Donald Trump doesn’t need to apologize for claiming President Obama was born in Africa in order to reach African-American voters, Rudy Giuliani said Sunday.
“If everybody apologized for everything they said in politics, all we’d be doing on television shows is apologizing,” Giuliani said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“Maybe the Democrats should be apologizing for calling Donald Trump a racist,” the former New York mayor and Trump supporter added.
Host Jake Tapper had asked Giuliani whether Trump ought to apologize for insisting Obama wasn’t born in the U.S., even after he released his birth certificate. Trump’s lately been reaching out to black voters, speaking Saturday at an African-American church in Detroit.
Giuliani said Trump is simply doing what many other Republicans won’t do: reaching out to minorities who typically vote for Democrats.
“I think Donald Trump is the first Republican since Jack Kemp and me to go into African-American communities and say the Democrats have failed you,” Giuliani said.
Giuliani also answered some questions about Trump’s visit last week to Mexico City, where he met with Mexico President Enrique Pena Neito. He admitted Trump and Neito had disagreements but insisted they found common ground.
Giuliani said that while the two men disagreed over who should build a wall on the border that Trump has called for repeatedly during his campaign, they discussed partnering on trade issues to bolster their standing against China.
“Mexico is suffering from the same trade deficit with China as we are,” Giuliani said. “We could join together in an alliance between the U.S. and Mexico and see if we could bolster ourselves in terms of our trade deficit.”
