The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Trump Refused To Make Giuliani His Secretary of State

Episode Date: September 6, 2022

Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani’s buddy-buddy, and complicated, relationship goes way back according to writer Andrew Kirtzman. Kirtzman covered Giuliani’s political career for over 30 years and is also the author of Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor. He came on this episode of The New Abnormal to give us an insight into New York’s fallen angel and his pal Trump—from anecdotes that one of his ex-wives told him to why Trump felt he was too much of a “liability” to be his Secretary of State. Plus! Fever Dreams podcast host Will Sommer, who is the expert on all things far-right, joins this podcast episode to talk about the up-and-coming ultra-conservative, QAnon-type candidates a la Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert running in the midterms. And also, what the Proud Boys think of their founder Gavin McInnes and his fake arrest prank. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. What a great show we have today. First, we're going to talk to Will Summer, who's a reporter at The Daily Beast and, of course, the host of the Fever Dreams podcast, where we cover all the loony stuff like the Alt-Right and QAnon and talk about all the ways the far rights to Benching. And he's going to talk to us about exactly that.

Then we're going to talk to Andrew Kurtzman, who's the author of Giuliani, the rise and tragic fall of America's mayor. and we're going to talk to him about how bad things have been going for, America's mayor. Hate to see it. But first, let's have some fun. Andy Levy. Molly Jongfest. So we had a Biden speech followed by a Trump rally. Yep. The Biden speech drove all of the people on the right crazy because it criticized the rise of authoritarianism,

and they felt very targeted. And then Trump stepped in the trap that Biden had said. for him. And then Trump gave a speech that was about as authoritarian as it gets to prove Biden wrong or something like that. Yes. I've never seen so many fascists get worked up at being called semi-fascist. I'm assuming it's the semi-part that they were upset about. That was like the only thing I could think of is that, you know, they've worked so long and hard to be full fascists and then to be belittled by Joe Biden by being called semi-fascist. You know, I can understand that. You put in the work and you want the recognition, you know, and he kind of denied it to them. But it is amazing. I mean, after Biden's speech,

I think the thing that was trending on Twitter was like pedo Hitler or something like that. They were so mad. They're pretending to be mad at the tone of Biden's speech. Literally everything they do is calling people groomer. And they call Joe Biden a socialist, like the most centrist guy in the world. They've spent all this time calling him a socialist and then get mad and say he's ruining the discourse by saying semi-fascists. It's like they're the biggest hypocrites in the world, but we know that. But they're also the biggest babies in the world. These are the people that spend all that time calling everyone who wasn't them snowflakes. Right.

And all they do is crumble the minute anyone calls them accurately on their bullshit, which is that they are at minimum. semi-fascist. That's what that wing of the Republican Party has become. So the response was, it was hilarious to me to watch it. Yeah, I mean, they're very upset. They were mad at Biden. You know, I mean, I think what Biden did was smart. He tried to get, look, for Democrats to win this midterm, it looks like a lot of things are coming in are sort of falling into place, but they really need Trump to step in there because running against Trump is really, and I mean, unfortunately, Unfortunately, look, nobody likes having him in our political world at all. And, you know, we've, you know, whatever.

I don't believe in this kind of democratic politics of, like, supporting the fascist candidates because they'll lose. Because we saw in 2016, that's not a great plan. Yep. But I do think, and I also think, like, aiding in the destruction of democracy in either way is really bad, is a bad way to go out in the world. But I do think that bringing Donald Trump into the midterms when he's already basically there is going to be helpful for Democrats. And that was what Biden was doing and going to Pennsylvania, you know, to going to Philadelphia, which is, you know, sort of the seat of American government. And then having Trump say like Philadelphia is a dump, you know, like Independence Hall is, you know, I wouldn't use that as my, you know, my bidet. The optics of that are bad to normal people.

And look, the other thing is like this thing that we keep talking about is like, you know, a lot of pundits are saying, well, you know, they get Trump's people get so mad when, you know, you get, you know, if you, if you search Mara Lago, Trump's people get so, you know, they're fully, they're even more on the Trump train. But Trump's people will always be on the Trump train. It's not about Trump's people. Trump's people, you might as well just give up on now, you know, hope they don't do anything bad and give up on them. But like, it's about all the other people, which is most of us who can't tolerate this kind of insanity. And those people, you lose more and more and more of them as Trump becomes more and more exposed. Yeah, totally agree. Trump, as you said, he sort of walked into the trap and, you know, he gave his rally in Pennsylvania and talked about how basically saying that Democrats are enemies of the state. Right. He called Federman a socialist loser. And he said Federman was on drugs.

And accused him of being on pretty much every drug up to and including fentanyl. Any time that anyone on that side complains about name-calling, they should be ignored. Right. And I don't know if this is sort of second to a new point. But once again, our vaunted media institutions are not up to this challenge. Yeah, they seem not to be. They're totally two sides. You know, they're saying, well, Biden criticized Trump, but barbs are exchanged on both sides.

