You Will Anyway: The warped world of Rudy Giuliani

Thursday, September 26, 2019

The warped world of Rudy Giuliani

Even among the president’s closest allies, Giuliani is now the subject of scorn. When I reached him by phone this morning, following House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s release of the full whistle-blower complaint at the center of the Ukraine scandal, he was, put simply, very angry.

[...]

“I’m not acting as a lawyer. I’m acting as someone who has devoted most of his life to straightening out government,” he continued, sounding out of breath. “Anything I did should be praised.”

The Atlantic

Hard to tell him apart from Trump by reading what they say.

Rudy's role was a question of the Maguire hearing today, and it wasn't satisfactorily answered. I think he's going to be in deep doo-doo. Not least of all because Trump's allies are going to need a scapegoat.

Giuliani unleashed a rant about the Bidens, Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, Barack Obama, the media, and the “deep state.”

[...]

[U]ntil the Ukraine scandal broke, Trump’s allies were almost uniformly supportive of Giuliani to reporters, and current and former administration officials would often praise him for his loyalty.

Not until the back-to-back release of the summary of the Trump-Zelensky call and the full whistle-blower complaint did the mood change among this group.

This morning, a former senior White House official told me this “entire thing,” referring to the Ukraine scandal, was “Rudy putting shit in Trump’s head.” A senior House Republican aide bashed Giuliani, telling me he was a “moron.” Both individuals spoke on condition of anonymity in order to be candid.

“They’re a bunch of cowards,” Giuliani told me in response. “I didn’t do anything wrong. The president knows they’re a bunch of cowards.”

Giuliani said he’s looking forward to watching the State Department “sink themselves” as officials try to create distance from him.

[...]

“If they were so concerned about my activities, why did they ask for my help? Why did they send me a bunch of friendly text messages reaching out for my help, thanking me for my help?” Giuliani said he planned to make sure these “friendly text messages” came out “in a longer story.”

Rudy is closer than he's ever been to implosion.

President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani threatened to sue another guest for libel during a heated Fox News segment Tuesday night regarding the former New York mayor's communications with Ukrainian officials.

“I’d like to say to you, Mr. Hahn, I should sue you for libel. You usually say incredibly stupid things,” Giuliani said on "The Ingraham Angle" after Democratic strategist Chris Hahn accused Giuliani of being libelous toward former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in "making things up" regarding his assertion that he was directed by the State Department to gather evidence on Democratic 2020 front-runner.

“You’re a public figure, so then you know the libel law,” Hahn, a former aide to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), said.

“Shut up, moron! Shut up! Shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about, idiot!" Giuliani shot back.

The Hill

This is just getting started.

UPDATE:

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Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

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ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

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GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

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GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

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PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.