With Homeland Security funding set to expire in coming days and the White House seeking war powers to fight the Islamic State, Washington has become consumed instead with Rudy Giuliani’s contention that President Obama doesn’t love America.
The controversy shows no signs of abating, with an Obama Cabinet member, possible Republican presidential candidates, GOP lawmakers, politicians no longer in office and even Giuliani himself forced to delve into the war of words Sunday.
Likely 2016 Republican presidential candidates, in particular, have been repeatedly asked about their own opinions on whether the president, in fact, loves the United States.
When Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., declared over the weekend that he didn’t know whether Obama loved America or was a Christian, it stoked only more questions from the media.
And the Sunday talk-show circuit was dominated by one topic: Rudygate.
“I’m sorry to see statements like that coming from the former mayor, whose response to 9/11 in 2001 I admired very much,” said Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson — who was hired as a federal prosecutor by Giuliani — on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I think his most recent statements are very regrettable.”
Johnson was hardly the lone person weighing in on Giuliani on that program.
“One thing to remember about Rudy, he governed a city that was a vast majority Democratic,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said on the CNN show.” “He’s not a partisan politician in any real way.”
Then Issa pointed to Obama, criticizing the president for calling George W. Bush “unpatriotic” when he accused the Texan of not paying enough attention to the rising national debt.
“That was wrong, too,” Issa said of the Obama comments. “There’s plenty of that kind of behavior that goes on.”
Washington has been particularly worked up of late about rhetoric.
In addition to the critique of Obama’s patriotism and religion, the administration has found itself on the defensive for refusing to attribute the spread of the Islamic State to so-called radical Islam.
On multiple Sunday shows, Johnson essentially had to beg the host to talk about the showdown over Homeland Security funding, rather than Obama’s rhetoric on Islam or Giuliani’s description of the president.
The former New York City mayor is also baffled by all the attention his remarks are receiving.
“I said it maybe 30 times before,” Giuliani said in an interview airing Sunday on “The Cats Roundtable” on AM 970 in New York. “But somehow this time it hit a nerve.”
Conservatives insist that the focus on Giuliani, and particularly on Walker, exposes a media bias and double standard for how reporters hold Republicans accountable for the views of others in their party.
Some prominent conservatives argued Sunday that Democrats are all too eager to keep the spotlight on Giuliani.
“I wouldn’t characterize my views of President Obama the way Mayor Giuliani did,” former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I think the problem with Barack Obama is his policies. That’s what we ought to want to talk about. Democrats are loving not having to talk about that. They’d rather talk about Rudy Giuliani until the cows come home.”
Yet, some Democrats argued that Walker was to blame for keeping the story going.
“You have to answer the very easy questions easily,” former Obama White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told NBC’s Chuck Todd.
Had Walker simply said that Obama was a Christian who loved his country, there would have been no backlash, Gibbs insisted.
Despite Obama’s repeated assertions about his Christianity, some remain skeptical of his religious beliefs, polls have found. The president routinely laughs off questions about his faith.
“I’m not the strapping young Muslim socialist I used to be,” Obama joked at the 2013 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.
Other Republicans tried to strike a middle ground on Sunday, eviscerating Obama for his policies but not questioning his patriotism.
“I don’t want to go there. The nation’s very divided. President Obama has divided us more than he’s brought us together and I don’t want to add to that division,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I have no doubt that he loves his country. I have no doubt that he’s a patriot. But his primary job as president of the United States is to defend this country and he’s failing miserably.”
Added Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Pence on “Fox News Sunday”: “I don’t think it helps to question the president’s patriotism or motives,” adding that “Washington, D.C., needs to get back to focusing on the priorities of the American people.”
