Rudy Giuliani: Donald Trump is a "flawed human being"
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that Republican nominee Donald Trump is a “flawed” man who is asking for forgiveness for the lewd comments he made about women on a 2005 tape.
“I think what it says about his character is that he’s a flawed human being,” Giuliani said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “He has his set of flaws and I have mine. I guess there are a few perfect people but in my view there’s only been one and that was Jesus Christ.”
Trump has been under near-constant fire from within his own party since the Washington Post published a tape of him bragging, in sexually explicit terms, about his treatment of women in 2005. The GOP candidate released a video apologizing for those comments, but has said definitively that he will not step aside and exit the race.
As top Republican leaders began withdrawing their endorsements Friday and Saturday, Trump remained hunkered town at Trump Tower in New York with top advisers and allies, including Giuliani.
Asked whether Trump would offer further apology for his words—especially with a primetime debate on the horizon Sunday night—Giuliani likened the GOP nominee’s actions thus far to a Catholic attending confession.
“He’s apologizing for what he said … he’s saying I’m sorry for having done it, I don’t know how much further he can go and apologize,” Giuliani said. “You know, I’m a Catholic and you go to confession, and you explain your sins to the priest and then he makes you make a firm resolution not to do it again and then he gives you absolution.”
Trump is “telling the American people I sinned, I was wrong, I made terrible mistakes and I’m asking for your forgiveness,” Giuliani continued.
He insisted Trump is a different person than he was in 2005, and said—as Trump did in his apology video—that his time as a national candidate have given him a new perspective.
“The reality is that men can change, people can change, sometimes going through things like this makes you into a much better person,” Giuliani said. “...I’ve seen a different man in the last year and a half even than the Donald Trump I knew in the past.”
Giuliani worked to turn the focus to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, saying both candidates in the race are “flawed” and calling attention to Clinton’s private email practices.
“I could list for you maybe 35 crimes she committed that the FBI and the Justice Department I believe let her off the hook for just because she was Hillary Clinton,” he said. “You want someone in the White House who couldn’t pass an FBI background check because she was extremely careless with top-secret information?”
