Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) said in an interview on Saturday that President Trump had previously asked him about legally implementing a "Muslim ban."

But Giuliani then disputed the notion that the president's sweeping executive order barring refugees and people from seven predominantly Muslim nations amounts to a ban on Muslims.

"I’ll tell you the whole history of it: When he first announced it, he said ‘Muslim ban,'" Giuliani said on Fox News.

"He called me up, he said, ‘Put a commission together, show me the right way to do it legally.’"

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Giuliani said he then put together a commission that included lawmakers and expert lawyers.

"And what we did was we focused on, instead of religion, danger," Giuliani said.

"The areas of the world that create danger for us, which is a factual basis, not a religious basis. Perfectly legal, perfectly sensible."

Giuliani reiterated that the ban is "not based on religion."

"It's based on places where there are substantial evidence that people are sending terrorists into our country," he said.

The president on Friday signed an order that bars Syrian refugees indefinitely and halts the country's refugee resettlement program for four months. It also denies entry for 90 days to people from seven majority-Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Libya.

The president on Saturday denied that the executive order was a Muslim ban. He also insisted his new administration was "totally prepared" to carry out the refugee and travel ban.

A federal judge in New York on Saturday night granted an emergency stay temporarily halting the removal of immigrants and refugees detained following Trump's order.