Mayor Giuliani staged a pentathlon of national news-show appearances yesterday — grabbing his share of the media spotlight just hours before Hillary Rodham Clinton’s star-studded announcement speech.
From 9:15 a.m. through noon, Giuliani was interviewed on Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN, pounding home his message on why he would make a better senator that the first lady.
“For me, that’s a good forum, and it’s a much more direct and honest way to do it,” said Giuliani of his round of TV interviews.
“Go on the shows, don’t be afraid to answer the questions and, even if you screw up a few of them, people give you the credit for being straight with them.”
The mayor said he had no plans to even watch the broadcasts of Clinton’s speech.
At a news conference called after Giuliani greeted families at an NYU Medical Center party for children who had survived heart surgery, the mayor laughed off a question about whether he was rattled by the media attention Clinton commanded.
“You learn not to get phased by Hollywood productions,” he said.
Aides to Giuliani said he was approached by the networks for the Sunday-morning shows. Giuliani said the spate of invites were a direct result of Clinton’s announcement party.
During ABC-TV’s “This Week,” Giuliani sidestepped a question about whether he planned to use an impending report by the Whitewater special prosecutor as a campaign issue.
“I never say I am or am not until I read something,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee dispatched one of its top officers to New York to attack the First Lady for making political trips at the expense of taxpayers. RNC co-chair Pat Harrison cited dozens of trips around the state and nation that she says the first lady’s campaign should pay.
Giuliani called the travel issue a “real problem.”
“It’s very hard to figure out how you do an allocation in which Hillary Rodham Clinton would pay $34,000 for 60 trips. I ended up paying $153,000 for 14,” he said.
Clinton aides have insisted the campaign has paid for every trip the White House Travel Office has billed.