Rudy Giuliani Refuses to Apologize for Questioning Obama's Love of America
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani refused to apologize for questioning President Barack Obama's love of America.
Giuliani defended his remarks while appearing on "The Kelly File" Thursday night. Host Megyn Kelly asked the former mayor if he wanted to apologize for questioning Obama's loyalty and love of country.
"Not at all," Giuliani responded. "I want to repeat it. The reality is, from all that I can see of this president, all that I've heard of him, he apologizes for America, he criticizes America. This is an American president I've never seen before."
Giuliani came under fire earlier on Wednesday for comments made during a dinner in Manhattan. Potential presidential candidate Scott Walker was in attendance and later refused to support Giuliani's opinion.
"The mayor can speak for himself. I'm not going to comment on what the president thinks or not," Walker said while on CNBC. "I'm in New York. I'm used to people saying things that are aggressive."
"I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn't love you. And he doesn't love me. He wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country," the former mayor had said.
He then continued to expand on his remarks during an appearance on "Fox & Friends," where he said that he was patriotic but critical of America. Giuliani added that Obama criticized America "much more often than other American presidents. And when it's not in the context of an overwhelming number of statements about the exceptionalism of America, it sounds like he's more of a critic than he is a supporter."
White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz said that Giuliani said "a horrible thing. He seems embarrassed enough to be doing damage control this morning, so I'm not going to pile on from here."