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      Lo que sabemos sobre la reunión para que Trump siguiera en el poder

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      Incluso para los estándares de la Casa Blanca de Trump, la reunión celebrada el 18 de diciembre de 2020, que fue analizada en detalle esta semana por el comité que investiga los hechos del 6 de enero, fue extrema.In taped interviews, witnesses described a meeting in which President Donald J. Trump’s outside advisers proposed an executive order to have the military seize voting machines in crucial states Mr. Trump had lost.Doug Mills/The New York TimesLa reunión duró más de seis horas, pasada la medianoche, y terminó en gritos que se escuchaban afuera de la sala. Los participantes lanzaban insultos y casi llegaron a los golpes. Algunas personas se fueron llorando.Incluso para los estándares de la Casa Blanca de Trump, donde las personas solían gritarse y el presidente Donald Trump también les gritaba, la reunión del 18 de diciembre de 2020 es considerada como un evento “desquiciado” y un punto de inflexión en los esfuerzos desesperados de Trump por permanecer en el poder después de haber perdido las elecciones.Los detalles de la reunión han sido reportados previamente, incluso por The New York Times y Axios, pero en una audiencia pública del comité del 6 de enero que se celebró el martes, los participantes en el caos ofrecieron una serie de nuevos detalles impactantes de la reunión entre Trump y las facciones rivales de asesores.“Llegó un punto en el que los gritos se escuchaban afuera”, le dijo Eric Herschmann, un abogado de la Casa Blanca, al comité en un testimonio grabado en video. “Había gente entrando, era tarde en la noche, y fue un día largo. Y pensé que lo que estaban proponiendo era una locura”.La propuesta era que el presidente le ordenara al secretario de Defensa que incautara las máquinas de votación para examinarlas en busca de fraude y que también designara a un abogado especial para acusar potencialmente a las personas de delitos y fue urdida por tres asesores externos: Sidney Powell, una abogada que trabajó en la campaña de Trump y promovió teorías de conspiración sobre un supuesto complot venezolano para manipular las máquinas de votación; Michael T. Flynn, el asesor de seguridad nacional que Trump despidió durante sus primeras semanas en el cargo; y Patrick Byrne, ex director ejecutivo de Overstock.com.Del otro lado estaban Pat A. Cipollone, el abogado de la Casa Blanca; Herschmann; y Derek Lyons, el secretario de personal de la Casa Blanca.La discusión comenzó poco después de que Powell y sus dos acompañantes fueran admitidos en la Casa Blanca por un asistente subalterno y se dirigieron a la Oficina Oval sin tener cita.Estuvieron a solas con Trump, durante unos 15 minutos, antes de que otros funcionarios fueron alertados de su presencia. Cipollone contó que recibió una llamada urgente de un miembro del personal para que fuese a la Oficina Oval.“Abrí la puerta y entré. Vi al general Flynn”, dijo en una entrevista grabada en video que el comité divulgó en la audiencia del martes. “Vi a Sidney Powell sentada ahí. No estaba feliz de ver a las personas que estaban en la Oficina Oval”.Cuando se le pidió que explicara por qué, Cipollone dijo: “En primer lugar, la persona de Overstock, nunca la conocí, nunca supe quién era ese tipo”. Lo primero que hizo, dijo Cipollone, fue decirle a Byrne: “¿Quién es usted?”. “Y me contestó”, dijo Cipollone. “No creo que ninguna de esas personas le estuvieran dando buenos consejos al presidente”.Lyons y Herschmann se unieron al grupo. “No fue una reunión casual”, dijo Lyons al comité en un testimonio grabado en video. “A veces, había gente gritándose, insultándose unos a otros. No eran personas que estaban sentadas en un sofá charlando”.El testimonio en video de Sidney Powell, en el que dijo que los asesores de la Casa Blanca sentían “desprecio y desdén por el presidente”, fue presentado durante la audiencia del martes.Doug Mills/The New York TimesPowell, en su entrevista grabada en video, describió a Trump como “muy interesado en escuchar” lo que ella y sus dos compañeros tenían que decir, cosas que “aparentemente nadie más se había molestado en informarle”.Herschmann dijo que estaba estupefacto por lo que estaba escuchando.“Y yo le preguntaba, ¿estás afirmando que los demócratas están trabajando con Hugo Chávez, los venezolanos y otras personas? Y, en un momento, el general Flynn sacó un diagrama que supuestamente mostraba las direcciones IP de todo el mundo y las comunicaciones a través de las máquinas. Y algunos comentarios sobre, por ejemplo, que los termostatos Nest están conectados a internet”.Cuando los funcionarios de la Casa Blanca le dijeron a Powell que había perdido decenas de juicios que cuestionaban los resultados de las elecciones de 2020, ella respondió: “Bueno, los jueces son corruptos”.“Y le pregunté: ¿Todos?”, dijo Herschmann. “¿Cada uno de los casos que ha perdido en este país? ¿Cada uno de esos jueces es corrupto? ¿Incluso los que nombramos?”.Powell testificó que los asesores de la Casa Blanca de Trump “no mostraron más que desprecio y desdén por el presidente”.El plan, según supieron los asesores de la Casa Blanca, era que Powell se convirtiera en la fiscala especial. Eso no salió bien.“No creo que Sidney Powell diría que pensé que era una buena idea nombrarla como abogada especial”, testificó Cipollone. “No pensé que ella debería ser nombrada en ningún cargo”.Cipollone también testificó que estaba alarmado por la insistencia de Powell y los demás de que hubo fraude electoral sin tener ninguna prueba que lo demostrara. “Cuando otras personas seguían sugiriendo que sí, la respuesta es, ¿a qué se refieren? En algún momento, tienes que demostrar lo que dices o callarte. Esa es mi opinión”.Herschmann describió un momento particularmente intenso. “Flynn me gritó que yo era un desertor y todo, caminaba mientras me gritaba. En cierto momento, también le grité: ‘O te calmas o te sientas’”.Cassidy Hutchinson, una de las principales asistentes de Mark Meadows, el jefe de gabinete de la Casa Blanca, podía escuchar los gritos desde afuera de la Oficina Oval. Le envió un mensaje de texto a un subjefe de personal, Anthony M. Ornato, diciendo que el ala oeste estaba “TRASTORNADA”.Después de que comenzó la reunión, los asesores de la Casa Blanca llamaron a Rudolph Giuliani, el abogado personal de Trump, para argumentar en contra de Powell. Eventualmente, la reunión migró a la Sala Roosevelt y la Sala del Gabinete, donde Giuliani estuvo solo por unos momentos, lo que, según lo que le dijo al comité, le pareció “algo genial”.Finalmente, el grupo recaló en la residencia de la Casa Blanca.Powell creía que había sido nombrada fiscala especial, algo que Trump declaró que quería hacer, por lo que debería tener una autorización de seguridad. Pero el resto de los asistentes se opusieron. Ella testificó que otros dijeron que incluso si eso sucedía, la ignorarían. Ella dijo que los habría “despedido” en el acto por esa insubordinación.Powell aseguró que Trump le dijo algo como: “¿Ves con lo que tengo que lidiar? Tengo que lidiar con esto todo el tiempo”.Eventualmente, Trump se retractó y rechazó la propuesta de los asesores externos. Pero a la mañana siguiente, el 19 de diciembre, escribió en Twitter instando a sus partidarios para que fuesen al Capitolio el 6 de enero, el día en que se fijó la sesión conjunta del Congreso para certificar los resultados del Colegio Electoral.“¡Estar allí, será salvaje!”, escribió.Maggie Haberman es corresponsal de la Casa Blanca. Se unió al Times en 2015 como corresponsal de campaña y formó parte de un equipo que ganó un Pulitzer en 2018 por informar sobre los asesores de Trump y sus conexiones con Rusia. @maggieNYT More

