CNBC financial correspondent Erin Burnett gave a surprise indirect boost to French president Nicholas Sarkozy‘s Testimony on MSNBC’s Morning Joe yesterday, passing along an endorsement from former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, with whom Burnett caught up in New Hampshire for an interview. “Nicholas Sarkozy wants to lower the corporate tax rate in France,” Giuliani tells Burnett during a clip from the interview, explaining why he considers the French politician as a role model. “Well, the corporate tax rate in France is lower in the United States.” (To head off those who would joke that Giuliani might have also adopted a French attitude towards interpersonal relations, it’s worth noting that in the Sarkozy marriage, it’s his wife who’s known for parading her lover all over Manhattan.)
After airing the clip, Burnett held up the book, agreeing with host Joe Scarborough that Sarkozy is “a very fetching man,” and complained that she could only find Testimony “on the third floor of the Barnes & Noble in New York City in the back, next to Chuck Schumer’s book.” Which seems about right for a book that came out back in March, even if it was reviewed in the NYTBR last month. Anyone want to guess which B&N she bought it at? Given her downtown location, the only options that really make sense are Astor Place—which has three stories but one’s a basement—and Union Square, where Testimony ought to be towards the front of the fourth floor with the other political books, right? Maybe she lives on the Upper West Side and swung by the branch across from Lincoln Center?
(Thanks to HuffPo staffer Rachel Sklar for giving us a heads-up, since I’m too busy watching a backlog of Ice Road Truckers episodes to pay any attention to cable news.)