Rudy Giuliani Butt-Dialed A Reporter And Talked About Joe Biden And Needing Money

Rudy Giuliani is making sure to get his Fox News appearances in while Donald Trump is under an impeachment inquiry, which may be a misguided attempt to defend his client from charges of wrongdoing. Then again, the former New York City mayor says there’s “nothing wrong with taking information from Russians” so perhaps his legal advice is as sound as it gets.

It’s honestly hard to say what’s a good idea these days when it seems like Capitol Hill is filled with people that make Burn After Reading look like a documentary. But Giuliani has become a favorite character in the modern remake of the Cohen Brothers classic. The latest example of this is a report that came out on Friday in which Giuliani butt-dialed a reporter and was heard talking to an unnamed man about Joe Biden, foreign governments and basically all of the stuff that’s gotten his client in trouble in the first place.

According to NBC News reporter Rich Schapiro, Giuliani left a late-night voicemail for him that clearly wasn’t meant to be heard:

The call came in at 11:07 p.m. and went to voicemail; the reporter was asleep.

The next morning, a message exactly three minutes long was sitting in the reporter’s voicemail. In the recording, the words tumbling out of Giuliani’s mouth were not directed at the reporter. He was speaking to someone else, someone in the same room.

Giuliani can be heard discussing overseas dealings and lamenting the need for cash, though it’s difficult to discern the full context of the conversation.

There’s nothing exactly incriminating in the voicemails, but it’s certainly not anything Giuliani would want a reporter to hear. The former Republican presidential candidate discusses business dealings in Bahrain and other lands with an unidentified man, discussing “Robert” and other men and potential deals. There was also an exchange where Giuliani lamented a lack of money:

“Is Robert around?” Giuliani asks.

“He’s in Turkey,” the man responds.

Giuliani replies instantly. “The problem is we need some money.”

The two men then go silent. Nine seconds pass. No word is spoken. Then Giuliani chimes in again.

“We need a few hundred thousand,” he says.

According to the report, however, this isn’t the first time the personal attorney of the President of the United States accidentally called the very same reporter and seemed to accidentally leave a voicemail, this time of him trashing Joe Biden and his son. The scene the report sets is pretty incredible, with Schapiro at a relative’s birthday party then checking his phone to find three minutes of Giuliani absentmindedly talking about Biden and his son’s “drug problem.”

The story describes party balloons and a pink unicorn piñata, then the reporter checking his phone and hearing accusations that Joe Biden helped his son in foreign countries:

Among the claims: that Biden intervened to stop an investigation of a Ukrainian gas company because his son Hunter sat on the board, and that Hunter Biden traded on his father’s position as vice president to earn $1.5 billion from Chinese investors.

“There’s plenty more to come out,” Giuliani says. “He did the same thing in China. And he tried to do it in Kazakhstan and in Russia.”

“It’s a sad situation,” he adds. “You know how they get? Biden has been been trading in on his public office since he was a senator.”

Shortly after, Giuliani turns to Hunter Biden. “When he became vice president, the kid decided to go around the world and say, ‘Hire me because I’m Joe Biden’s son.’ And most people wouldn’t hire him because he had a drug problem.”

Unsurprisingly, the news of a Giuliani butt-dial was enough to send Twitter into a frenzy.

https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1187818503895695362

https://twitter.com/MilesKlee/status/1187812890075529216

It remains to be seen what the butt-dial will mean for Giuliani or Trump, but Giuliani’s reaction to it will be must-see TV.

[via NBC News]