Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America's Mayor

by Andrew Kirtzman

Overview

A New Yorker Best Book of the Year

What happened to Rudy Giuliani?

Andrew Kirtzman, who has been following Giuliani since the 1990s, answers that question in this “masterful and engrossing” (The Guardian) biography that “cuts through the myth and caricature that has too often defined Giuliani” (Los Angeles Times).

Rudy Giuliani was hailed after 9/11 as “America’s Mayor,” a national hero who, at the time, was more widely admired than the pope. He was brilliant, accomplished—and complicated. He conflated politics with morality, made reckless personal choices, and engaged in self-destructive behavior. A series of disastrous decisions and cynical compromises, coupled with his need for power, money, and attention gradually ruined his reputation, cost him political support, and ultimately damaged the country.

Kirtzman, who was with Giuliani at the World Trade Center on 9/11, conducted hundreds of interviews to give us an insightful portrait of this polarizing figure from the beginning of his rise to his high-profile role as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. Giuliani was a celebrated prosecutor, a transformative New York City mayor, and a contender for the presidency. But by the end of the Trump presidency, he was reviled and ridiculed after a series of embarrassing errors and misjudgments. He was a significant figure in both of Trump’s impeachments and ended up widely ostracized, facing both legal jeopardy and financial ruin.

This is the “lively new biography” (The New Yorker) of how it all began and how it came crashing down.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798885786690
Publisher:	Gale, A Cengage Company
Publication date:	02/22/2023
Edition description:	Large Print
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Andrew Kirtzman has covered Rudy Giuliani for three decades as a political reporter for print and television. He began as a City Hall reporter and then wrote what is considered a definitive book about Giuliani’s mayoralty. He was with Giuliani on the morning of September 11th and chronicled their experience together. He has covered more than a dozen national political campaigns and hosted two of New York’s most widely watched political shows, winning multiple Emmy Awards. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and other publications, and authored a book about the Bernie Madoff scandal. He appears regularly on CNN and MSNBC to discuss politics and government.

Table of Contents

Author's Note xi

Preface xiii

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Morality 11

Chapter 2 Justice 27

Chapter 3 Combat 52

Chapter 4 Trouble 79

Chapter 5 Pals 97

Chapter 6 Mistakes 120

Chapter 7 Catastrophe 134

Chapter 8 Experts 158

Chapter 9 Rambo 181

Chapter 10 Frontrunner 207

Chapter 11 Relevance 234

Chapter 12 Guardrails 256

Chapter 13 Washington 280

Chapter 14 Joyride 302

Chapter 15 Smeared 328

Chapter 16 Conspiracy 357

Epilogue 385

Acknowledgments 391

Notes 395

Index 441

Editorial Reviews

08/15/2022

The same “fanatical sense of righteousness” that propelled Rudy Giuliani’s rise set him on the road to ruin, according to this richly detailed biography. Journalist Kirtzman (Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City) describes how Giuliani first gained the spotlight by prosecuting Mafia bosses and Wall Street traders in the 1980s. Elected mayor of New York City in 1993, he succeeded in reducing crime, but his aggressive defensive of the NYPD in the police killings of unarmed Black men fueled the city’s racial tensions, according to Kirtzman, who also suggests that the Giuliani administration’s distribution of faulty radios to firefighters resulted in unnecessary deaths on 9/11. After failing to overturn the mayoral term limit, Giuliani fell short in campaigns for the U.S. Senate and the White House. Meanwhile, his tumultuous personal life was punctuated by three divorces, strained relationships with his two children, and a drinking problem that only seemed to worsen after he became Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. Though Kirtzman’s research impresses, the book’s abrupt shifts from heavy topics (such as allegations by one Black lawmaker that Giuliani is “an absolute, out-of-control racist”) to more gossipy matters can be jarring. Still, this is a comprehensive and alarming portrait of Giuliani’s downfall. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Cuts through the myth and caricature that has too often defined Giuliani. . . . As a former television reporter for NY1, Kirtzman knows the man better than the pundits who have often scratched their heads about the Giuliani they thought they knew. . . . If Giuliani’s story is a tragedy, Kirtzman argues that it’s self-inflicted through a combination of alcohol, sanctimony and a bottomless need for attention.

