Rudy Giuliani said Tuesday that he may be voting for Donald Trump, but he hasn't endorsed him and he won't be joining his campaign.
"I'm voting for them, [and] I'll do whatever they would like me to do, but I'm not part of the campaign apparatus," the former New York mayor told CNN's Chris Cuomo on the
"New Day " program. "I don't speak for the campaign."
Giuliani said that when he does endorse someone, he joins the campaign staff, which then sends him out to do speeches and otherwise act as a surrogate.
"Donald is a very good friend," Giuliani told the program.
"I believe he would be the best candidate. I think he would be the person I would like to see win. I don't know his campaign staff. I don't know who they are."
He admitted that he does have some concerns about Trump's statements, but he still agrees with him "on probably on 8 out of 10 positions, which is good enough for me. That's what I agreed with Ronald Reagan on. He was my hero."
He does have some concerns though, on immigration, building up the military, and NATO he'd like to talk out first before he formally endorses Trump.
"I'm a very conservative Republican on foreign policy," said Giuliani, and on domestic policy, social issues I tend to be moderate. Some Republicans even think I'm liberal. On foreign policy and economic I'm very conservative.
"And I've heard a lot about supporting the troops which I like. But I haven't heard a lot on how much are we going to build up this military?"
Giuliani said he believes that the size of the U.S. Navy should be doubled to push China back from its expansion in the South China Sea, but he likes the idea that Trump wants to create economic competition with the country.
Meanwhile, Giuliani believes Trump will win at least 55 percent of the vote in New York in next week's primary election, and will win most if not all of the congressional delegates.
"You have to remember something about New York Republican party that nobody understands," said the former mayor. "We've taken out of the Republican party a lot of conservatives. There is a conservative party.
"It is not like New Jersey or Connecticut. So 3 to 5 percent of the people who would normally be conservative voting for Cruz, they are out of the party. So this is basically a Trump/Kasich party as opposed to Cruz."
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.
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