Donald Trump surrogate and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani hit the Sunday morning news show circuit Sunday to drill home the Republican party’s claim that the race for the presidency is a “rigged election.”
Jake Tapper of CNN’s “State of the Union” hammered Giuliani about the GOP’s ongoing baseless assertions that the election will clearly be rigged if Trump doesn’t win. Giuliani pointed his finger at inner cities, where he, claims, “they’ve been notoriously stealing votes.”
“There are a few places and there are few places, not many, in the swing states, there are a few places where they’ve been notoriously stealing votes,” Giuliani said. “Pennsylvania, Chicago, there have been places where a lot of cheating has gone on over the years. I know that from my own knowledge of bussing people in from Camden [New Jersey] …when I ran for mayor of New York City, the first time, some people voted eight and 10 times. The second time, I had firefighters and police officers outside checking on the buses. So we take down the number of bus[es], bus that voted 10 times, and then we wouldn’t let the bus vote again.”
Giuliani went to say that he saw similar electoral fraud when he was a federal prosecutor, adding, “dead people generally vote for Democrats.”
Tapper, who has never been shy about taking an aggressive line of questioning during interviews, said: “Just to put a button on this, you are saying that Trump is serious when he says that the election’s going be stolen.”
When Giuliani strongly disagreed with Tapper’s conclusion, Tapper restated: “You just laid out a whole case about how democrats steal elections.”
Giuliani’s attempt to clarify only made it worse: “If it’s a one or two point race, it could make a difference in a few places.”
Trump’s repeated call for his supporters to be on the lookout for voter fraud at the polls on Nov. 8 has given rise to concern of illegal voter intimidation, so much so that leading civil rights group are urging international election monitors to beef up their security efforts.
Tapper got in the last word with Giuliani, arguing that what the Trump campaign was suggesting is “not an affirmation of how are elections are held in this country … Only Democrats. Only Democrats cheat.”
Giuliani also appeared on “Today,” where host Willie Geist confronted Giuliani about the tone the Trump campaign has taken, suggesting a conspiracy working against him. Giuliani came to Trump’s defense, attempting to clear up “a misunderstanding.”
“[Speaker of the House] Paul Ryan thinks he means that the elections at the polling places are rigged. He’s not saying that,” Giuliani affirmed. “There may be a few incidents of that — Philadelphia is an example of where you often have cheating. Chicago. But that’s not the real problem. What he’s really talking about is how 80 to 85 percent of the media is against him. You look at The New York Times. I read The Times every day. I don’t know why. It just aggravates me.”
Giuliani went on to say that Trump believes that “the establishment is against him and they’re rigging the election against him. Not cheating at the polling place. But you’ve got The Time, you’ve got The Washington Post, you’ve got most of the major newspapers, most of the networks …”
Geist went on to read a quote in the Boston Globe from 50-year-old Trump supporter, Dan Bowman: “If she’s in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot. That’s how I feel about it. We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed.”
Giuliani grinned, saying, “You’ve got million of people. Each side has a couple of kooks.”
The question came back around to the accusation of a rigged election if Hillary Clinton came out the victor and if the Trump would approve and respect the outcome of the election.
“Of course…” Giuliani said, “Unless, my god, if there really is evidence of cheating, but I don’t expect the electoral process to be rigged, meaning the election should be rigged. But if it is, we will contest it.”
Watch Giuliani’s “Today” interview in full below.