Like, barbs are not exchanged. This one guy wants to end democracy. The other guy is criticizing the guy who wants to end democracy. These are not the same. No, exactly. And but what you get is you get like the Washington Post editorial board and the New York Times editorial board and the Wall Street Journal editorial board sort of. Well, the Wall Street Journal editorial board is.

I know, but yeah. You cannot be counted. One of these things is not like the other. True. But they all clutched their pearls and talk about how, oh, Biden shouldn't have used that language and fuck off. I'm sorry. It's just, we're way past that. The Washington Post in particular, you cannot have, you know, your whole big thing is democracy dies in darkness. And then you have a guy get up there and actually say, hey, these people don't want to, they're a danger

to democracy. And you're like, well, you shouldn't say that. Well, what? That's your whole thing, is that it dies in darkness and he's putting it in the light. Yeah. You know, he's doing exactly what you claim your purpose is, except it's not, you know, or if it is, you're, you're really bad at it. And so that just gets annoying as hell. But the idea that, because Biden had some red lights behind them and there were a couple of Marines standing there, and then we get CNN anchors tutting him and then doing stories about how some people are upset about this when it was you who was upset about it. Right. And I just, I can't, that's Brianna, what's her name, Keeler or whatever.

I think her name is. Yeah. I can't take it anymore. All of those people, just at some point, you have to wake up and realize that there is a side here that wants democracy to go away. Right. They want authoritarianism. If you want to call it fascism, I'm comfortable calling it fascism.

If you're not comfortable with that, just call it authoritarianism. Just use the generic term. I don't care. Either way, that's what they want. And, you know, you've got Trump sitting that he wants the 2020. He wants an election overturned. Yeah, he wants to redo the election. That was his most recent thing.

Yeah. Every marker of authoritarianism is right there. Like, he's saying it out loud. This is not the quiet parts. This is the out loud parts. Again, we'll see what happens. I'm struck by this idea, like, none of this is new. Everything he's saying is stuff he's been workshopping since 2015.

Yes. And even, like, I was in the car when we were in this very long car ride. we were listening to this interview, this British interview with Lindsay Graham called Hard Talk, a British interviewer giving Lindsay Graham a very thorough interview and saying him again and again, like, you know, what is it that Biden hasn't done that you think is so dangerous that Trump would have done, right? And the things they have, these ideas, the few party platforms the Republican Party still has are the border, right it's so dangerous the border is so dangerous right again we have this diminishing population we can't we have a workforce that is desperate for people tight workforce and yet the border is our biggest problem right

like you can't have those two things do not coexist and it's just like they just don't have any new material so i'm not sure like i guess his people he'll always have but i don't know like don't people get bored if it's just the same thing all the time I don't know. And this goes back to sort of my media thing where it's sort of like, oh, well, we're used to this from Trump. We're used to him saying the crazy things he does. One of the things that happened at this rally that he held is there was a speaker there named Cynthia Hughes. And she's the head of a support group for a bunch of January 6th defendants. One of whom is this guy, Timothy Hale Cousinelli. Who she says is her nephew, but may not be. Right. We're not sure. She queens.

Right, which would be a weird thing to lie about, but who the hell knows. I think it's, yeah, I think you have to assume these people are maybe not telling the truth until proven otherwise. Yeah. But this guy, this guy, Timothy Hale Cousinelli has, he literally has a Hitler mustache and haircut. Yeah. And he has completely styled himself after Adolf Hussainly. Hitler. And so you bring up a woman on stage who is a support group for people like this, but then you get mad when you get called semi-fascist. But all of this is, like, sort of to your

point, is none of this is new. Right. Like, this is stuff Trump for, you know, the four years he was president gave these awful speeches and where he just like completely made a mockery of the office of the presidency and of the discourse, as we say. Yeah. And then Biden gets up there and gives one speech where he doesn't even, like, it's not even like he went after the entire Republican Party. He specifically singled out the MAGO wing. That's fine.

Which I think is actually smart. I think this idea of like trying to give these people an off ramp is really good. I mean, I don't know if it works, but it's worth it. Right. I totally agree. But it's like you had four years plus of the other guy, not even including the stuff he's been doing as an ex-president. Right.

But then somehow you equate the two. It's just that Trump gets sort of handled in this special category. It's like, oh, well, that's just Trump. Right. No, no, I agree. And it's like, no, we're so far beyond that's just Trump. The guy was the president. And that's how he's gotten so far is by people saying like, well, this is, we can humor him.

And actually, there was somebody who was smart about how that in 2020, people said, oh, just let him do this. It won't be a big deal. Let him try. You know, he's just playing golf. It's not like he's going to overthrow the elections. And now we have the same thing with the special master, which is so Trump world, there was this Mar-a-Lago raid. They took a bunch of documents. Trump World has some pretty bad lawyers.

