CNN host battles Rudy Giuliani on Trump's refusal to release tax returns: You should not be proud of that

CNN anchor Jake Tapper clashed with Rudy Giuliani during a Sunday morning interview, telling the former New York City mayor that he should not be proud of Donald Trump refusing to publicly release his tax records.

The exchange came just one day after The New York Times published three pages of Trump's 1995 tax records, indicating it was possible the real-estate tycoon legally avoided paying federal income taxes for nearly two decades.

"He's the first major party nominee since 1976 to not release his tax returns," Tapper said. "If you're proud of that, that's great. But I don't think you should be."

"And I am saying, the way all of you are treating this is a very good indication of why someone might not want to release their tax returns, because you take something that is perfectly legal … and you try to make it into - he did no wrongdoing," the former NYC mayor replied.

Giuliani added: "Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has violated probably 30 federal statutes. He did nothing wrong. The headline should have been, 'Donald Trump takes advantage of legal provisions in tax code.' That's the story."

Tapper, not amused, shot back: "That's an interesting, that's an interesting headline."

The CNN anchor then played Giuliani a clip of Trump suggesting that Hillary Clinton had not been loyal to her husband.

"Mr. Mayor, is that normal, stable behavior for a presidential nominee to launch an unsubstantiated attack?" Tapper asked.

Giuliani said it was "fair game" after "she called him a racist and misogynist, a xenophobic, I don't know, schizophrenic, and I don't know what else she called him at the end of that debate."

"Just to make stuff up, just to say wild accusations, Hillary Clinton is cheating on Bill, no proof of it whatsoever? Everything is fair game?" Tapper pressed.

"That was a sarcastic remark pointing out that Bill Clinton has, you know, quite a past, and Hillary Clinton has done quite a job on attacking the people who were victims of Bill Clinton," Giuliani responded. "And not only that. She poses as a feminist, and she's taken money from countries that stone women, kill women."

Tapper then fired a brutal question at the Trump surrogate.

"Is the Trump campaign - is Donald Trump and the people around Donald Trump really the ones to be casting aspersions on the marriages of anyone else?" the CNN host ask.

"It isn't a marriage. It isn't the marriage," Giuliani insisted. "It's the way she goes on the attack and tries to hurt victims of sexual predations."

"That wasn't about her marriage?" Tapper asked. "Him saying that she's not loyal to Bill isn't about her marriage?"

"I am saying the problem with Hillary Clinton has nothing to do, as far as I'm concerned, with her marriage," Giuliani said. "It's her protection of Bill Clinton for 20 or 25 years against allegations of rape, taking advantage of an intern, and going on the attack and trying to make those women appear to be insane in some cases."