When Donald Trump surrogate Katrina Pierson isn’t busy trying to explain the ridiculous claims her boss makes (with equally outrageous arguments), former New York mayor turned Republican cheerleader Rudy Giuliani does the same. Case in point, that time he introduced Trump at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio by telling the audience that before President Obama, the United States had never experienced a “successful” terrorist attack perpetrated by radical Islamic extremists.
Yes, that is literally what the man who was mayor of New York City on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 — when two passenger airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center — told the crowd in Ohio Monday:
“Under those eight years, before Obama came along, we didn’t have a successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the United States. They all started when [Hillary] Clinton and Obama got into office.”
Minutes earlier, however, Giuliani mentioned 9/11 and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He said most of this to illustrate America’s need to combat such extremism, but he also used the discussion as a segue for discussing Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence. The Ohio Indiana governor was an integral part of the USA Patriot Act, and even sponsored legislation to extend its powers in 2009.
Check out the full speech below.