The bad lawyers went and they may not be such bad lawyers because they found a jurisdiction. They found a judge who Trump had recently appointed went to her and said, you must let us, you know, appoint a special master. And she said, oh, sure, why not? even though it's not, it's a very unusual. And a lot of people are saying lawyers, people who know the law as opposed to myself, are saying that, you know, this very unusual and the filing is kind of a mess and this is not how you do it. I mean, the thing with Trump, and I think you have to remember is like he has put in so many judges. And then he always knows.

And again, the goal here is just to waste time to keep the Justice Department from being able to do its job. And again, there's this. crazy new Justice Department rule, I guess, caused by James Comey and Hillary Clinton, where you can't indict someone 30 days before the 60 days. 60. Right. Before an election, even though Trump is not running for office, but okay, it's important to, you know, make sure that we protect Republican candidates at all costs. But I do think ultimately we really have a situation where Trump knows that if it goes up to the Supreme Court, he can, he can. win because he owns that court. That's his court. He put them in there. Right. And I also saw some

people pointing out that if DOJ decides to appeal this ruling, another thing the Supreme Court can do is take their sweet time about, you know, whether or not they want to accept the appeal. So they could also, you know, play into that 60-day rule. They could wait and wait and wait. And then even even if they rule against Trump, then suddenly the Justice Department has this, you know, again, And it's apparently an unwritten rule about the 60-day thing. It's just, again, for people who claim to want to drain the swamp, they sure love working the system. Oh, yeah. And you're right, you know, pointing out, again, that Trump appointed this judge who really, by all accounts, is not the kind of person who had the experience that you would expect to be appointed to a district court.

But, of course, she's a federalist society member, so that's really all that matters, I think. She's also quite young. I mean, this is the way they do it here in Trump or all this. It's all about this authoritarian, like, favor banking. Right. But I do think, like, there are a couple more investigations going. It's incredibly annoying. It reminds me, I feel like this is a moment we can talk about how Alvin Bragg decided not.

He had a open and shut case. Alvin Bragg, hello. Back in New York, Alvin Bragg, decided not to prosecute Trump for whatever mysterious reason. of us know why. Yeah. That continues to be incredibly a real thorn in my side. Will Summer is a politics reporter at The Daily Beast as well as the host of the Daily Beast podcast, Fever Dreams.

Most ambitious crossover event ever. Welcome to the new abnormal fever dreams host, Will Somer. Molly, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. I can't believe we haven't done this before. I think we have long ago. I love Jesse. Jesse's like.

We have since we've never done this before. I wanted to have you on because Donald J. Trump has he lost his mind more than usual? I mean, he would have done stuff like this when he was president, but two days ago, he amplified Q and on promoting accounts 70 times. What is going on? He's going off. He's telling it like he sees it. I mean, if you look at true social, like he sees it. Basically, like, it's kind of hard to remember and sort of to put yourself in the place of like,

what was it like when Trump was on Twitter, you know, it's two years ago, that kind of stuff. But I felt looking at the memes he was posting and stuff, I was like, this is a, this is not the kind of stuff he used to do. I mean, I think this is further than that. Like, he was posting a picture of that had been Photoshop to make Biden look like he had pooped his pants. And Trump was like, oh, why are people so mean? Like, I will say, that's kind of funny. But I think like he was going a little further. You know, he was posting, like you said, I mean, he posted some Q&on memes that were like, I am the storm.

And of course, QAnon people see the storm as sort of this big, like, fascist moment where, you know, you know, podcasters and Democrats and all kinds of people will be sent to Guantanamo Bay. So I do think he has this feeling of kind of being trapped in the corner as the DOJ is closing in and like all he can do because he can't hire lawyers or good lawyers apparently. All he can do is post. So he is ultimately the poster in chief. Yeah. I mean, you know, a lot of, a lot of kind of Trump supporters believe that he's still president that the Biden administration is being filmed at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta. Wait, wait.

What? Yeah, that's true. That's true, Molly. Yeah. They think that, like, I don't know, it's like. Well, it's. Right. I believe it.

Right. The idea is that, like, I don't know if Tyler Perry has like a White House set or something. And so there's like a theory that, that like, you know, this is all fake, basically. And it is like when Biden, you know, when he talks. the country, you know, it's a green screen and stuff like that. But I will say, but Trump does still retain the power, I think, of poster and sheep. I think they're right about that. I mean, it's so stupid.

It has to be true. And then I've seen other interesting stuff about the, you know, the way that the documents being staged. That's like another amazing kind of, like, I feel like we went from like the documents were planted to the documents were. were fake, to the documents were real, to the photos were staged? Exactly. Yeah. I mean, so, and there's really no evidence of any of this. I mean, I think the way to look at this is, like, if we think back to the Russia investigation and then the Ukraine investigation, all this kind of stuff, and then January 6th, I mean, I think these folks were able to, less so with January 6th, but I think they were ultimately able to come up with kind of like

counter narratives that Republicans could obsess over. So like with Russia, they could talk about Lisa Page and Peter Strach. sort of all these related characters. But really, I think with this one, they're really sort of struggling to find an angle that they can latch on to. And so there's a lot of like, well, those photos were staged. Oh, is there like a scrap of proof for that?

