul is doing.

And that’s why we have that opportunity to win the crossover vote. But i you want to break the data down a little bit more when we talk about this, Buck, take a look, basically, at the fact that Republicans need to win about 33% of New York City. Really, it’s 31 to 34% of New York City in order to win statewide. In every single recent poll — and this is a great thing about my candidacy — I have been able to win 33%, 36% of New York City. And that puts us right where we need to be for the math equation to actually win New York State back come November 8th.

BUCK: Andrew, where can people go if they want to learn more about your campaign?

GIULIANI: Go to SaveNY.org and anybody who wants to tell their friends in New York, come out and vote on June 28th — and I gotta tell you, as a friend, Buck, I’m so proud of everything that you’re doing. Obviously, you’re fighting the great fight, and I’m very proud of you.

BUCK: Thank you so much. Good luck to you, my friend. Talk to you soon.

GIULIANI: Thank you.