Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) on Sunday declined to say that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump Donald John TrumpBubba Wallace to be driver of Michael Jordan, Denny Hamlin NASCAR team Graham: GOP will confirm Trump's Supreme Court nominee before the election Southwest Airlines, unions call for six-month extension of government aid MORE needs to apologize for his claims that President Obama was born in Africa and therefore not eligible to be president.

"You know, if everybody apologized for all the things they said in politics, all we would be doing on television shows is apologizing," Giuliani said on CNN's "State of the Union."

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"Maybe a lot of the Democrats should apologize for calling Donald Trump a racist and calling him all kinds of terrible names. And it gets a little silly. Let's get down to the basic issue here."

The former New York City mayor also pointed out that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonJoe Biden looks to expand election battleground into Trump country Biden leads Trump by 12 points among Catholic voters: poll The Hill's Campaign Report: Biden goes on offense MORE's campaign was the first to bring up the birther argument.

"And finally it was resolved after Donald Trump raised it," Giuliani said.

"So, they maybe have a faulty memory there as to where that issue first came from and what first suggested it to them. It was the Clinton campaign."

Giuliani then touted Trump's outreach to African-Americans, saying that for years people have been criticizing Republicans for how they appeal to minority communities.

"Well, he reached out to the African-American community. Maybe it isn't the message of left-wing Democratic politics, which, in my view, having been the mayor of a city that was rotting when I took it over, on the front cover of Time magazine as the rotting of the Big Apple, because of years of liberal Democratic policies," Giuliani said.

"New York could be Detroit if I hadn't turned it around, if I hadn't lowered taxes, gotten jobs for people, gotten jobs for people on welfare, and straightened out a good deal of the education system and moved away from dependency."