No. We just decided. I mean, and I think we saw some of that after the photo came out where the House Judiciary Committee, the Republican side, just said, you know, there's this picture of a framed picture of Trump on Time Magazine in the corner. And they're like, what?

We're supposed to be afraid of Time Magazine now? And it's like, that's obviously not what they were referring to. I mean, they're just sort of throwing everything at the wall. Right. And really so far, I mean, even in kind of the areas I habituate, you know, online, I don't see any of these things gaining much traction. Yeah, that's an interesting thing. Like, I feel like they've covered so much. Like, they've been able to obfuscate for so much, right?

Like, even like E. Jean Carroll, right? You know, like Trump comes out or all the sexual harassment, assault allegations that people come out and they're like, you know, Trump will say like, she's not hot enough to rape. And his people will be like, oh, ha, ha. But with this, it's like they just can't, they can't spin the narrative. And I think the thing to understand, or I think the thing that underscores that is how every time they try to kind of regain control of the narrative by releasing something that they

have, it only makes Trump look worse. And so, for example, right, they release. The John Solomon letter. Well, I have to. John Solomon, oh my gosh, that guy. I mean, the, so, so, you know, I, I should say here, I used to work with John Solomon at the hill. And like, I cannot, I mean, just the, I don't know if I went under an NDA or whatever, but like the, just the amount of, like, what you're seeing now is exactly how that guy worked and how bad he was at his job. And so the idea that, like, this guy is still ostensibly a journalist, right?

And yet he's also this, like, national archives representative for Trump. and no one really cares enough to be like, hey, you know, that's an obvious conflict of interest. But right, so he releases this, this archives letter that says, you know, just like, hey, please, you know, return these documents. We've talked to, you know, all these agencies. We've talked to the White House counsel. They all really want you to give the documents back. Now, people were like, why would they release this letter that just makes Trump look really obstinate and, you know, really underscores that he was breaking the law here? But from the right, they're in the John Solomon theory of the case here is because they mentioned the White House counsel office,

that means that like Biden was aware of the raid and that he kind of orchestrated all this and pulled the strings. None of that makes sense, but like you can see how they have to like, to like, they're kind of like to glean that one bit of like theoretical advantage. They have to put out this thing that just really blows up in their faces. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't believe how that was like the way they were going to sort of save him. I just want to talk about Gavin McGinnis now. I'm sorry.

I apologize in advance. Me too. I sort of saw this. I'm very, very, very online and yet not as online as you. So I'm sorry. I might have to, I don't know, I might have to reconsider my life if you think you're substantially less online. I feel like you see sketchier stuff than I do. I think that's right.

But just explain to me. I saw that he disappeared, maybe fake disappeared, disgust. Yeah, so this is sort of an interesting little. saga. So Gavin McGuinness, you know, the proud voice founder, co-founder of ICE magazine. Yeah, they'll never live that down. I know, I know. And then they'll hasten, you know, I'll beat their publicist to the pun. She has been involved with those. It's like 2008. So right. So he founded the proud boys, claims to not be involved with them anymore. But now he has this kind of online TV network with his signature show, get off my lawn. And so, you know, every couple, every couple

nights he broadcast to his, I would say, dwindling fan base. There was kind of like, there were hints. that the police or the feds might be closing it on Gavin. And so he posted, this was last week, and sort of early in the week he said, oh, I think there were like some undercover cops hanging out outside my house. To me, that was just sort of like, well, Gavin McInnis is like a crazy guy,

just yelling at people. And then a few days later, he's broadcasting his show, and he starts going, he's saying, oh, there's some people here. Don't let them in. And then he starts addressing these people off camera and saying, you know,

can we talk about this later with a lawyer? Oh, you just want to have a brief talk? Oh, okay. And then he never returned. the camera broadcasts for another hour of an empty chair. And so I think it was not unreasonable to think that he had been arrested. And so, I mean, you know, the five leaders of the proud boys now are facing sedition charges over January 6th.

You know, a bunch of other ones have been charged over it. So that did not seem impossible to me. I would say there's also, there was kind of a wild card guess for what he might have been indicted for, which is this black nationalist cult in Georgia called Black Hammer that he was pretty intimately involved with promoting where, but basically, be a body was found in their compound a few weeks back, and it turned out to be a Russian front group. That was the one I thought maybe he was involved with. But basically he disappears. Everyone, you know, and I'll put myself on here too. I was like, oh man, Gavin McGuinness got arrested.

Let's find out what happened. But meanwhile, on the right, I mean, these guys are already so paranoid about the Mar-a-Lago raid. And now they think Gavin got black-bagged because as this is happening, no federal agency will say they did it. Like I asked the U.S. Attorney's offices in D.C. and New York, the NYPD, no one says they did it. And eventually, after 24 hours or something, you got to think, like, did they send Gavin to Guantanamo? I mean, this is like a real serious situation. However, so all of his supporters are so paranoid,

and they start thinking like, oh, man, they're going to come for me. I mean, all these random bloggers are thinking they're going to get the black helicopters. And so ultimately what happens, though, is this guy named, this comedian name, and I sort of say comedian lightly there, this guy named Owen Benjamin. The guy with the bear emoji.

