Anniversary of 9/11 in the USA | Rudy Giuliani: washed-up “fixer”

Former mayor Rudy Giuliani at the September 11, 2024 commemoration event in New York Photo: AFP/Adam Gray He was respected back then, but his reputation has now been ruined: Rudy Giuliani. He was mayor of New York City from 1994 to the end of 2001, during the terrorist attacks. Afterwards, supporters celebrated him as "America's Mayor" because he found words of strength and comfort in the catastrophe. Before this year's commemoration of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Giuliani found only words of contempt towards the incumbent mayor Zohran Mamdani. Giuliani told the right-wing broadcaster Newsmax that he found it "insulting" that Mamdani would come to the memorial service at Ground Zero "since I lost friends there and am very close to many of the families." Asked whether Mamdani should stay away from the ceremony, Giuliani said, "Well, there's no question that he should." He drew parallels between Mamdani's Muslim faith and the 9/11 attackers.

The democratic socialist Mamdani did not allow himself to be lured out of his reserve by Trump friend Giuliani. "I'm proud to be mayor of this city," he said. »I love this city. I love this country.” He wants the focus now to be primarily on the families of the victims and the first responders. He declined to respond to Giuliani's comments.

Giuliani will not be amused by the fact that Mamdani has now announced the release of tens of thousands of documents that are supposed to prove that the New York city administration under Giuliani apparently covered up the extent of air pollution with asbestos and other toxic substances. Many people became ill at the time because those responsible "lied to them and told them it was safe to breathe in the toxic air," said the incumbent mayor.

In fact, Giuliani has already lied in court. In December 2023, he was sentenced to pay $148 million (136 million euros) to election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea Moss. He falsely accused the two women of voter fraud in the 2020 election and made other unsubstantiated claims about them. Following the verdict, Giuliani filed for personal bankruptcy in a New York court in December.

The US media often describes Giuliani as Trump's "fixer" - a term from mafia jargon. His job was to solve problems for Trump. After his election defeat in 2020, he was a central figure in Trump's attempts to overturn the election outcome using baseless allegations of fraud and thus stay in office.

Giuliani's deep fall follows a career in which he worked his way up from the fringes of society: his grandparents were Italian immigrants in New York, his father had trouble finding regular employment, ran into trouble with the law and ultimately ended up in the orbit of organized crime. His son is no longer far away from that, if at all.

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