Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) defended New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's (R) Republican National Convention speech on Tuesday, saying the New Jersey governor had a specific role to play in the series of convention speeches.
"Every keynote speech has a purpose. The convention has to decide what they want you to do. I think in Chris's case what they wanted him to do is set out the philosophical divide between the Obama administration and the Romney-Ryan ticket," Giuliani said in an interview with CBS News on Wednesday. "A philosophical divide that has to do with leadership, confidence in the private sector, confidence in entrepreneurship, I think that's what they wanted him to do so that they can move to the next night with Paul Ryan laying out exactly what Romney wants to do to straighten out the economy."
Critics of the speech said that Christie did not focus enough on Romney and attacking President Obama, and instead spent too much time on his own story. Giuliani, in an interview with CNN, also on Wednesday morning, said that the speech wasn't just about Romney.
"I think his role here was not so much just to support Mitt Romney," Giuliani said. "His role as the keynote speaker was to set the background for what this campaign is going to be about."
Giuliani also compared Christie's speech to Ann Romney's speech, which came right before his.
"She's talking about love between a man and a woman, love between a husband and wife," Giuliani said. "What the governor was talking about was how a public figure should conduct himself."