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      Giuliani and Graham Among Trump Allies Subpoenaed by Georgia Grand Jury

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      Rudy Giuliani, Lindsey Graham, John Eastman and several others in the former president’s orbit were subpoenaed in the election meddling inquiry.Seven advisers and allies of Donald J. Trump, including Rudolph W. Giuliani and Senator Lindsey Graham, were subpoenaed on Tuesday in the ongoing criminal investigation in Georgia of election interference by Mr. Trump and his associates. The move was the latest sign that the inquiry has entangled a number of prominent members of Mr. Trump’s orbit, and may cloud the future for the former president.The subpoenas underscore the breadth of the investigation by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, which encompasses most of Atlanta. She is weighing a range of charges, according to legal filings, including racketeering and conspiracy, and her inquiry has encompassed witnesses from beyond the state. The latest round of subpoenas was reported earlier by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.The Fulton County investigation is one of several inquiries into efforts by Mr. Trump and his team to overturn the election, but it is the one that appears to put them in the greatest immediate legal jeopardy. A House committee continues to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. And there is an intensifying investigation by the Justice Department into a scheme to create slates of fake presidential electors in 2020.Amid the deepening investigations, Mr. Trump is weighing an early entrance into the 2024 presidential race; people close to him have said he believes it would bolster his claims that the investigations are politically motivated.A subpoena is not an indication that someone is a subject of an inquiry, though some of the latest recipients are considered at risk in the case — in particular Mr. Giuliani, a personal lawyer for Mr. Trump who has emerged as a central figure in the grand jury proceedings in the Georgia investigation. Mr. Giuliani spent several hours speaking before state legislative panels in December 2020, where he peddled false conspiracy theories about corrupted voting machines and a video that he claimed showed secret suitcases of Democratic ballots. He told members of the State House at the time, “You cannot possibly certify Georgia in good faith.”Ms. Willis’s office, in its subpoena, said Mr. Giuliani “possesses unique knowledge concerning communications between himself, former President Trump, the Trump campaign, and other known and unknown individuals involved in the multistate, coordinated efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”Though the subpoenas were issued Tuesday, not all had necessarily been received. Robert J. Costello, a lawyer for Mr. Giuliani, said, “We have not been served with any subpoena, therefore we have no current comment.”Others sent subpoenas included Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who worked closely with Mr. Giuliani to overturn the 2020 election results; John Eastman, the legal architect of a plan to keep Mr. Trump in power by using fake electors, and Mr. Graham, the South Carolina Republican who called the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, days after the election to inquire about the rules for discarding mail-in ballots.Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who worked with Rudolph W. Giuliani to overturn the 2020 election results, was also subpoenaed.Rey Del Rio/Getty ImagesAnother prominent lawyer who received a subpoena, Cleta Mitchell, was on a Jan. 2, 2021, call that Mr. Trump made to Mr. Raffensperger where he asked him to find enough votes to reverse the state’s results. The subpoena to her said, “During the telephone call, the witness and others made allegations of widespread voter fraud in the November 2020 election in Georgia and pressured Secretary Raffensperger to take action in his official capacity to investigate unfounded claims of fraud.”Two other Trump lawyers were also subpoenaed: Jacki Pick Deason, who helped make the Trump team’s case before the Georgia legislature, and Kenneth Chesebro, whose role has come into sharper focus during the House Jan. 6 hearings in Washington. In an email exchange with Mr. Eastman in the run-up to the Jan. 6 attack, he wrote that the Supreme Court would be more likely to act on a Wisconsin legal challenge “if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way.”Most of those subpoenaed could not be immediately reached for comment. A spokesman for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, where Ms. Deason is a senior fellow, declined to comment.The special grand jury was impaneled in early May and has up to one year to complete its work before issuing a report advising Ms. Willis on whether to pursue criminal charges, though Ms. Willis has said she hopes to conclude much sooner. In official letters sent to potential witnesses, her office has said that it is examining potential violations that include “the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration.”The new subpoenas offered some further clues about where her investigation is focused.Mr. Eastman was a key witness at one of the December 2020 legislative hearings that were led by Mr. Giuliani. Ms. Willis’s office said in its subpoena to Mr. Eastman that during the hearing he had “advised lawmakers that they had both the lawful authority and a ‘duty’ to replace the Democratic Party’s slate of presidential electors, who had been certified as the duly appointed electors for the State of Georgia after the November 2020 election, due to unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud within the state.”John Eastman, a Trump legal adviser and the architect of the fake-elector plan, with Mr. Giuliani.Jim Bourg/ReutersThey called the appearance part of a “multistate, coordinated plan by the Trump campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”The subpoena also noted that Mr. Eastman “drafted at least two memoranda to the Trump Campaign and others detailing a plan through which Vice President Mike Pence, as president of the Senate, could refuse to count some of President Joe Biden’s electoral votes” on Jan. 6 — a plan that was rejected by Mr. Pence.Regarding Ms. Ellis, Ms. Willis’s office said that even after Mr. Raffensperger’s office debunked claims of fraud by election workers at an Atlanta arena, Ms. Ellis persisted. “Despite this, the witness made additional statements claiming widespread voter fraud in Georgia during the November 2020 election,” the subpoena said.Mr. Trump has derided the inquiry; last year, a spokesman for the former president called it “the Democrats’ latest attempt to score political points by continuing their witch hunt against President Trump.”Sean Keenan More

