Calls to defund the nation's police departments are a "terrible overreaction" to "some incidences" of police wrongdoing through the unjustified use of force, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday while discussing moves toward police reform.
"As a president pointed out and as we all know I think logically, 99% if not more of the police contact with the public is appropriate," Giuliani said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "Either there was no use of force, or in many cases, the use of force saved their lives."
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump, with his executive order on police reform Tuesday, dealt with the problem for the "first time," claimed Giuliani, while former President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden had "years to deal with this and did not."
Giuliani's claim that Obama and Biden didn't take action echoed Trump's on the matter, which a fact-checker for The New York Times debunked Tuesday.
"The Obama administration tried to address police misconduct in numerous ways, and some of those efforts have been reversed or limited by the Trump administration," the newspaper reported.
Meanwhile, Giuliani slammed New York Mayor Bill de Blasio's order disbanding a unit of about 600 undercover officers, complaining that the city is "being taken over by off-the-cliff, left-wing ridiculous ideas."
He said between him and his successor, Mayor Mike Bloomberg, they "got the city to be the safest large city in America," but de Blasio is "ruining" the city.
"To talk about defunding or disbanding police, after the seven days of riots that he allowed, after seven days of his telling the police to stand there and watch the riots while people were being beaten up, businesses were being destroyed and New York was made a place to look ridiculous," said Giuliani, "and now to have an increase in murders is totally, totally insane."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.