Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who recently called Mitt Romney “a man without a core,” defended the GOP front-runner’s record as an executive at Bain Capital, calling the attacks against him “ignorant and dumb.”
“I’m shocked at what they’re doing,” Giuliani said of Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry Thursday on "Fox and Friends." “It’s ignorant and dumb. It’s building something we should be fighting in America, ignorance of the economic system, playing on the dumbest, most ridiculous ideas about how you grow jobs.”
Giuliani also said the attacks were “unfair and bad for the Republican Party.”
Bain Capital, Romney’s former firm, specializes in providing financial and management advice, often taking over distressed companies, which in some cases results in closed businesses or massive layoffs.
Romney contends that the companies Bain turned around more than make up for the layoffs, and that he helped create more than 100,000 jobs during his time there, a figure his critics contest.
Gingrich and Perry spent the days leading up to Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary assailing Romney for his time as an executive at Bain Capital, calling him a “vulture capitalist" and framing the firm as an unethical institution that “undermined capitalism.”
Gingrich has himself been criticized, most prominently by influential conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, for waging attacks on Romney that his critics say are liberal, anti-capitalist arguments that will be adopted by the Obama campaign in the general election.
The attacks on Romney have provoked some of his rivals to defend his economic record as a strongly conservative one.
On Tuesday, New Hampshire runner-up Ron Paul surprisingly came to Romney’s defense, saying Perry and Gingrich sounded “like Democrats” with their attacks.
Giuliani has rarely stood up on behalf of Romney. Last month he questioned the former Massachusetts governor’s commitment to the conservative cause, calling him “a man without a core,” “a man without substance” and “a man that will say anything to become president of the United States.”
But on Thursday, Giuliani turned on Gingrich, whom he has in the past spoken highly of.
“What the hell are you doing, Newt?” Giuliani asked. "What you’re saying is part of the reason we’re in so much trouble right now."
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