In the wake of 9/11, Rudy Giuliani was nicknamed “America’s Mayor” and honored as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year for the strength he showed in the face of a global tragedy. The 20 years since have not been kind to the former mayor of New York City. Most recently, his close friendship and business and political association with Donald Trump have cost Giuliani any political clout he may have ever had, not to mention his right to practice law in the state of New York—and it’s about to start costing him money right out of his very own sloppily tailored pockets. Good thing his pal Bernard Kerik stepped in… or is it?
In late June, Kerik—who served as New York City’s police commissioner while Rudy was still mayor, but was later sentenced to four years in prison due to a number of felony charges, including failure to pay taxes (fortunately, Trump pardoned him)—set up The Rudy Giuliani Defense Fund (though the website is called The Rudy Giuliani Freedom Fund—yes it’s real, now stop laughing) to help his fellow reprobate pay his quickly mounting legal fees.
In an attempt to assist @RudyGiuliani to defend himself from frivolous lawsuits, a weaponized Justice Department, and the New York Bar, we have created the Rudy Giuliani Freedom Fund. This is the official Defense Fund for this American Patriot. https://t.co/m7cN3A4MmN
— Bernard B. Kerik (@BernardKerik) June 26, 2021
The goal, according to the website? To raise $5 million to help the man whose “fate will determine if America still is a Republic governed by We The People, or if the swamp has finally amassed total control of our great country.” Yet as of Tuesday, as noted by Vanity Fair, the crowdfunding campaign had so far earned a total of just $9,590—which is less than .2 percent of its goal. And almost $46,000 less than some random dude once raised just to make some potato salad (seriously, stop laughing).
While Giuliani showed some pretty dogged dedication in doing anything and everything he could to make Trump look good, the former president reportedly couldn’t give two sh*ts about his former BFF. According to Michael Wolff’s new book Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency, Trump began to sour on Rudy toward the end of his presidency, when Giuliani had the audacity to ask Trump to finally be paid for all the work he has done for him. Paid?! For work?!? How dare he!!
“Trump is annoyed that [Rudy] tried to get paid for his election challenge work,” writes Wolff—never mind the fact that Rudy was just about the only person who stuck by Trump throughout the 2020 presidential election and the pathetic battle to contest its results. Of course, there were some shady shenanigans around that whole thing, too, with a Giuliani associate admitting that he attempted to bill Trump $20,000 per day for Rudy’s help.
“To be fair,” writes VF’s Bess Levin, “Giuliani probably should have seen this coming, given that Trump is famously known for stiffing his contractors, from dishwashers to painters to architects, and when confronted about it saying things like, ‘Maybe he didn’t do a good job and I was unsatisfied with his work.’”
(Via Vanity Fair)