Exactly, with a compound of his own. Right. So this guy used to have like a relatively successful career. He dated Christina Ricci at one point. What? Right. He was, was he an actor or? Yeah, yeah.

He was like an actor-comedian. He was on, I think, a network show. And so, but he's sort of progressively gone crazier and crazier. And now he's just like a straight up anti-Semite white supremacist, conspiracy theorist. He's big like the moon landing didn't happen type guy. And so he's coming off of this failed. compound in Idaho. But, you know, as a fellow comedian, he texted Gavin and said, you know, Gavin, you know, are you okay, buddy? And now this is according to Owen Benjamin's account,

so make it out what you will. But he posts, he texts back, a prank, don't tell anyone. Yes, I saw this. And the other thing I want to underline here is at the, as all this is going down, Gavin McGuinness has a comedy tour next month that he needs to sell tickets for, right? And so the, so he needs to get back in the public time. It's starting to make more sense. I know the pieces are falling into place. So Owen is kind of a wild card or a loose cannon and he gets out there and he says, you know, Gavin is tricking

all his fans into making money. And I should say there's this other Gavin, this Gavin associate on the comedy tour had said, no, Gavin really is arrested. And then basically that guy's like, oh man, Owen ruined the bit. And then Gavin texts Owen and he says, you spilled the

beans. We are done. Oh, I saw this too. I just loved the spill the beans part. But yeah, I mean, so that is sort of how it played out. But it sort of seems like Gavin hasn't admitted it yet. Like, he's still laying low. The other thing I would add here is that the proud boys themselves have gotten mad about this because it's kind of like persecution by the deep state stolen valor.

Because, I mean, like, there really are proud boys in prison. Right. Yes. Who deserve to be? Oh, yeah. Very much so. I mean, as Gavin was like kind of faking being in prison, another proud boy was sentenced to nearly five years in jail over January 6th.

So some of them have not taken it very well that Gavin is kind of doing, you know, martyr cosplay. This is so interesting. Talk to me about some of these new insane candidates. Jesse has told me that there's some people who are going to make Lauren Boehird and Marjorie Teller Green look good coming into Congress. Yeah, I mean, I certainly think so. I mean, you know, one we missed was Laura Lumer down in Florida, you know, sort of a famous troll.

She continues to run for office. Yes, she does. And, of course, she insists that this primary she just lost. She really won. So she only lost by seven points against a longtime Republican incumbent, which, you know, I think is pretty ominous for the GOP or at least for those of us who don't want them to go totally nuts or even more nuts. Yeah. But the guy who actually stands as a chance of getting into Congress is a guy in Ohio. named J.R. Majuski. His signature, I mean, in case you didn't hear Jesse said, yeah.

This is one of my favorite fever dreams bits. Yes. So J.R. Mujuski, yes. I mean, so his claim to fame is, and this is a guy who he's running in this district, it was expected to be more Republican. It's been kind of redistricted in a funny way where it's more of a toss up now. But his claim to fame is that he used to run for office is that he he would paint a Trump 2022 sign on his lawn in a way that was so big you could see it from a plane so this is like Trump loved this guy but he's also a big big QAnon guy he painted a queue in the lawn and and I mean this guy is you know I think there's sort of variations of how deep into Q&on these people get in the case of Lauren Bobard I think she kind of was like all right I'll kind of like flirt with QAnon stuff to win some votes I think Marjorie

Taylor Green was really, really deep in it. I mean, she was adjudicating like what were real Q post and what were fake ones. But this guy was pretty into it. I mean, he went on a bunch of QAnon shows. And more recently, he said, like, QAnon, I don't know about that. And you look and you say, I mean, you drew it on your lawn, dude. You know, I mean, you're clearly pretty into it. So can he win?

Yeah, I think he has a good chance. I mean, I think as things trend more towards Democrats, his chances are probably diminishing. But it's a toss-up district. So the idea that, you know, Congress could have a new Q&R guy, you know, it's not impossible. Well, thank you. Well, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. Andrew Kurtzman is the author of Giuliani, the rise and tragic fall of America's mayor.

Welcome to the new abnormal, Andrew Kurtzman. Thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. So the book is Giuliani, the rise and tragic fall of America's mayor. I want to know how did you decide to write about him and why. Well, I've been covering Rudy Julianne. for 30 years. I was a City Hall reporter for the New York Daily News and then for New York One, which is the 24-hour news station in New York. I began at City Hall with his predecessor, David

Dinkins. Dinkins was the first black mayor and came to office amid extraordinary excitement and had a run of very bad luck and also turned out to be not the right man for the times. The city was in a state of crisis. Crime was very high. The economy was in trouble. I grew up here. So, yeah. I remember it. This is all tracks. Yeah.

