Stewart, O’Reilly weigh in on Giuliani’s controversial Obama comments
‘You know you’re not the mayor of 9/11, right?’ ‘Daily Show’ host asks
Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly both weighed in on former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s suggestion that President Barack Obama doesn’t love America. And not surprisingly — given their history of on-air battles on each other’s shows — the cable hosts had markedly different takes on the controversy.
Stewart of “The Daily Show” took particular issue with Giuliani invoking Sept. 11 to defend his comments.
“You know, President Obama didn’t live through September 11th,” Giuliani said on “The Sean Hannity Show” last week. “I did. President Obama didn’t almost, you know, have a building fall on him. Myself and my police commissioner and my fire commissioner did.”
“Shut up,” Stewart said, referring to Giuliani’s remarks. “You know you’re not the mayor of 9/11, right? You don’t own 9/11. You don’t own anything but the unique willingness to crassly exploit it.”
O’Reilly, though, did not have a problem with the frequent Fox News guest’s Sept. 11 defense.
“Rudy Giuliani was deeply affected by the attack on 9/11,” O’Reilly said on his Fox News show on Monday. “Day after day after day, he had to console the families of those who were killed. That ordeal has redefined Mr. Giuliani. He takes terrorism very personally. You might say the mayor was a casualty himself of the terror attack because he experienced so much pain.”
Obama, O’Reilly said, “is not deeply emotional” when it comes to fighting terrorism.
“President Obama is a man who lives in his head,” the Fox News host continued. “He is largely unemotional. Rudy Giuliani is the opposite. He takes wrongdoing very personally.”
O’Reilly said he doesn’t doubt the president’s love for America.
“President Obama does love his country,” he said. “And I don’t doubt his patriotism. But if Barack Obama were here today on this set, I would tell him that he needs to stop equivocating about terrorism. On his watch, ISIS has grown from a nothing organization to a powerful terror threat. That’s not a good thing to have on your resume.”
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