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      Under Court’s Shadow, N.Y. Governor Candidates Lob Final Pitches

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      Rulings on abortion and guns shape the final weekend of campaigning before Tuesday’s primary.A pair of seismic rulings by the Supreme Court jolted the race for governor of New York on Sunday, as Democrats and Republicans made final pitches to an electorate that found itself at the center of renewed national debates over guns and abortion rights.All three Democratic candidates for governor fanned out Sunday morning to Black churches in Harlem and Queens, Manhattan’s Pride March and street corners across the city to denounce the rulings and promise an aggressive response.“We’re going to pass a law that’s going to say, you can’t bring a weapon into this church on a Sunday,” Gov. Kathy Hochul, the Democratic front-runner, assured congregants at Greater Allen African Methodist Episcopal Cathedral of New York in Jamaica, Queens.“I don’t want those guns on subways, either,” she added. “I don’t want them in playgrounds. I don’t want them near schools.”The Republican candidates, who mostly lauded both rulings, generally stuck to other messages with broad appeal to a state where both abortion rights and gun control are popular — attacking Ms. Hochul for New York’s rising inflation and elevated crime rates.But in at least one episode, the abortion issue was hard to avoid. Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, said that he was slapped in the back by a grocery store employee referencing abortion on Sunday afternoon while he was campaigning for his son, Andrew, on Staten Island.“The one thing he said that was political was ‘you’re going to kill women, you’re going to kill women,’” said Mr. Giuliani, who said he understood the remark to be a reference to the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade on Friday.The police, who did not confirm the abortion remark, said a suspect was in custody but had not been charged. The younger Mr. Giuliani was not on hand.Equal parts exuberance and frustration, the final pitches roughly hewed the battle lines that were drawn months ago in races that have been punctuated by violent tragedies — like the racist attack at a Buffalo supermarket in May — and buffeted by quality-of-life concerns.Wendy Dominski of Youngstown, N.Y., left, exchanged a blown kiss with Andrew Giuliani as he arrived at Lebanon Valley Speedway in New Lebanon, N.Y.Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesOnly this time, the fights played out in the shadow of the Supreme Court decisions issued in recent days on abortion rights and New York’s ability to regulate firearms. The rulings have injected a fresh dynamic into the races and appear to have given Democrats a new sense of urgency.Ms. Hochul, the state’s first female governor, put both rulings at the center of her weekend hopscotch across the city, highlighting her decisions to spend $35 million to aid abortion access and call lawmakers back to Albany next week for a special legislative session to address the justices’ decision to overturn a 100-year-old New York law limiting the ability to carry concealed weapons.Hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday, the governor raced to a protest in Manhattan’s Union Square, promising thousands of New Yorkers that New York would be a “safe harbor” for abortion under her leadership.In a show of her standing with the state’s Democratic establishment, Ms. Hochul and her running mate, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, also trotted out powerful Democratic surrogates. Mayor Eric Adams campaigned with them in Brooklyn on Saturday, and Representative Gregory W. Meeks, the chairman of the Queens Democratic Party who has prodded her to put together a more diverse campaign, accompanied her to church on Sunday.“I’m not telling you who to vote for,” Ms. Hochul teased in Jamaica. “You’re not supposed to do that in church.”Some voters said they were already impressed.“Thus far, I’ve been happy with what she’s done,” said Shirley Gist, a 74-year-old retired speech pathologist who voted early for Ms. Hochul on Saturday. “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.”Governor Hochul campaigned at the Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral of New York in Queens on Sunday.Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesJumaane D. Williams, New York City’s left-leaning public advocate, and Representative Thomas R. Suozzi, who is running to Ms. Hochul’s right, did their best at a Sunday appearance at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem to convince the uncommitted of just the opposite.“I’m a common-sense Democrat. I’m tired of far left, and I’m tired of crazy right,” Mr. Suozzi said in remarks where he tied himself to Mr. Adams’s crime-fighting plans and pledged to cut taxes and improve public education. He knocked Ms. Hochul for accepting support from the National Rifle Association in past campaigns — an affiliation she has since disavowed.Mr. Williams did not explicitly address the Supreme Court decisions but laid blame nonetheless at the feet of Democratic power structure.“I have to be clear, Democratic leadership has failed this time,” he said. “They failed to act.”Still, it was far from clear that the attacks would be enough to turn the tide against Ms. Hochul, who is spending millions of dollars more in advertising than either primary opponent and holds a large lead in public polls. In fact, some Democrats predicted that backlash to the Supreme Court rulings would only help Ms. Hochul, a moderate from Buffalo who only took office last summer.“What can the two Democratic challengers do?” said former Gov. David A. Paterson. “They can’t be against it, so they have to kind of sit and watch.”He predicted a comfortable win for Ms. Hochul: “When people are embattled, they tend to vote more pragmatically,” he said.Democrats will also decide on a candidate for lieutenant governor on Tuesday. Mr. Delgado has ample institutional support, but he faces a pair of spirited challenges from Ana María Archila, a progressive activist aligned with Mr. Williams, and Diana Reyna, a more moderate Democrat running with Mr. Suozzi.Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate, said Democratic leadership has failed.Craig Ruttle/Associated PressThe winner will face Alison Esposito, a Republican and longtime New York City police officer.The Republican race for governor has been considerably more lively — full of name-calling, increasing disdain and sharper policy differences between the candidates. But with scant public polling available and most of the candidates still struggling to establish name recognition with primary voters, even the state’s most-connected Republicans were scratching their heads.“I have no idea how this turns out,” said John J. Faso, a former Republican congressman and the party’s 2006 nominee for governor.With Mr. Giuliani and Harry Wilson nipping at his heels, Representative Lee Zeldin, the presumptive front-runner backed by the State Republican Party, spent the weekend touring upstate New York in a campaign bus trying to shore up support in regions that typically sway his party’s primary.