Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said Tuesday he’s voting for GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump but isn’t endorsing him, saying he agrees with Mr. Trump “probably on eight out of 10 positions” but that he has a “couple concerns” on immigration.
“When I endorse somebody, I join their campaign. I join their campaign staff, their campaign staff sends me out to do speeches and to do things like that,” Mr. Giuliani said on CNN’s “New Day.” “Donald’s a very, very good friend — I believe he’d be the best candidate. I think he’d be the person I would like to see win. I don’t know his campaign staff. I don’t know who they are.”
Mr. Trump is leading by some 30 points or more in recent polling ahead of the April 19 GOP primary in New York.
“I’m voting for Donald Trump, I’m urging other people to vote for Donald Trump, but I’m not joining the campaign in any way because I don’t know the campaign,” Mr. Giuliani said. “I don’t know what apparatus is there. I don’t know who the people are.”
“I mean, I agree with Donald probably on eight out of 10 positions, which is good enough for me,” he said. “That’s what I agreed with Ronald Reagan on — he was my hero. But I have a couple concerns on immigration. There are things I’d have to talk out first before I would go as far as an endorsement.”
Mr. Trump has been hammering Sen. Ted Cruz for a line Mr. Cruz used ahead of the Iowa caucuses deriding Mr. Trump for embodying “New York values.”
Mr. Cruz has since said the term applies to Democratic politicians in the state. Mr. Giuliani said he thinks the Texas Republican was referring to political ideology, though he acknowledged it might not have sounded that way.
“I think he was talking about New York political ideology,” Mr. Giuliani said. “He said it in a way that made it sound like he was talking about all of New York. So he’s got to take responsibility for that, like Donald has to for some of the things [he’s] said.”
“He said it in a way in which you had a perfect right to interpret it as he insulted all of us,” he said. “But that isn’t what Cruz meant. What Cruz meant was our very liberal, what he regards as very liberal, left-wing ideology.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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