Right. It turned out to be kind of depressing to cover Dinkins, which was disappointing, considering how high hopes were for him. And so I covered Giuliani's campaign. And then I covered his mayoralty every day for eight years. You know, I found him just endlessly fascinating. I mean, he was competent. He was transformative.

He was mean-spirited. He could be generous. He was brilliant. He was Machiavellian. I mean, he had so many different layers. And at the same time, was also extremely successful. And, you know, I think every journalist kind of gravitates to subjects who were kind of very sure themselves and great leaders and or natural leaders, I should say, not great leaders, but natural leaders. And I mean, Giuliani has been, fascinating in that way to me for decades now. I'm curious, one of the sort of things that I really like to talk to you about is what happened to sort of the Rudy Trump relationship and how that evolved. Well, I mean, one of the things I learned about during the course of reporting was kind of how much more was going on between the two of them than the world really knew. Once Giuliani emerged in Trump's universe in the eyes of the public, during the in the Mueller investigation.

So we found a lot of correspondences between Giuliani and Trump during the mayoralty. And it was just fascinating. I mean, there was this kind of need that they both seemed to feel to impress the other. And I think that still exists

to this day. I mean, Trump was trying to build the world's tallest residential tower, right? An enormous self-interest at stake and was buttering Giuliani up. We found all of these letters to him providing

kind of secret information about the Hillary Clinton Senate campaign, and Giuliani was a candidate against her at the time. And Giuliani was speaking at Trump's parents' funerals, both of them. And meanwhile, you know, people are trying to get Giuliani's attention who were opposed to the high-rise. Walter Cronkite was absolutely apoplectic. He was opposed in the tower,

and Giuliani wouldn't even respond to his letters. Yeah. So they formed a bond at a very, very early state. And, you know, Trump, I feel that he looked upon Giuliani as a role model. You know, at the time that Giuliani was mayor, Trump was a developer with no political experience and not very politically savvy or queued in. And Giuliani made a huge impression with his kind of take no prisoners attitude, his, you know, authoritarian style.

And to this day, Trump talks about Giuliani with kind of a reverence that he reserves for almost no one. I mean, we interviewed AIDS in the White House who said they never heard, they never heard Trump talk about anyone the way he talks about Giuliani. So explain to me how Trump sort of saved Giuliani. Well, one of the things I learned in the course of reporting was this incredible story. You know, Giuliani had led this charmed career and, of course, you know, emerged as, you know, the hero is a fraught word. But in the eyes of much of the public, he had emerged a hero on 9-11. one of the most beloved people on the planet.

You know, he parlayed that into enormous riches through his consulting practice. But his aim was always to run for president, and he did it in 2008, and it was a complete disaster. He had been the frontrunner for a year, but his campaign for president lasted just four weeks. He dropped out with just one delegate to show for it, and it was devastating for him.

I interviewed Judith Giuliani, his wife at the time, That's wife number two or three, right? She's his third wife, now his ex-wife. Yeah, third wife. So Judith tells the story about how she kind of had this basket case on her hand. So Giuliani was depressed and wouldn't get out of bed and started drinking and felt sorry for himself. He'd lost his relevance and how she took him to Florida, to her parents' house to try to have him recover. It was February.

She wanted to get him out of the city. The press started to get wind of his whereabouts. And she went casting about for a place where he could kind of recover in his state, his depressed state, without the press finding out. And who does she turn to? But Donald Trump. She and Rudy Giuliani move to Mar-a-Lago. And for the next month, Trump houses them at this kind of beachfront property and found there were tunnels under Mar-a-Lago. where they were able to kind of walk back and forth undiscovered.

It was there that Giuliani kind of was allowed to, you know, get back on his feet and rejoined the world. And as she tells the story, he was, he developed an alcohol problem, was constantly falling down and was kind of a mess that she had to help. You think that Rudy is an alcoholic? I mean, what I know is that he has had drinking problems. I couldn't tell you today, you know, had a drug. diagnose it. She certainly felt that he had a terrible drinking problem. What was, do you think Rudy's goal was for the Trump president, say, and do you think that he sort of knew it would take him down like this? You know, at the time that he endorsed Trump in 2016 really was facing kind of an

irrelevance, you know, he had started making all these outrageous charges about how Barack Obama didn't love America, how Hillary Clinton was ill, just all of these kind of farcical charges just to get the press to pick up on him. And it wasn't like all the presidential candidates were knocking on his door, you know, begging for an endorsement. And Donald Trump was the only one who was calling him, urging him to endorse him. And Trump needed him far more than any any other candidate. And Giuliani, you know, had his reservations. He didn't think much of Trump or his potential, but there were not a lot of options. And Trump was the frontrunner. So they develop a very close bond on the campaign trail. Giuliani wanted the Secretary of State's position.

