WATCH: Rudy Giuliani Admits to Fox News Trump Asked Him for a ‘Muslim Ban’ and a Way to Do It ‘Legally’

When Donald Trump First Announced It, “He Said, ‘Muslim Ban.’ He Said, ‘Show Me the Right Way to Do It Legally.’ “

Former top Trump campaign surrogate Rudy Giuliani, who apparently is now advising the Trump White House, says the President asked him to draft a “Muslim ban” but to ensure it was done “legally.”

Giuliani, a former U.S. Attorney and mayor of New York City, apparently forgot that courts consider not only the words on paper but the intent of the actors when determining if an action or a law is legal. For example, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that a North Carolina voter ID law was unconstitutional, citing Republican lawmakers’ “discriminatory intent” in enacting it. The court accused GOP lawmakers of targeting African American voters with “almost surgical precision.”

Through that lens, consider Giuliani’s comments to Fox News on Saturday.

“How did the president decide the seven countries?” Fox News host Jeanine Pirro asked Giuliani.

“I’ll tell you the whole history of it,” Giuliani responded. “So when [Trump] first announced it, he said, ‘Muslim ban.’ He called me up. He said, ‘Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.’ “

“And what we did was, we focused on, instead of religion, danger — the areas of the world that create danger for us,” Giuliani continued. “Which is a factual basis, not a religious basis. Perfectly legal, perfectly sensible. And that’s what the ban is based on. It’s not based on religion. It’s based on places where there are substantial evidence that people are sending terrorists into our country.”

Further, President Trump himself in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network bragged that his Muslim ban was designed to favor immigration to the U.S. by Christian refugees. 

Trump spoke with Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) Friday morning. David Brody reports “persecuted Christians will be given priority when it comes to applying for refugee status in the United States,” according to his interview with the president.

“We are going to help them,” Trump told Brody. “They’ve been horribly treated. Do you know if you were a Christian in Syria it was impossible, at least very tough to get into the United States?” Trump said. “If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible,” Trump continued saying, which is false. “The reason that was so unfair, everybody was persecuted in all fairness, but they were chopping off the heads of everybody but more so the Christians. And I thought it was very, very unfair.”

That’s actually a lie:

And let’s repeat the last part of Giuliani’s claim: “It’s based on places where there are substantial evidence that people are sending terrorists into our country.” 

That’s false. 

“There have been zero fatal terror attacks on U.S. soil since 1975 by immigrants from the seven Muslim-majority countries President Donald Trump targeted with immigration bans on Friday, further highlighting the needlessness and cruelty of the president’s executive order,” The Huffington Post’s Christopher Mathias reports.