“Everybody’s hitting their breaking point right now,” Mr. Zeldin told a small crowd of about three dozen who gathered in an industrial park outside of Albany. He promised to rehire people who had been fired for refusing to be vaccinated, and to fire the Manhattan district attorney, who has become a punching bag for Republicans.Another candidate, Rob Astorino, spent Sunday shaking hands with potential voters on the boardwalk in Long Beach on Long Island.Mr. Wilson, a moderate who favors abortion rights and has positioned himself as a centrist outsider, has done relatively little in person campaigning. But he has blanketed the airwaves with more than $10 million worth of advertisements filleting Mr. Zeldin as a flip-flopping political insider.Near Albany, an entirely different message was being delivered by Andrew Giuliani, who spent Saturday night spinning laps around the Lebanon Valley Speedway in a Ram pickup emblazoned with his face. He gleefully tied himself to his former boss, Donald J. Trump: “You like that guy, right?”Though Mr. Giuliani, 36, is an outspoken critic of abortion and proponent of firearms, he spent much of his three hours at the speedway Saturday night reminding voters of his MAGA credentials.The cheers that rose from the crowd suggested he was among friends.Wearing an American flag wrap over a tank top, Wendy Dominski, 52, a retired nurse who drove five hours from Youngstown, N.Y., to volunteer for the event, said the other Republicans in the race are either RINOs — Republicans in Name Only — or “flat-out flip-flop liars.”She had little doubt who the former president supports, even if he hasn’t said so. “Giuliani stands for everything that Trump stands for, and that we stand for,” she said.Reporting was contributed by More

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      The Bromance of Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani

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      Shaye Moss, a Georgia election worker, described on national television on Tuesday the smear campaign that Rudy Giuliani waged against her and her mother. Mr. Giuliani, speaking to Georgia legislators weeks after the 2020 presidential vote, had accused the two women of engaging in “surreptitious, illegal behavior” while working the polls on election night and conjured a racist image of them “passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine.” The fabricated allegations, based on a cynical misrepresentation of a video, were designed to persuade Georgia officials to overturn the election results in their state, and they triggered an avalanche of harassment and death threats against the women.How did America’s mayor get to this low point? Mr. Giuliani’s rise to power in New York was often marked by venality, but nothing from his mayoral or prosecutorial years resembles his near-complete moral collapse under Donald Trump. They have been a pernicious team, and the strength of their bond — and how it ultimately drove the attempted subversion of the 2020 election — is rooted in Mr. Trump’s veneration of a bygone champion and Mr. Giuliani’s almost primal need to remain relevant.On election night, Mr. Giuliani was the only one of Mr. Trump’s advisers pushing him to declare victory early, even though Mr. Trump was behind in the count, with millions of ballots outstanding. Jason Miller, a Trump adviser, said in video testimony released on June 13 that Mr. Giuliani appeared inebriated when he pushed this dubious strategy, bringing his mountain of personal problems to a defining moment in history. (Mr. Giuliani has denied that he was intoxicated on election night and has previously denied that he has a drinking problem. A spokesman for Mr. Giuliani declined to comment for this essay.)Rudy Giuliani onscreen during the Jan. 6 hearing on Thursday.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. Trump, never known for his loyalty to aides, has stood by Mr. Giuliani for years and through many embarrassments, including a raft of bungled television appearances, a compromising scene in a “Borat” film, a nationally televised news conference held in a parking lot of a landscaping company and another in which what appeared to be hair dye streamed down his cheeks. “Rudy was there when a lot of you guys weren’t,” the former president would snap at staff members.Mr. Trump rarely gushes about anyone besides himself, but there is something about Rudy Giuliani that has always made him swoon. “Some people don’t like him and some people love him totally,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Giuliani on “Larry King Live” on Oct. 7, 1999. “I happen to be in love.” As president, Mr. Trump often spoke about him with a deference that virtually no other aide received. Mr. Giuliani as mayor was a role model for Mr. Trump; his raw exercise of power, his use of bombast as a weapon and his relentless attacks on his critics and the media all made a huge impression. His style influenced Mr. Trump’s approach to the presidency “more so probably than any other political figure,” Mr. Miller, the Trump adviser, told me over the course of reporting for a new biography of Mr. Giuliani.The two men go back decades. As mayor, Mr. Giuliani looked favorably upon Mr. Trump’s development projects. He spoke at the funerals of both of Mr. Trump’s parents. Mr. Trump, in turn, wasn’t just “in love” with the New York mayor — Mr. Giuliani was perhaps the most famous national political leader with whom Mr. Trump had longstanding ties as he explored a presidential bid in 2000 and beyond. Mr. Trump saw how Mr. Giuliani became a hero after Sept. 11 and how he became a punchline after losing the run for the White House in 2008. Mr. Trump went to some lengths to help Mr. Giuliani in that low period. Indeed, the hallmarks of what would become one of the most toxic partnerships in recent presidential history came into stark relief during the months after Mr. Giuliani’s lifelong hopes of becoming president ended in humiliation.Mr. Giuliani was the favorite to win that race. Beloved for his leadership after Sept. 11, the former mayor was at one point more admired than the pope. He spent nearly a year as the front-runner before the start of the 2008 Republican presidential primaries. But an almost comically misguided campaign ended nearly four weeks after the Iowa caucus, when he withdrew from the race with some $4 million in debt and just one delegate to show for his efforts.The ridicule that he endured in its aftermath was merciless. T. Boone Pickens, the Texas billionaire, went public with his displeasure in a written letter of apology to donors he recruited to the campaign. Mr. Giuliani “rode up to the grandstand and fell off his horse,” he wrote.Mr. Giuliani’s ex-wife Judith, who was with him at the time, told me that what gnawed at the former mayor most was a creeping fear of irrelevancy. (The couple divorced in 2019.) The flameout forced him to lower his sights from how to amass power to how to hold on to what he had left. When he offered a reporter a rare post-mortem on the race in 2009 he betrayed his concern. “I think I should’ve fought Iowa harder,” he told New York magazine. “That was the beginning of becoming irrelevant.”After endorsing John McCain at the end of January, Mr. Giuliani disappeared from public view. Eager to escape the dreary cold of February in New York, he and