- Folks, this book about Rudy Giuliani has been on our bed stand for a long time, I've been marking it up for the last several months.

"Giuliani The Rise and Tragic Fall of America's Mayor" written by an extraordinary journalist, and observer of the political scene, Andrew Kirtzman.

Good to see you, my friend.

- Thanks for having me, nice to see you, Steve.

- We've known each other for a long time, and I've read your work, and we've been colleagues in a whole range of media situations, I am blown, I've been blown away by this book, and mostly because I'm a student of leadership, so I'm gonna start out with this.

I wrote a chapter in a previous book of mine about Rudy Giuliani post 9/11 as the quintessential leader in a crisis.

- Right.

- What the heck happened to that leader?

- Well that's the reason I wrote the book because I think when he reemerged as Donald Trump's lawyer he was almost like a different person.

And so that was kind of the genesis of my decision to write this to kind of chart this remarkable rise and fall story 'cause I think the Giuliani story is probably the most remarkable rise and fall episodes in modern history.

I mean you're talking about someone who is arguably the most famous prosecutor in the 1980's, the most famous mayor of the 1990's, an international hero after 9/11, fast forward to today, he's facing jail time, and he's almost broke.

It's an incredible story.

Right.

- And this, to be clear, this particular charge, Giuliani surrenders to Georgia authorities in 2020 election tampering rap.

I cut you off, I'm sorry, Andrew.

There's a whole range of things I wanna talk to you about, including January 6th, the speech.

- Sure.

- Trial by combat, talk about that in a second.

Giuliani's obsession with the 2020 election being stolen, and continually saying "I have evidence," we don't see the evidence.

He understands evidence, he understands how to prosecute a case.

He had, by any reasonable standard, according to dozens and dozens of court cases with judges adjudicating it, many of whom were Trump appointees that there was no case.

Did he not know he didn't have a case or was he making it up?

- There's testimony by the Speaker of the House in one of the contested states who said that he spoke with Giuliani privately who said "We don't have any evidence."

So the case being made that he knew that what he was saying had no basis in fact he said it anyway, and it's gotten him into a lot of trouble, including a defamation suit by two Georgia election workers whose reputations he completely destroyed.

- A mother and a daughter.

An African American mother and daughter who worked the polls, and he accused them of what, Andrew, that they were not guilty of in any way?

- Well he accused them of stuffing fake ballots, and there was this quote where he saw on the video tape them exchanging a thumb drive, like vials of cocaine.

It was just absolutely ludicrous, and may turn out to be defamatory in the eyes of a jury.

- I wanna be clear on this, and we don't care whether you like Trump, don't like Trump, it's irrelevant, we're talking about facts, we're trying to make sense of things.

- Right.

- But buying an election, and stooping the peaceful transition of presidential power is huge.

These are constitutional issues of democracy, which is why the graphic Democracy in Danger is coming up as we speak.

Did Rudy Giuliani help put our representative democracy in your view, Andrew Kirtzman, in serious danger, please?

- Absolutely.

Absolutely I mean you're talking about someone who was once legendary for his incorruptibility, right?

For his morality.

He was kind of, as a prosecutor, he was kind of the morality cop in the 1980's, against the Mafia and Wall Street.

- That's right.

- And political corruption at City Hall.

Fast forward and there was this kind of reckless disregard for the truth all in service with Donald Trump.

- Why?

- Because Donald Trump- - Wh-wh... Go ahead, I'm sorry, why?

- Well let me take a step back if I can.

You started by asking me what happened to Giuliani, right?

I think that plays into this situation.

- Read the book.

(laughs) - Well let me try to give you the Cliff notes here.

- Sure.

- Which is I think if you had to sum it all up in one word it's desperation.

Desperation kind of on the way up to succeed as a U.S. attorney, as a mayor, to succeed at all costs, right?

And was enormously talented, brilliant, right?

Made a brilliant prosector, a brilliant mayor.

Very flawed, arguably racist, but in terms of effectiveness, enormously effective.

I think the pivot point of the Giuliani story are a, 9/11, where he kind of reached the height of his popularity, and we could talk about that, I was with him on 9/11, and I charted every minute of his morning that made him an international hero.

