Donald Trump’s claim that he saw “thousands and thousands of people” in New Jersey cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, has been refuted by police, elected officials, religious leaders, fact-checkers and the media — and, now, the mayor of New York City on 9/11: Rudy Giuliani.

“We did have some celebrating — that is true,” Giuliani said on CNN’s “New Day” on Tuesday. “We had some pockets of celebrating.”

How many pockets?

“Ten. Twelve? Thirty. Forty,” Giuliani recalled. “We had one situation in which a candy store owned by a Muslim family was celebrating that day, right near a housing development. And the kids in the housing development came in and beat them up.”

“We expected a lot of irrational acts of violence against people who appeared to be Islamic or Muslim, and we had very, very little,” Giuliani continued. “And we did have some reports of people celebrating that day as the towers were coming down.”

But according to Giuliani, there weren’t “thousands and thousands,” as Trump has repeatedly said.

“I would’ve known that for sure,” Giuliani said. “I think what he’s doing is exaggerating.”

The former mayor — who ran unsuccessfully for the 2008 Republican nomination — said he “would’ve been thrown out of the race” had he made such a claim during his campaign.

So why hasn’t Trump?

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