- We're joined by Andrew Kirtzman, the author of this book, "Giuliani The Rise And Tragic Fall of America's Mayor."

Andrew, thank you for joining us.

- Thank you.

- Can you do this, you have a chapter in the book called "Combat, Trial by Combat," which is exactly what, January 6th, before the riot, the insurrection and the insanity of January 6th took place.

Trial by Combat.

Why do you think he said that?

And do you believe he had... Doubled sided question, do you think he had any idea how that could have potentially incited that crowd?

- I don't know that he wanted them to storm the Capitol, but I think that he and Trump were- - What did he mean by trial by combat?

Did we ever have any sense of that?

- I think he was ginny up the crowd and getting them as angry as possible.

- Right.

- And I think that he didn't necessarily care about the repercussions.

They were trying to get this kind of major, major backlash by the bait to cause that election to be completely upended.

And Giuliani doesn't do anything halfway, so he was trying to work up the anger in that crowd as much as possible.

And he's sure he contributed to it, no question.

- Curious about this.

There's a big section of the book, and Andrew has written about Giuliani before, he's a Giuliani biographer, the best, if you will, of many people who've written about Giuliani.

So Rudy Giuliani, New York City, race relations, David Dinkins.

- Right.

- Back in the day.

Please, Andrew, talk to us.

- Well, David Dinkins was New York City's first black mayor.

He was a historic figure because of that, and Giuliani ran against him twice, once unsuccessfully and once successfully.

And there was such a major racial schism between his supporters and Dinkins that race became a major issue in both elections.

Giuliani is Italian American Catholic from the outer boroughs, raised also in Long Island, very white background.

His political base is mostly white.

There was just kind of a lack of interest, you might say, in kind of the needs of minority communities, because that was not his political base.

And he was very happy to play an inflammatory role in the matter of race relations.

There was a famous incident in which the police murdered a man named Patrick Dorismond, who was perfectly innocent.

They did a sting, and he just kind of got caught in the middle, and Giuliani went on to completely excoriate him, and damage his reputation and go after his reputation as though he was some kind of common criminal, which he wasn't.

- Why, why?

- Well, on one hand he was defending his belief in that action, but on another, Giuliani is kind of from the shoot to kill kind of school of politics, in which he wanted to kind of demonize whoever was making his police force look bad.

But I think you could argue that there was also just an intrinsic racial insensitivity in Giuliani.

And fast forward a couple of decades later, during the Black Lives Matter movement, Giuliani took almost pleasure going on "Meet the Press," and other programs, and just hurling one kind of bomb after another at the Black community, urging the leaders of the Black community to kind of get control of your people.

There was completely inflammatory rhetoric about that.

I mean, to say that Giuliani is insensitive to the black population sentiments would be an understatement.

- At the core, is Rudy Giuliani, formerly America's Mayor after 9/11, from your view based on his public rhetoric at critical times, both in New York City and nationally, as you talked about the Black Lives Matter movement, murder of George Floyd on camera, knee on his neck, a police officer and others watched, Rudy Giuliani, his rhetoric racist?

- I think that his rhetoric has come as close to racism is possible.

- You think at the core he's racist?

- I can't answer that.

You can only look at his actions.

I think his actions were sometimes almost designed to create friction between the Black and white communities.

- Last question, this.

How much do you think Donald Trump learned from Rudy Giuliani about dealing with the Black community, and, quote, race, not to mention polarizing, or some might argue adding fuel to the racial divisions that already exist, please?

- Right.

Well I think Donald Trump is as transactional a politician as you'll ever meet.

Minorities are not part of his base.

You could argue that he got to where he is by kind of inflaming the anger and insecurity of middle America, middle American whites against minorities, against immigrants, people of color, anyone trying to kind of take away what the shrinking American middle class, the Middle America has held onto.

- Is that what Rudy Giuliani did in New York City?

- I think Giuliani catered towards his white base in a major way.

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

Andrew, we've been colleagues for a long time, like I said, this is one of those books cover to cover marked up and learned from you, particularly as a student of leadership, and having a great deal of respect for Rudy Giuliani at a different time, for different reasons after 9/11.

Thank you so much, I appreciate it, Andrew.

- Thank you.

I so appreciate the opportunity, Steve, appreciate it.

- We appreciate you, thank you.

Stay with us, folks, we'll be right back.

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