Rudy Giuliani was Donald Trump’s key surrogate in the Sunday morning talk shows today, making the rounds to try to defend the Republican candidate for president ahead of the debate. “They’re remarks you certainly don’t want to hear from anyone, much less a presidential candidate,” Giuliani said on CNN about the tape that leaked Friday in which Trump could be heard boasting about sexual assault. “I think he made a full and complete apology for it. He probably is going to do it again tonight.”
On NBC, Giuliani struggled to defend Trump, and then tried to open up a line of attack that the Republican candidate could use at tonight’s debate, saying that recently leaked emails show Clinton has privately held positions that differ from her public statements.
“Hillary Clinton actually specifically described that she’s two different people, to the financial people who were giving her millions of dollars, she’s on their side and she wants to be a big part of the government,” Giuliani said on NBC. “But she tells them she has to pretend to everybody else that she isn’t.”
Todd was quick on his toes and wondered whether the same standard should apply to Trump: “What does that say if you believe that Hillary Clinton says one thing in private and that means what she really is is what she is in private, should we assume what Donald Trump did in that Access Hollywood bus is really what Donald Trump is like in private? I mean, that’s what you’re implying here with Hillary Clinton.”
Giuliani is left sputtering for a few seconds, clearly not knowing how to reply to what was a clear calling out of his hypocrisy. Until he finally says, you know what? Both people made mistakes, let’s move on. “You know, Chuck, the reality is that in both cases, both people have things in their personal lives that maybe if they could redo it, they would do it differently,” he said.
Giuliani also received push back from CNN’s Jake Tapper when he tried to defend Trump’s statements as nothing more than guy talk. “This is talk, and gosh almighty, he who hasn’t sinned, throw the first stone here,” Giuliani said. Tapper was ready: “I have never said that; I have never done that. I am happy to throw a stone. I have been in locker rooms. I have been a member of a fraternity. I have never heard any man, ever, brag about being able to maul women because they get away with it—never.”
Still Giuliani stuck to his point: “The fact is that men at times talk like that. Not all men, but men do.”
