Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani says that if he had to choose, he would vote for Donald Trump over Sen. [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore].

Appearing on Fox News’s “The Kelly File” on Tuesday, Giuliani said if he had to pick, he would choose Trump because “Donald is the more practical guy.”

Giuliani, who told The Washington Post, “If it came down to Trump or Cruz, there is no question I’d vote for Trump.”

Tuesday night on “The Kelly File” when asked to explain, Giuliani said, “Okay first, the difference between the two of them: Donald is the more practical guy. Now I have to tell you, he’s a personal friend. Four of the candidates are personal friends, not including Ted Cruz. I love them all, hard to pick. I don’t know who I’m going to endorse, but between Trump and Cruz, Cruz is too right wing and rigid. He will give away the northeast, gone.”

In the general election, Giuliani claimed that “absolutely” Cruz would give up “Maryland, up to Maine, gone. California up to Washington, Oregon, gone.”

Kelly followed up, “Who can Trump get that Cruz can’t get in the general?”

“I’ll give you one person I just had dinner with, the head of the Correction Workers Union in New York, Norman Seabrook,” Giuliani said. Seabrook is “an African-American, enormously well respected by everyone in the African-American community. He said to me tonight, ‘I’m endorsing Donald Trump, because he can get jobs.'”

“Donald Trump can do what Ronald Reagan did,” Giuliani insisted. “He can reach over and he can get Reagan Democrats.”

Trump can “also get African-Americans, believe it or not, Latinos, because he’s not tarred by the long connection with the Republican Party that we all have,” Giuliani said. “Blacks have this feeling about the Republican Party that we’re anti-black, anti-Hispanic. We’re not. But they have that feeling. He doesn’t carry that burden with him. He could reach over and he could be an enormously powerful general election candidate.”

Giuliani explained that Trump will get support from Latinos because Trump can bring them jobs, work, lift the economy, and create growth.

“America’s Mayor” then drew a parallel between Trump and Reagan suggesting, “Can [Trump] reach out the way Ronald Reagan was able to reach out to the union workers, who were all Democrats but they voted for him because they felt he could increase their wages?”

However, Giuliani did knock Trump for “making a mistake” by announcing that he is planning on not attending Thursday’s GOP debate. (RELATED: Trump Backs Out Of Fox News Debate [VIDEO])

Trump “should be in that debate” because “I think he’s going to do really well,” Giuliani said. “His debating performances, as you watched them from the debate you had through, getting better and better. His answer to Cruz on that statement Cruz made about New York, I thought was close to eloquent. I mean, it lifted to him to like presidential level. So if I were Donald, and I’m not, and he makes up his own mind, I would participate in the debate. Because I think he’ll win it, and I don’t know why he’s not doing it.”(RELATED: Trump Stuns Cruz Into Silence During ‘New York Values’ Fight [VIDEO])

WATCH:

Follow Steve on Twitter and Facebook