U.S. Coast Guard

Here's a fuller transcript from the Mayor's office (an earlier version had a rough transcript):

Mayor: I mean, come on. This is the cheapest political shot in the world. Everybody's rushing to say, ‘our ports.' It isn't like this hasn't been brewing for two decades. We have given up control of international ship transport. America has become a virtual non-entity. We don't run ports around the world, we don't run our own ports, we don't have American shipping carrying this. That was long ago given away and they're just discovering this? We do have security risks. I'm sympathetic to that. What I don't like is all of the sudden it becomes the issue de jour and everybody's rushing up there waving the flag, beating their chests saying ‘I'm trying to defend this country better than others.' What about funding the Coast Guard for the last couple of decades?

Asked to respond at a press conference today, Chuck was icy:

"I've talked to him three times this week," he said. "He didn't mention it once."

Full transcript after the jump.  read more »