his wife packed their bags and went to Florida to stay at her parents’ two-bedroom condo in Palm Beach, which Mr. Giuliani bought for them. They lived in Palm Beach Towers, an upscale high-rise apartment complex, with views of the crystalline blue Intracoastal Waterway, a swimming pool, landscaped gardens and nearby golf courses — a natural place to relax after a brutal campaign. But he rarely left the apartment, spending his time sitting listlessly on his in-laws’ living room couch, sleeping late in the bedroom or smoking cigars in his bathrobe on the terrace facing a parking lot.Ms. Giuliani said he refused to socialize or sit for meals, even as her mother, Joan, tried to entice him with his favorite dish, pasticcio. “It started to really worry me because he was waking up only if I would wake him,” she said. He became melancholy and self-pitying (“You should leave me”), she said. Her response — “You still have kids that love you, you have me, you have your health” — failed to assuage his sense of failure. “He just could not get over it,” she said.She said he started to drink more heavily. While Mr. Giuliani was always fond of downing a scotch with his cigars, his friends never considered him a problem drinker. Ms. Giuliani felt he was drinking to dull the pain. The situation was concerning enough to send the couple searching for a more discreet locale for his recuperation, as the press caught on to their stay at Palm Beach Towers and photographers started popping up.In search of a friend to turn to, they found one in Donald Trump. “We moved into Mar-a-Lago and Donald kept our secret,” Ms. Giuliani said.Mr. Trump provided them with a hideaway that was secluded from the press and passers-by, a safe space for an ailing friend who was a magnet for photographers. He had a perfect spot for them — a bungalow across the street from Mar-a-Lago. A small tunnel ran underneath South Ocean Boulevard, a narrow two-lane highway, allowing the Giulianis to walk to dinner beyond the glare of the press. “He thought he was finished,” she told me. His drinking accelerated, she said, the beginning of a series of episodes in which he fell and hurt himself. “He was always falling shitfaced somewhere,” she said.The true depth of his depression was something that only she and Mr. Giuliani knew for certain, because they were largely isolated at the time. Many of Mr. Giuliani’s aides considered his wife a loose cannon, prone to exaggeration. Mr. Giuliani’s only mention of that period was to tell The New York Times in 2018 that he “spent a month at Mar-a-Lago, relaxing.” Their friends in New York said the two were out of touch with them. Joseph Lhota, the former deputy mayor, told me that his vague recollection was that Mr. Giuliani “kind of lost himself. No one heard from him for a while.” He recalled that Tony Carbonetti, Mr. Giuliani’s political adviser and closest aide, told him at the time that Mr. Giuliani was “in a dark place.”Mr. Carbonetti now says that only the Giulianis know for sure how bad things were for his old boss. “There was a period where it was just the two of them for two or three months,” he told me. “She was the only person really spending significant time with him.”Both Donald and Melania Trump kept a protective eye on them, Ms. Giuliani said. According to a confidante of hers, she and Ms. Trump were practicing yoga on the beach one day when Ms. Trump spotted a Mar-a-Lago employee shooting photos of them. Ms. Trump complained to her husband, who marched to the scene and confronted the employee. After some back-and-forth, the man grudgingly handed Mr. Trump his camera. When Mr. Trump saw the photos his employee had taken of his wife and her companion, he fired him on the spot.During their stay, Ms. Giuliani said, she and her husband decided to see a movie at a West Palm Beach shopping center one afternoon. The outing ended soon after it began. She said he stumbled out of the car, fell to the ground and gashed his forehead so badly he needed stitches. Several weeks later, he made his first public appearance since arriving at Mar-a-Lago, traveling to New York to appear on “Saturday Night Live.” He sat on the set of “Weekend Update” making self-deprecating jokes about the failure of his campaign. His makeup just barely hid a scar above his right eyebrow.Notwithstanding the turmoil in Mr. Giuliani’s life, it was clear that he and Mr. Trump had found a compelling kinship. The former mayor and the celebrity developer were two New York colossuses, dinosaurs from another time and place — or perhaps it was just a state of mind — in which powerful men flaunted their money and influence to prove their dominance over other powerful men, and wives were first and foremost arm candy, the more beautiful and diamond bedecked the better. “He would always come home and bring these beautiful gifts,” Ms. Giuliani said of her former husband. “He wanted it to be ostentatious, he wanted me to walk down Madison Avenue with a big pearl necklace or a big diamond ring. He loved that it was emblematic for him of his not being, as he used to say, just a Brooklyn boy. He needed that validation.”That Mr. Trump would take Mr. Giuliani under his protective wing at a desperate time in the former mayor’s life was a glimpse into their unique bond, and may well have solidified the relationship. What’s clear is that it survived when other Trump relationships died away like so many marriages of convenience. For decades the two have performed a dance of respect and loyalty that has endured their shifting power dynamics.When Mr. Trump’s presidential candidacy reeled from the release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, Mr. Giuliani was one of few who defended him. When Robert Mueller investigated Mr. Trump’s Russia ties, Mr. Giuliani promoted a theory about a nonexistent Biden-Ukraine conspiracy. When Mr. Trump faced the abyss in 2020, the two needed each other more than ever. Mr. Giuliani was the last of the president’s high-profile advisers willing to lead his immoral battle. Seventy-six years old at the time, Mr. Giuliani’s political and financial future, possibly even his escape from prosecution, was now dependent upon Mr. Trump’s remaining in office.Ms. Giuliani always felt that her husband’s Achilles’ heel was his bottomless need for validation. It would lead him to make a lot of bad decisions. He would never stop protecting Mr. Trump. As the nation witnessed in the hearings of the past two weeks, he worked to upend a legitimate presidential election, destroying reputations and sabotaging American democracy in the process, all without batting an eye.Andrew Kirtzman, a former New York political reporter and the writer of books about Rudy Giuliani’s mayoralty and the Bernie Madoff scandal, is the author of the forthcoming “Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Mike Pence Was of Two Minds

