President Barack Obama's policy decisions and public remarks about terrorists have led Rudy Giuliani to a conclusion: Obama "doesn't love you, and he doesn't love me," and most of all, he doesn't think the president "loves America."
"He wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country," said the former New York City mayor, speaking Wednesday at a private dinner that was set up for potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to meet with key supporters,
reports Politico.
Supply-side economists Larry Kudlow, Arthur Laffer, and Stephen Moore were expected to host Walker, sources
told The Washington Post, with the dinner planned to help boost Walker's relationships with business-friendly conservatives.
The dinner itself was sponsored by billionaire supermarket owner and former Republican New York mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis, and was to feature a round-table discussion with Walker, the hosts, and other power players, reports the Post.
But the outspoken Giuliani quickly took center stage, while stopping just short of endorsing a Walker campaign to the powerful audience, according to Politico.
"With all our flaws we're the most exceptional country in the world," he said. "I'm looking for a presidential candidate who can express that, do that and carry it out. And if it's you Scott, I'll endorse you. And if it's somebody else, I'll support somebody else."
In an interview after the dinner, while Walker's aides insisted the governor's comments would remain off the record, Politico reports, Giuliani continued with his criticism of Obama, who he said "sees our weaknesses as footnotes to the great things we've done."
"What country has left so many young men and women dead abroad to save other countries without taking land?" the former mayor said. "This is not the colonial empire that somehow he has in his hand.
"I've never felt that from him. I felt that from [George] W [Bush]. I felt that from [Bill] Clinton. I felt that from every American president, including ones I disagreed with, including [Jimmy] Carter. I don't feel that from President Obama."
Giuliani pointed out that while he was mayor, he did not hold back while condemning major episodes in the early 1990s, when Jews were targeted in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.
But Obama, who cited the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition during the National Prayer Breakfast earlier this month as examples of extreme acts committed in the name of religion, is different, said Giuliani.
"I thought the Crown Heights riots were a pogrom because you're going out trying to kill Jews," Giuliani said Wednesday. "Why is this man incapable of saying that? You've got to be able to criticize Islam for the parts of Islam that are wrong. You criticize Christianity for the part of Christianity that is wrong.
"I'm not sure how wrong the Crusades are," he continued. "The Crusades were kind of an equal battle between two groups of barbarians. The Muslims and the crusading barbarians. What the hell? What's wrong with this man that he can't stand up and say there's a part of Islam that's sick?"
Meanwhile, Walker, rather than discussing Obama, went after former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has already dropped out of competition,
reports the New York Daily News.
"The big thing I thought Mitt Romney's campaign missed, more than anything, was we already knew the narrative that the economy was failing, and that there was a compelling case to get rid of the president," Walker said. "What we never heard — or at least didn't hear very clearly — was why Mitt Romney would be a better alternative."
Walker was careful to separate himself from Romney during Wednesday night's speech and to paint himself as a new face with "big, bold" ideas, and he took the opportunity to criticize the problems that led to Romney's defeat to Obama in 2012.
"One of the big mistakes that I and [Iowa Gov.] Terry Branstad and other Republican governors thought the Romney campaign made was, you've got all these Republican governors talking about how much better things were in our states after the 2010 elections, and then those same states — in my case, after I spent $37 million on a recall election — you had the Romney campaign coming in and telling them how awful things were because of Barack Obama's economy," said Walker.
Instead, the better argument would have been to say, "look how much better it got — imagine how much better it would be if you put a Republican in charge of the federal government ... they didn't do that," Walker said.