Trump refused to give it to him. And he kind of faded away for a bit until the Mueller investigation. Why do you think Trump refused to give it to him? He had promised, according to a lot of the people I interviewed close to both Trump and Giuliani, he had promised Giuliani that job during the campaign. I mean, really, Giuliani, that was the only job Giuliani wanted. He was offered attorney general. He turned it down. He was offered Homeland Security. He turned it down. You know, he fashioned himself after his kind of godlike perception as this statesman, right, even though he didn't have five minutes experience with foreign policy. Right. And, you know, Trump once reality said, and he actually had to decide whether named Giuliani, he started just hearing all of these kind of negative stories about him, about his

drinking. Giuliani waged this campaign in the press to get the job, which turned Trump off. They launched an investigation internally in the campaign into Giuliani's clients. And he had so many clients with potential conflicts that had filled a report dozens of pages. And eventually Trump moved on. Julianni was too corrupt for Trump to make him Secretary of State. I don't think Trump saw him as corrupt. I think he saw him as being hopelessly conflicted. I mean, if you remember, you know, Giuliani had cashed in from his 9-11 days. Yeah, he, I mean, his consulting business was a slew of sketchy at best.

Yes. But, I mean, I just, the question was more like, you get to a point where Donald Trump is like, I cannot hire this person because they're a liability. It's kind of amazing. That is definitely true. He saw Giuliani as a liability and began, as I said, also began to kind of wonder about his personal situation. His drinking, staff was worried that he was kind of more of a crazy uncle. Speaking of the staff, there was an amazing moment that I learned for the book in which despite their reservations about Giuliani, Trump holds this meeting at Trump Tower. And he gathers all of his top aides together. in a room. And it's Jared Kushner and it's Hope Hicks and Grant's Prebis. And he asked for a show of hands, you know, at the time who was considering Giuliani and Mitt Romney. And he's like, okay, everyone raised your hands from Mitt Romney if you prefer him. And no one did. And then

he asked about Giuliani. And almost every single person in the room voted for Giuliani as Secretary of State. Yeah, because they're fucking idiots. That's where his kind of his store was at the time, despite people's misgivings, but Trump wasn't convinced. I think he had terrible, terrible people advising him. Trump? Yes. I think you can make that argument. Now let's fast forward.

We have Rudy now. Rudy is in terrible trouble. Explain to our listeners a little bit about that. Well, I mean, the man has kind of an antenna for trouble. He always has. He has this kind of fearlessness in which he feels he's impervious to consequences. And he likes to kind of outrage people. It gets attention. And the things he did during the Trump presidency were just, you know, mind-boggling that the whole Ukraine

scandal was Giuliani. Giuliani went to Ukraine. Wanted to discredit the Mueller investigation, wanted to discredit Biden, and kind of, you know, found these corrupt officials in Ukraine to feed him this outlandish story about Joe Biden, you know, getting rich from Burisma and, you know, the Hunter Biden thing. And he develops this case and gets Trump impeached. I mean, he was just starting, right? The bigger issue came during the 2020 race. Trump by that time was Giuliani's lifeline, right?

Giuliani by 2020 had been thoroughly humiliated by the Borat film, by his crazy interviews. where he's, you know, kind of embarrassed himself. And his prestige from 9-11 was just completely eviscerated. And Trump became his lifeline. And so, you know, he became kind of a, you know, the last standing aide for Trump who believed that the election was actually stolen. And he went on the air and, you know, had the hair die incident into the press conference at the four seasons and became a laughing stock.

But he was telling Trump what Trump wanted to hear when few. and fewer of the kind of legit lawyers in Trump's orbit were willing to do so. What do you think happens to Giuliani now? Well, he's in deep trouble. And, you know, it's fascinating. You know, as someone who I set out with the book to tell the entire narrative arc, right? And, you know, I don't think anyone in modern history has had such high highs and low lows, right? At one point, like I said, he was one of the most beloved people on the planet.

I mean, they took a poll at one point. he was more popular than the Pope. I mean, he was recognized in every country in the world. Fast forward, and his story kind of seems to be ending tragically. Not only is he in terrible legal trouble, right? He's facing two Justice Department investigations and the grand jury in Georgia. He's facing bankruptcy because of his legal problems, but also he's almost alone, right? Trump, you know, no matter what happens with Trump, he's kind of,

fine, right? Even if he's indicted, he's got so much kind of in his defense. He's got the protections of a former president. He's got unlimited money. He's got a base that worships him. I mean, he's someone who will defend himself from a position of strength. Giuliani has none of that. They can't even raise money for Giuliani's defense. No one is giving money. Fox News won't put Giuliani on the air. He's ending his extraordinary story pretty much alone. I'm okay with that. Thank you so much, Andrew. This was super interesting. I hope you'll come back. Thank you. It's a pleasure. Andy Levy. Molly Jongfest. Who is your fuck that guy? So my fuck that guy for today, it's someone that we've talked about a lot on here. I'll just give a quick little background to the story before I

get to him. So Amazon Prime has this new show called The Rings of Power that I guess is I don't know if it's a prequel to the Lord of the Rings or it takes place in the same world. They classify as prequel. Okay. I'm glad you guys have the real stuff going on here. Well, no, here's the deal. I am a nerd, but I'm not a Lord of the Rings guy. Never read the books.