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      Gail Collins: Bret, I never did like Mike Pence at all — his far-right social values would have turned me off even if he didn’t call his wife “Mother.”Bret Stephens: Well, it beats “Cousin.” Sorry, continue.Gail: And I’ve never forgotten the moment when Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes” asked Pence if he ever thought he’d be able to tell Donald Trump he needed to apologize for having “crossed the line.” Pence just kinda babbled without answering until Trump interrupted. “Absolutely. I might not apologize,” Trump said. “But I would absolutely want him to come in.”But now, the worm has turned! Except I guess I shouldn’t be calling Pence a worm any more.Bret: I’m having a hard time joining the “Mike Pence the Hero” bandwagon that some of my old friends on the right have jumped aboard.Where was Pence in November when Trump started lying about the election the moment their defeat became clear? Where was he when the president enlisted the likes of Sidney Powell and John Eastman to peddle insane conspiracy theories about voting machines and preposterous interpretations of the Electoral Count Act? Where was he on invoking the 25th Amendment after the assault on the Capitol, or at least on supporting impeachment? Pence was a worm who, for a few hours on Jan. 6, turned into a glowworm.Gail: OK, I can’t top that.Still, I keep imagining what chaos the country would have fallen into if Pence had panicked and refused to count the election results back to the states instead of just certifying Joe Biden as president.Bret: Nancy Pelosi would have beaten him to a pulp with that giant gavel of hers before he could have done it.Gail: That’s an image I plan to carry around with me for a long time.Bret: Also, can I fume a bit about the so-called sane right’s position on all this? They’re busy trying to switch the subject to left-wing rioting, as if trashing a courthouse in Portland, bad as that is, is somehow an equivalent event to a sitting president inciting a violent mob to trash the Capitol in order to overturn a national election.Gail: Feel free to fume for both of us.Bret: OK, end of rant. What conclusions do you draw from the Jan. 6 committee hearings?Gail: Well, we certainly were reminded that Trump was totally complicit in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.Bret: Not complicit. Guilty.Gail: Yeah, thanks for the better word. And apparently when he insisted he won the election he was ignoring virtually everybody giving him advice except Rudy Giuliani.Wow, just imagine a defiant Trump telling his expert counselors: “That might be all your opinion — but Rudy was making some very good points before he passed out over there.”Bret: Some of our younger readers may not remember that Giuliani was Time’s Person of the Year in 2001 for his leadership after the attacks of Sept. 11. His fall from grace has been like a bungee jump minus the bungee.Gail: Giuliani’s role during Sept. 11 was … not what you imagine. He wouldn’t, for instance, have been dramatically marching around the streets after the attack if he hadn’t moved the critically important emergency command center into the World Trade Center, a well-identified terrorist target, because he wanted it within walking distance of his office.Could go on, but for me Rudy’s fall from heroic grace goes back a trillion years.Bret: I’m beginning to think you’re right. Never did like the way he went after Michael Milken.Gail: As for Trump, even if nothing we learned at the hearings has been a big surprise, it’s so, so very important to get all this stuff on the record in as public and evenhanded a way as possible.And again, I’ve gotta say: Good work, Mike Pence. You’re a terrible person, but you had a moment. If the vice president had panicked and gone to hide in a relative’s basement when it was time to certify the election, can’t imagine where we’d be now.Bret: Pass the peyote. Gail Collins has a better impression of Mike Pence than I do.Gail: Well, I’m giving him one good day.And what’s your prediction for what happens next to Trump? Presidential election bid in 2024 or the slammer?Bret: In a just world? I’d want one jury to indict him, another to convict him and a warden to lock him up — to borrow a phrase.What I don’t know is whether that’s the smart thing to do. On one hand, prosecuting him would be a good reminder that we’re a nation of laws. On the other, it would radicalize the right even further, turn him into a national martyr to about a third of the country if he goes to prison and make him a clear and present danger to everyone else if he doesn’t. And it would be the only thing the country could talk about for years while we have a few other problems to deal with.What say you?Gail: Prosecuting Trump would be righteous, but you’re right — it would leave him subject of still more right-wing hero-worship. My real dream is to see him go completely bankrupt.Bret: Once again.Gail: Permanently this time. First we have to get past 2024 and any chance he returns to the presidency, God help us. Then all the civil lawsuits and public investigations into his business dealings in New York come to fruition — and then he’s down to a basement apartment in Staten Island.Bret: Even Staten Island doesn’t deserve that. But I doubt Trump will be convicted or fined for all of his dodgy business deals. His crime is treason, in the Constitution’s precise definition: levying war against the United States or adhering to its enemies and giving them aid and comfort.Gail: I agree about what he deserves, but I’m still worried the long and unprecedented attempt to send him to jail would fail while splitting the country way more.And I’d love to dwell on my vision of Trump holding out an empty coffee cup on some corner, begging for change. Maybe not realistic, but so … sweet.Now we ought to talk some about Biden and the state of the economy. Feel free to vent.Bret: Many of our readers have fond feelings toward Jimmy Carter as a person, but the Biden administration increasingly feels like a rerun of the Carter years, complete with stagflation, an energy crisis and Moscow invading a neighboring country. The smartest thing Biden can do, politically and economically, is to stop blaming others — even genuine villains like Vladimir Putin — so that his administration doesn’t project an air of being at the mercy of events.Gail: Go on …Bret: As I was saying last week, he should fire Janet Yellen, preferably this week, and replace her with Larry Summers. It will create a sense of accountability and put energy in the executive, as Alexander Hamilton might have said. Work with Canada to import more oil, whether by rail or pipeline or truck: It beats getting our oil from Venezuela. Give Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo or the infrastructure czar Mitch Landrieu the job of anticipating and preventing consumer-goods shortages, from baby formula to tampons to whatever is next.If all this sounds extreme, consider what will happen if we just drift along until President DeSantis takes the reins in 2025. Or President Trump. But I’m always happy to hear of a better way.Gail: I don’t blame Yellen for our economic mess, although I’d sadly sacrifice her if it would move us forward. Your other ideas don’t sound extremely extreme — although if we’re going to start piping oil from Canada the plan needs to be married to the battle against global warming.Bret: Step One: Subsidize an accelerated transition to a hybrid- and electric-car vehicle fleet. Step Two: Build safer next-generation nuclear reactors to power more of the grid. Step Three: Blame Canada for any and all remaining issues.Gail: Well, giving you half a step for the electric cars.Back to the economy: If Biden had any prayer of getting