Los Angeles Times - Chris Megerian

Masterful and engrossing. . . . Capture[s] what made the man tick and what led to his fall from grace. Kirtzman’s critique is leavened with bittersweet impressions and references to Giuliani’s accomplishments.

The Guardian - Lloyd Green

"With a cinematic made-for-TV sense of scene and pacing, gossipy insider revelations, and sharp analysis, Kirtzman vibrantly depicts the sad and tawdry unraveling of Giuliani’s reputation."

Booklist (starred review)

"A diagnostic study of Giuliani’s auto-destruct apparatus is probably beyond the capabilities of psychiatric case study. . . . [Kirtzman] possesses the salient advantage of having covered Giuliani close up for decades, witnessing his evolution from an Eliot Ness crimebuster to the Sheriff of Rottingham. . . . . . . . .What this biography conveys is that Rudy’s breaking bad wasn’t a sudden turn to the dark side. The hairline cracks in his moral and behavioural make-up were there from the outset."

The London Review of Books - James Wolcott

"A lively new biography explores how the man once celebrated as 'America’s mayor' fell into disgrace."

The New Yorker - Louis Menand

★ 09/01/2022

A new political biography of Rudy Giuliani by reporter Kirtzman, who has followed his career (from prosecutor to mayor to presidential candidate to Trump lawyer) since 1992. Kirtzman's 2000 book Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City narrated Giuliani's rise to prominence as New York City's mayor who was praised as well as criticized for his brutal crackdown on crime. Weeks before Giuliani's mayoral term was up, the Sept. 11 attacks made him an international icon and TV news dubbed him "America's Mayor." Giuliani parlayed his new image into a post-mayoralty career selling his legal advice and his name to dictators and Big Pharma, which earned him millions of dollars per month, with speaking fees of $100,000 or more and a $2.7 million book advance. To understand how Giuliani fell from that early-aughts reputational peak, Kirtzman conducted hundreds of interviews for this portrait of a polarizing man brought low by rumored heavy drinking and a disastrous third marriage—and by an infatuation with the Trump presidency that has lost Giuliani his law license and landed him in legal jeopardy and financial ruin. VERDICT Will appeal widely, not just to politics buffs.—David Keymer

Library Journal

★ 2022-08-03
A veteran political reporter ventures an answer to the question so many have asked in recent years about Rudy Giuliani: “What happened?”

The life and work of Giuliani are tragic by definition, since they mark the collapse of a once upright man who fell victim to his own ambitions and imagined himself above the law. Taking a page from Giuliani’s own strongly Catholic upbringing, Kirtzman—who first met Giuliani as a journalist in 1992—frames the matter as a moral issue, “the result of a series of moral compromises made over the years as the temptations of power and money grew.” Even his victories, such as his seemingly steady leadership after 9/11, were so compromised—in that case, by “his administration’s ineptitude,” made evident by the fact that a badly cobbled communication system made it impossible for first responders to share information. Outwardly cheerful, Giuliani, “had a dark, Machiavellian streak, yet managed to wrap his problematic acts in a cloak of righteousness.” Giuliani’s apparent belief in his own moral invincibility led him to questionable acts even while the memory of 9/11 was fresh. For example, he became counsel and de facto lobbyist for Purdue Pharma, “earning millions by protecting a company whose actions were contributing to the overdose deaths of America’s young people.” All that pales next to his relationship with and actions on behalf of Donald Trump, which extend far into the past. Kirtzman deserves much credit for following the trail to Giuliani’s mayoral terms, when he helped Trump shortcut zoning issues to build behemoth towers. Giuliani’s final collapse, of course, came when he helped with Trumpian grifts, from trying to bully Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden to contesting the 2020 election. Giuliani’s take might well stand as a motto for his entire sordid trajectory: “My attitude about my legacy…is ‘fuck it.’ ”

A sad tale, expertly told, of corruption, bad judgment, avarice, and treason.

Kirkus Reviews