CNNfn Market Call - Transcript

CNNFN

SHOW: MARKET CALL 09:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

HEADLINE: New York Politicos Discuss NYC, NYSE Terror Threat, CNNfn

GUESTS: Gov. George Pataki, John Thain, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sen. Charles Schumer

BYLINE: Susan Lisovicz, Daby Mullany

BODY:
MULLANY: Senator Schumer, let's move now to you. what do you have to say to the public and can you answer for us how much-how long is this kind of heightened sense of alert? How long can we expect to deal with is this? I know it's a hard question to answer.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: No, well look al Qaeda is out to hurt us. They're out to scare us as much as they are to hurt us. And today's showing there is probably greater attendance here today than usual. Shows that they can't scare us, New Yorkers, Americans, will always rise to the occasion.

But this war on terror is a generational thing. Technology, the very technology that they're implementing here at the stock exchange allows terrorists to do terrible things, even in small groups of them. So we're going to have to-this war on terror is a long-term battle.

The difference today is they named five specific targets, but as the mayor said, no time frame and for all we know, they have 100 targets on some computers somewhere else. So what we have to do, because the terrorists always look for our weakest link, this is one of our strongest in terms of security, is protecting everywhere that we can not let them win a victory.

MULLANY: Before we go, I want to ask you about the 9/11 report. And your opinion of how the Bush administration is reacting, just before I came down from the booth, on the wires there was a report about Bush adopting one aspect of the measures that the 9/11 Commission recommended.

SCHUMER: I think we ought to adopt all of them. I think the 9/11 Commission did an incredible job. Democrats, Republicans, they just looked at what would make us safer. And the bottom line is very, very simple. And that is there should know politics, no delay. We don't have to rehash this. We ought to just adopt it.

I hope the president when he speaks today will say I'm supporting all of the recommendations, not one or two, but all. Congress will adopt them if he does.

MULLANY: And some people even think there's a political element to these terror alerts. What do you have to say?

SCHUMER: I don't buy that. If I were running Homeland Security, I would say once you hear of these alerts, you have to tell law enforcement. Once you tell law enforcement it's going to leak out so you may as well make them public. I don't think that they are political and I think they should be made public.

MULLANY: Senator Schumer, of New York, John Thian of the New York Stock Exchange. Thank you very much.