Didn't love the movies all that much. Don't care about this series. Won't be watching it. It's just not for me. Oh, that's disappointing. I know. I'm much more of a science fiction nerd than a fantasy nerd. Anyway, so they have this new show, and one of the things they're doing is sort of,

some of what they're doing is colorblind casting. So you have, you know, please, I hope you're sitting down, listeners, when you listen to this. You have things like black people playing elves. And this has infuriated some of the more traditional people. Because everyone knows that mythical people are not black. Yes, because elves, who are very, very real have to be white. That's right. So this has become a whole thing to the point where Amazon,

has had to delay user reviews being posted because they need to make sure that they're not trolls or bots or just assholes being racist and whatever. So, okay, fine. This has sort of become par for the course anytime there's a nerd thing involved. This happened with Star Wars. It's ugly. It's disgusting. And it just won't go away for whatever stupid reason. Is it racist?

Well, yes, there is that. So a guy by the name of Musk, first name Elon. Last name Mush. Last name Mush. Decided because he, I guess, hasn't been in the news in like a week or so, and he can't deal with that. So he decided he needed to wade into this. And so on Monday, he just tweeted, Tolkien is turning in his grave. Yeah.

And then he followed that with almost every male character so far is a coward, a jerk, or both. Only gladrial apologies to the nerds of high. I got that wrong, is brave, smart, and nice. And it's like... But also, he's... No one he knows is brave, smart, and nice. He doesn't even like brave, smart, and nice. He likes racist, catty and bad for the environment.

Or mentally ill, Kanye. Right, he likes Kanye. That's right. Yes. But it's just, you know, of course, there's no reason for Elon Musk to wait into this at all. And, but of course, you know if he's going to wait into it, he's going to be on the side of the people who are mad at the series. And, you know, the word woke will...

appear at some point. You know, I've even seen coverage of this where, again, CNN is just not covering themselves in glory these days. CNN doing a thing. An editorial. Wondering if the series, the series is too woke for some people. The only woke thing about it is there are black people in it. Right. Like, that's their definition of woke now, that black actors are allowed to play characters. It's what we call it racist. It's not woke. It's just not being racist. Exactly. So it's just, I'm just, I'm so sick of it and it's just, it's infecting everything. And so Elon Musk is my fuck that guy. But it's really fuck all of those guys who, you know, it started back with Gamergate and it's been going on.

And it's just, it's gross and you're all gross and fuck all of you. Yeah. And I mean, I also think like this guy just, Elon Musk wants to be a conservative hero and he thinks that saying racist things will make him that. And it's very possible that he's right. But, you know, it's bad for the rest of us and it's bad for our democracy, which is not in great shape. So it would be nice if you would not do that and also not fly his private jet around and burning tons of carbon. So my fuck that guy is, I mean, it's not even a, it's a whole ecosystem of fuckery. Pennsylvania, Donald Trump has decided is the most important state, mostly because his candidates are getting creamed there.

You got Dr. Oz, who I want to say this, I wrote a piece about him for the Atlantic this week about how bad he is online. Dr. Oz, this is just like a fascinating aside or maybe not a very interesting aside, but he actually did heart surgery on my father-in-law 22 years ago. He was a very good surgeon, like known as an incredibly good cardiothra. drastic surgeon. So when I say that, like, I spent all this time this week, people being like, how do you know he's a good surgeon? I'm like, actually, no, he's really good sergeant. Right. But he's a really terrible candidate. I mean, he's a terrible candidate. He's, and, and again, I had this theory that part of the reason why he was such a good surgeon, it was bossy and exacting and kind of me. And, you know, he's the kind of guy who yells at the nurses that they

want the scalp ball. And you know what I'm saying? Like, he's, you know, very kind of in charge. But he's also just unbearable when you have to, you know, you don't want to have a beer with this guy. No, God, though. Right. And he's polling terribly. You don't want to have crudite with him. Or as we call it a veggie plate. Right. Trump is desperately trying because Oz was his pick to help Oz in these midterms. He went to Pennsylvania. He is said that John Federman was a drug addict. He made all these allegations, which are not true. They've just gone so hardcore into those. And I would say, like, in my mind, Oz is a bad candidate. They found this clip of him saying that you shouldn't have to hire smokers, which is pretty hilarious because the most recent Republican Party sort of schick has been that you shouldn't be forcing people to get vaccinated, right?

So here's the guy who's saying you shouldn't be able to hire smokers. So, you know, this is not what the party kind of goes for. But I actually think that Oz is not nearly as scary as Doug Maastriano, who would. is a really anti-democracy candidate who would, if given his druthers, if he wins, I don't think Democrats will ever win the state of Pennsylvania again. I don't think anyone will ever win the state of Pennsylvania again except for Donald Trump. So I find him much scarier in my mind, but either way, you know, there's a whole host of fuckery and they can all be, fuck that guy, Trump, Oz, Mastriano, fuck him. Yeah, it is getting harder and harder to limit these to

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