We’re now three days into Rudy Giuliani’s “President Obama Doesn’t Love America” press tour, and the former New York City mayor is not slowing down.
To recap: On Wednesday night, Giuliani declared, “I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that 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.” Since then, he has repeatedly denied that his words were a racist dog whistle, telling the New York Times, “Some people thought it was racist — I thought that was a joke, since he was brought up by a white mother, a white grandfather, went to white schools, and most of this he learned from white people.” Doubling down on his statements, Giuliani went on to attribute the president’s supposed hatred of America to “socialism,” “possibly anti-colonialism,” and an elementary-school-aged Obama’s introduction to Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis.
Giuliani elaborated on that last theory in a Friday evening conversation with the New York Daily News:
“Look, this man was brought up basically in a white family, so whatever he learned or didn’t learn, I attribute this more to the influence of communism and socialism” than to his race, Giuliani told the Daily News.
“I don’t (see) this President as being particularly a product of African-American society or something like that. He isn’t,” the former mayor added. “Logically, think about his background… The ideas that are troubling me and are leading to this come from communists with whom he associated when he was 9 years old” through family connections.
On Saturday morning, Giuliani called CNN to discuss the matter further. The network’s Jim Acosta told Anderson Cooper, “He said to me during this brief phone conversation, ‘I don’t regret making the statement. I believe it. I don’t know if he loves America.’ Then he went on to say during this conversation, ‘I don’t feel the same enthusiasm from him for America.’”
“One other thing I should point out, Anderson,” Acosta said. “During this phone call, the former mayor said that his office has received some death threats, he said that his secretary said that he’s gotten some death threats over the phone. But the former mayor did not say whether he alerted police to these threatening phone calls, and CNN has no way of confirming that.”
“Giuliani did go on to say during the conversation that the majority of the phone calls he’s received at his office have been supportive,” Acosta added. “He’s even heard from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who called to back him up on his comments.” (Jindal, as we learned earlier this week, is very much onboard this particular bandwagon.) How long does Giuliani plan to keep this up? Probably at least until Obama takes his advice and personally leads a worldwide Muslim reform movement.