Congressional support, I’d want him to return to his early-administration dreams. Invest in quality child care options to bring women back into the work force and reduce the labor shortage. Give lower- and middle-income workers a jolt of extra cash through tax rebates. Install his program to reduce the cost of prescription drugs. In a perfect world, fund a federal program to cut back on student debt.Bret: Nice to be reminded that in some post-Trump universe, there’s a lot we still disagree about.Gail: Of course, all this would cost money, and that’s why we’d need — yes! — tax hikes on the rich. Many of whom are making out like bandits in the current economy.Bret: Let’s fight about that later. In the meantime, our readers shouldn’t miss our former opinion-page colleague Clay Risen’s wonderful “Overlooked No More” obituary for William B. Gould, who in 1862 escaped slavery in North Carolina by commandeering a sailboat, joined the crew of a Union blockade ship, kept a meticulous diary, went on to prosperity in Massachusetts and lived to be 85. Next year Dedham, Mass., will unveil a statue in his honor on the centenary of his death. A great reminder of all that’s worth celebrating this Juneteenth.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Inside the Night That Began Trump’s Bid to Overturn the Election

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      Donald J. Trump’s advisers urged him not to declare victory on election night in 2020. He listened to the one who told him what he wanted to hear.The Jan. 6 committee used interviews with Donald J. Trump’s own family and his closest advisers to illustrate how he rejected advice and falsely claimed he won the election.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWASHINGTON — Rudolph W. Giuliani seemed drunk, and he was making a beeline for the president.It was election night in 2020, and President Donald J. Trump was seeing his re-election bid slip away, vote by vote. According to video testimony prepared by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, Mr. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and personal lawyer for Mr. Trump, was spouting conspiracy theories.“They’re stealing it from us,” Mr. Giuliani told the president when he found him, according to Jason Miller, one of the president’s top campaign aides, who told the Jan. 6 committee that Mr. Giuliani was “definitely intoxicated” that night. “Where do all the votes come from? We need to go say that we won.”Several times that night, Mr. Trump’s own family members and closest advisers urged him to reject Mr. Giuliani’s advice. Mr. Miller told him not to “go and declare victory” without a better sense of the numbers. “It’s far too early to be making any proclamation like that,” said Bill Stepien, his campaign manager. Even his daughter Ivanka Trump told him that the results were still being counted.But in the end, Mr. Giuliani was the only one that night who told the president what he wanted to hear.Mr. Giuliani’s rantings about stolen ballots fed into the president’s own conspiracy theories about a rigged election, nursed in public and private since long before the votes were counted. They helped spark a monthslong assault on democracy and — in the committee’s view — led inexorably to the mob that breached the Capitol hoping to stop the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president.Mr. Trump told Mr. Miller, Mr. Stepien and the rest that they were being weak and were wrong. During a conversation in the reception area of the White House living quarters, he told them he was going to go in “a different direction.”Not long after, Mr. Trump did just that, appearing for the cameras at 2:21 a.m. in the East Room in front of a wall of American flags.He denounced the election in the speech, calling the vote “a fraud on the American public” and an “embarrassment” to the country. “We were getting ready to win this election,” he told his supporters and the television viewers. “Frankly, we did win this election.”The inside account of the White House that night was assembled by the Jan. 6 committee. During its second public hearing on Monday, the committee played a video that painted a vivid portrait of how Mr. Trump rejected cautions from his closest aides and advisers and went out to declare himself the winner.Testimony from those closest to the former president effectively documented the formal beginning of Mr. Trump’s insistence that the election was stolen.Read More on the Jan. 6 House Committee HearingsMaking a Case Against Trump: The committee appears to be laying out a road map for prosecutors to indict former President Donald J. Trump. But the path to any trial is uncertain.The Meaning of the Hearings: While the public sessions aren’t going to unite the country, they could significantly affect public opinion.An Unsettling Narrative: During the first hearing, the panel presented a gripping story with a sprawling cast of characters, but only three main players: Mr. Trump, the Proud Boys and a Capitol Police officer.Trump’s Depiction: Mr. Trump was portrayed as a would-be autocrat willing to shred the Constitution to hang onto power. Liz Cheney: The vice chairwoman of the House committee has been unrepentant in continuing to blame Mr. Trump for stoking the attack on Jan. 6, 2021.Mr. Trump had not been shy about that expectation; weeks before Election Day, he had predicted a “fraud like you’ve never seen.” And even as the votes were being counted, Mr. Trump began delivering that message. But the testimony offered at Monday’s hearing was the linchpin of the argument that the committee is trying to make: that Mr. Trump knew his claims of a fraudulent election were not true and made them anyway.“That’s the bottom line,” said Representative Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who is chairman of the committee. “We had an election Mr. Trump lost, but he refused to accept the results of the democratic process.”In the weeks to follow election night, Mr. Trump was repeatedly told by top aides that his claims of fraud were baseless.The committee underscored that fact with long video clips of former Attorney General William P. Barr, who said that beating back the “avalanche” of fraud allegations from the president was “like playing whack-a-mole because something would come out one day and then the next day it would be another issue.” He called the claims of fraud from Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani “completely bogus and silly and usually based on complete misinformation.”But the committee’s depiction of the White House on election night was the day’s most compelling narrative. And the testimony by Trump aides saying they had doubts about Mr. Trump’s claims of fraud was striking, particularly because some of those same aides had expressed support for the president in public, casting doubt on the outcome of the election.At just after 11:15 p.m., Fox News called Arizona for Mr. Biden, a major blow to Mr. Trump’s campaign. Using interviews with Ivanka Trump, her husband, Jared Kushner, and several of the president’s campaign aides, the committee video captured how the sense of celebration inside the White House residence turned from giddy optimism to grim anxiety.