So that's one pivot point, right?

Which was the fame he gathered on 9/11, and then what he did with it afterwards.

He cashed in, made 10s of millions of dollars.

And then the other pivot point is the 2008 Presidential race.

So he runs for President, trying to capitalize on all this fame, and he crashes and burns.

He loses out the Republican primary in 2008, and has to leave the contest with one delegate to his name.

- Why did he fail?

Why did he...

Seven years after 9/11- - Right.

- Why didn't he connect in the Republican primaries?

I think he only ran in Florida, if I'm not mistaken, and that was it, it was over.

- That's right.

- Well the- - There were a couple of reasons.

Number one is it was just a total mismatch.

He was pro-choice, pro-gay rights in a Republican primary.

And no Republican candidate has ever been nominated who was pro-choice and pro-gay rights.

And he felt that the laws of political gravity didn't pertain to him because he was Rudy Giuliani, the hero of 9/11, and that would kind of overcome everything 'cause he was kind of this legendary figure.

Well that didn't fly.

And the other thing was by the time he ran in 2008 terrorism had kind of receded from the top of Americans' agenda.

So he would go to the cornfields of Iowa, and talk about the threat of terrorism, and these are small towns where no one- - It didn't resonate.

- Didn't respnate at all.

So he was kind of out of his depth.

And the other thing, it was just a disastrous campaign.

His then wife, Judith Giuliani, was the subject of unflattering tabloid headlines.

There was all these kind of embarrassing side shows which caused him a lot of problems.

- Fast forward.

Again, we're part of a public broadcasting community, and we don't engage in salacious rumors and talk that are personal in nature in the eyes of some, but there has been testimony, people sworn under oath who talked about election night, Rudy Giuliani drinking, potentially drinking heavily, and telling then President Trump in 2020, quote, just say you won.

- That's right.

That's right.

- So is the issue of Rudy Giuliani and alcohol irresponsible for me to bring up right now?

- No, I think it's intrinsic to the Giuliani story.

After he flamed out in 2008 he started drinking.

There was this kind of desperate effort to reclaim the relevance and the glory he once had as the hero of 9/11, and he was really kind of cast out into the wilderness until Donald Trump came along, and they kind of needed each other in 2016.

- Did Trump respect Rudy?

- Yes, very much, very much.

Giuliani was kind of, I would say in some ways Trump's role model for the presidency 'cause he had watched the Giuliani mayoralty in real time.

And Trump was not a kind of political animal, he was a developer, but it was Giuliani who made such an impression upon him that the White House aids I spoke with used to say that Trump would talk about Giuliani with a reverent that he would reserve to almost no one else.

So you're talking about this incredibly tight bond.

Trump was Giuliani's ticket back to relevance, right?

He brought him back to Washington.

He made him his lawyer.

He made him the head of the effort to turn around the election results.

Trump was his meal ticket.

And so Giuliani was basically desperate to win this thing at all costs, and meanwhile he has a drinking problem, and so all of Trump's advisors are just absolutely panicked that they're trying to make a case that there was fraud in the election by kind of more conventional means, and there's Giuliani just saying "Just claim we won.

"Just claim you won."

- Andrew, I'm sorry for interupting, Chris Christie, bring it back, we're a New Jersey-based operation, as you all know, Chris Christie who had known Rudy for years, how was Christie... What was Christie telling Trump when Giuliani's telling Trump just say you won?

- I think that Christie played kind of both sides of the fence throughout that election.

On one hand he was kind of coaching Trump during the debate, and trying to kind of play the hero, the key role.

And then when things kind of got too hot he kind of played the other side of this thing.

So I don't know that Christie played any kind of heroic role one way or another.

- This is Andrew Kirtzman, the book is "Giuliani The Rise and Tragic Fall of America's Mayor."

Andrew Kirtzman, a terrific journalist and a longtime political observer.

Thank you so much, Andrew, I appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- You got it.

Folks, I'm Steve Adubato, that's Andrew Kirtzman, read his book.

We'll see you next time.

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