Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said on Tuesday that there were celebrations in New York City after the 9/11 attacks, but still can’t confirm Donald Trump’s reports that thousands of people were cheering in New Jersey.
“We did have some celebrating,” Giuliani said on CNN. “That is true. We had pockets of celebration, some in Queens, some in Brooklyn.”
Giuliani said the number of people could have been up to 40.
“10, 12, 30, 40,” he estimated.
Giuliani, who was the mayor during the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, previously said there were reports of celebrations on “Morning Joe” on Nov. 25, but he did not provide any details.
“I heard reports of such things in New Jersey, in New York,” he said. “I didn’t see it.”
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Giuliani was more specific Tuesday, even describing one case of a Muslim family being attacked after they were reportedly celebrating.
“We had one situation in which a candy store owned by a Muslim family was celebrating that day, right near a housing development, and the kids in the housing development came in and beat them up,” he said. “Both facts were corroborated to be true.”
But Giuliani said he never saw any evidence of Trump’s claim that thousands of people were celebrating across the river that day.
Trump has not backed down on this claim, even after media and other politicians have said it is not true.
“I saw it on television,” Trump said Sunday. “I saw clips. And so did many other people. And many people saw it in person. I’ve had hundreds of phone calls to the Trump Organization saying, ‘We saw it. It was dancing in the streets.’”
Giuliani said he thinks he would have known if that was happening, but he would not call Trump a liar.
“I think what he’s doing is exaggerating,” he said. “If thousands of people were celebrating and he saw it on television, there must be some tape of it somewhere. If it shows up it will corroborate him, if it doesn’t show up, it’s gonna make him look really bad.”
Giuliani admitted that if he had made this claim when he was running for president in 2008, he would not be treated the same way Trump has been.
“I would have been thrown out of the race,” he said. “He is judged by a different standard.”
