Rudy Giuliani Schools MSNBC on Disaster Response: 'This Is Unacceptable

"This is unacceptable"

(Photo: MSNBC)

Rudy Giuliani appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" today to discuss President Obama's response to Hurricane Sandy.

While many have praised the president, citing the pictures of him hugging the victims and touring the damage with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Giuliani argued that the situation will actually hurt him in the end.

The former New York City mayor explained:

...people see on television that the effort is not what it was cracked up to be. It was the first two days, [but] since then it's been a disaster. FEMA hasn't prepositioned the water correctly-- no water for people in New York-- they haven't prepositioned the generators-- no generators for people in New York.
I know about emergency response, this stuff should be out there by now! FEMA is asleep at the switch... [Emphasis added]

Conceding that, if there is an expert on emergency response, the mayor who tackled 9/11 would be it, hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough asked how the response could be so bad in New York City.

"Two of the major hospitals in New York [lost power]-- we're supposed to be the center of the world!" Scarborough remarked.

Mika added: "How could they be down?"

After Giuliani explained that he solved the problem by contacting General Electric that morning and having necessities like water flown in, the former mayor added: "What do we have FEMA for other than being able to call upon resources all across the country...?"

When Giuliani asserted that "this is as bad a backup effort as we had for Katrina," Mika condescendingly replied: "No...you want to walk that back."

"No, I do not want to walk it back, not in a million years," Giuliani retorted. "No water for New York, for five days?" Because it was a much smaller storm, he added, it should have been much easier to handle correctly.

Giuliani said yesterday that people should be crying out, "What are you, a bunch of idiots?" that FEMA didn't have the foresight to bring in the basics like water and gasoline ahead of time.

"This is unacceptable," he concluded.

Watch the entire video, via MSNBC, below:

(H/T: Mediaite)