David Axelrod dismissed Rudy Giuliani's assertion that President Obama doesn't love America during a HuffPost Live interview on Monday, but that doesn't mean the comments didn't rile Axelrod up.
When the former top advisor to Obama spoke with HuffPost Live's Alyona Minkovski about his memoir Believer: My Forty Years In Politics, Axelrod addressed Giuliani's controversial remarks during a private dinner where the former New York City mayor said he does not "believe that the president loves America. He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me."
"There's one thing Rudy said, when he said that 'he doesn't love me,' meaning [Obama] doesn't love Rudy Giuliani. I suspect it's true that the president doesn't love Rudy. But the rest of it was, you know -- my reaction to it was very, very angry," Axelrod told HuffPost Live.
Giuliani has since published a Wall Street Journal op-ed in which he wrote that he "didn’t intend to question President Obama’s motives or the content of his heart."
Axelrod said Monday he thinks the entire conversation had more to do with Giuliani's public profile than Obama's history of patriotism.
"This was more about Rudy Giuliani, a fading politician, kind of lighting himself on fire and trying to get some attention, and he was successful in doing that," Axelrod said.
Watch Axelrod's comments on Giuliani in the video above, and click here for his full HuffPost Live conversation.
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