Giuliani: If Trump had actually suggested violence against Clinton, crowd would have 'gone wild'
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday morning that the crowd at a Donald Trump rally would have "gone wild" had the Republican nominee for president actually encouraged gun-rights activists to carry out violence against Hillary Clinton.
"If Donald Trump was going to say something like that, he'd say something like that," Giuliani said on "Good Morning America."
He continued: "You know how speeches go. He was talking about how they [gun rights advocates] have the power to keep her out of office. That's what he was talking about. With a crowd like that, if that's what they thought he'd meant, they'd have gone wild."
Giuliani, an avid Trump supporter, gave an impassioned speech on behalf of the controversial Republican nominee at the party's convention in Cleveland last month.
The former mayor defended Trump some more in the ABC interview.
"They don't know Donald Trump the way I do. I've known him for 28 years," Giuliani said. "I know he is a responsible man, a very, very successful man, a man who achieved a great deal and can be trusted much better than Hillary Clinton, who has been found to be extremely careless with the use of national security information."
Trump made headlines Tuesday when he asserted at a rally that Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton wants to "essentially abolish" the Second Amendment -a claim the Clinton campaign has repeatedly denied - and that only the "Second Amendment people" would perhaps be able to stop her as president.
"If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks," Trump said, referring to appointments to the US Supreme Court. "All the Second Amendment people - maybe there is."
The Trump campaign quickly attempted to clarify the nominee's statement shortly after the speech.
"It's called the power of unification - Second Amendment people have amazing spirit and are tremendously unified, which gives them great political power," Jason Miller, the senior communications adviser for the Trump campaign, said in a statement. "And this year, they will be voting in record numbers, and it won't be for Hillary Clinton - it will be for Donald Trump."
The Clinton campaign still condemned Trump's comments.
"This is simple - what Trump is saying is dangerous," campaign manager Robby Mook said in a statement. "A person seeking to be the president of the United States should not suggest violence in any way."
Maxwell Tani contributed to this report.