Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani Rudy GiulianiGrand jury adds additional counts against Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and and Igor Fruman Juan Williams: Breaking down the debates Giuliani criticizes NYC leadership: 'They're killing this city' MORE (R) said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he’s repeated comments about President Obama’s patriotism in the past, but they “hit a nerve” this time.

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“I said it maybe 30 times before,” Giuliani told host John Catsimatidis on “The Cats Roundtable” on AM 970 in New York. "But somehow this time it hit a nerve.

Giuliani sparked a firestorm on controversy last week when he said Obama doesn’t love America.

“Maybe because the president is on such defense about his unwillingness to say Islamic extremist terrorism,” Giuliani said on Sunday.

“He’s a critic [of America] first, and then he praises us. As opposed to praising us, and then mentioning our criticisms, and how he’s going to improve it,” he added.

“And we need an American president more like Ronald Reagan and sees American exceptionalism … and doesn’t say ... the Crusades were a bunch of barbarian Christians without finishing the sentence saying there were also barbarian Muslims.”

Giuliani also criticized Obama’s foreign policy, saying the president “has turned on Israel.”

“The people of Israel are exceedingly worried,” he said. “They are completely concerned the American president is not on their side, and that they’re going to have to defend themselves.”

Giuliani also said that the president’s failure to project U.S. power makes the world dangerous.

“Doesn’t the president realize if America isn’t the policeman of the world, that vacuum is going to get filled by somebody else?” he asked. “It’s going to get filled by Russia and Eastern Europe. It’s going to get filled by China … It’s going to get filled by Iran in the Middle East.”

“I want an American president who is not embarrassed to say, ‘America is the strongest power on Earth. And we are going to assert ourselves. So stand aside,' “ he added. “And I want our enemies to be afraid of our president. I want ISIS to be afraid of our president. I want the Ayatollah to shake in his boots when he thinks about what the president of the United States could do to him … We’re not going to defeat them with this namby-pamby silly stuff about not being able to say Islamic extremist terrorism … How about standing up for Western Civilization?”