“Both disappointed with Fox and concerned that maybe our data or our numbers weren’t accurate,” Mr. Miller testified, describing the mood among the president’s supporters.After the Arizona call, Mr. Trump’s team was livid, according to earlier reporting about the night. Mr. Trump told aides to get Fox News to reverse course somehow. Mr. Miller made a call to a contact at the network. Mr. Kushner reached out to the network’s owner.“Hey, Rupert,” the president’s son-in-law said into a cellphone as Rupert Murdoch, the head of the network’s corporate parent, took his call.But soon, there would be another concern for the group of aides who later were referred to as “Team Normal,” according to Mr. Stepien. They received an alarming warning: Mr. Giuliani had had too much to drink and had made his way upstairs to the living quarters, where the president was watching returns.Several of Mr. Trump’s aides tries to run interference, but Mr. Giuliani, who had been staring at the screens in the campaign war room and insisted that the president had won Michigan, was undeterred.He demanded to see the president, according to a former aide familiar with the conversation.Mr. Stepien confronted Mr. Giuliani. How are we winning? he asked him. Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, was there as well, and told Mr. Giuliani that he was wrong to say Mr. Trump had won Michigan.“That’s not true, Rudy!” he said loudly, according to the person familiar with the conversation. (Mr. Meadows would almost immediately go on to publicly and privately embrace the president’s fraud accusations, as documented in text messages discovered by the committee.)The president’s aides soon failed in their effort to keep Mr. Giuliani away from him. In the video presentation, Mr. Giuliani dismissed his rivals for their attempts to stop him from giving the president his advice.“I spoke to the president,” he told the committee investigators. “They may have been present. But I talked to the president several times that night.”Few of the president’s aides went public with their doubts about the president’s chances in the days after the election. In fact, it was the opposite. During a conference call with reporters the day after the election, Mr. Stepien said that he believed Mr. Trump would win Arizona by 30,000 votes when the counting was over.Mr. Trump had been saying for months that he would win the election, even as polling showed him behind Mr. Biden, in a political climate soured by Mr. Trump’s bumbling and erratic performance during the coronavirus pandemic. But he still started sowing seeds of doubt about the reliability of mail-in ballots, made available more broadly because of the pandemic, much earlier in the year.Warned weeks before Election Day that those ballots, along with the ones cast through early voting, would be tallied later than the same-day votes cast for Mr. Trump, the president stunned advisers by declaring he would simply go out and say he had won.“We want all voting to stop,” Mr. Trump said in his remarks early the morning of Nov. 4. “We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 o’clock in the morning and add them to the list. OK?”Later that day, Ivanka Trump sent a text to a chain that included Mr. Meadows: “Keep the faith and the fight!” Mr. Trump almost immediately began telling Mr. Giuliani to start gathering what information he could.By Friday, it was clear from the Trump campaign’s data guru that the numbers simply were not there for him to succeed. The following day, Mr. Stepien, Mr. Miller and other aides were sent by Mr. Kushner to tell Mr. Trump that he had extremely low odds of any success coming from ongoing challenges.When the men arrived at the White House residence, Mr. Trump was calm, but he was not interested in heeding the warnings. He continued repeating his election conspiracies after Monday’s hearing, issuing a rambling 12-page response with a simple bottom line:“They cheated!” he wrote. More

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      Andrew Giuliani’s Vaccination Status Will Bar Him From Debate Studio

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      The Republican candidate for governor of New York is unvaccinated and says he has “natural immunity” to the coronavirus.ALBANY — With the first Republican debate in the governor’s race scheduled for Monday night on WCBS-TV, the roster of in-person candidates has shrunk by one, as Andrew Giuliani — proudly unvaccinated against the coronavirus — announced on Sunday that he will not be allowed to attend.Mr. Giuliani, the son of the former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, said on Sunday that he had been informed late last week that the station would not permit him in the studio unless he sent proof of his vaccination status — something he said he would not do and suggested might be unconstitutional.“I chose very clearly that I was not going to get the shot,” said Mr. Giuliani, 36, in an impromptu news conference on Sunday outside CBS headquarters in Manhattan, saying he had “looked at the data” on the vaccination and decided against it.As of Sunday, according to a New York Times database, 91 percent of New Yorkers of all ages have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and 78 percent of residents are fully vaccinated.Mr. Giuliani preceded his news conference by releasing a letter he sent to WCBS, the CBS network’s flagship affiliate, arguing that their policy was “arbitrary” and “serves to discriminate against a political candidate and their access to equal opportunity and religious liberty.”In a statement, WCBS said that its broadcast center requires that visitors are vaccinated against the coronavirus, and that the policy — which dates to last year — was made “in consultation with health care experts, government officials and the many unions representing our employees.”“Any candidate who doesn’t meet this requirement is encouraged to participate in Monday’s debate remotely,” the station said, adding it hoped the debate would “allow Republican candidates to share their views on matters of importance to the residents of New York State.”The debate is scheduled to feature other Republican candidates for governor, including Representative Lee M. Zeldin, the party’s anointed nominee; Rob Astorino, the former Westchester County executive; and Harry Wilson, a corporate turnaround expert.At Sunday’s news conference, Mr. Giuliani said he had “natural immunity” to Covid-19, which has killed more than one million Americans, and that he had offered to take multiple tests to prove he was not infected, but that he had nonetheless been disinvited from the debate.Instead, Mr. Giuliani said he would, in fact, participate virtually, a prospect that was almost immediately criticized by Mr. Zeldin, who tweeted that “the remote option is a nonstarter,” while adding “the reason to have him virtual is ridiculous.”Mr. Astorino echoed this, saying that “all four candidates should be onstage,” and that “discriminatory and unscientific vaccine mandates” wouldn’t prevent transmission of the disease. (The vaccines have been proven to prevent most serious cases of the disease.)Mr. Giuliani, who is making his first run for public office and has been regularly campaigning with his father, has argued that the candidates should debate almost every day before the June 28 primary, while also railing against mandates for emergency medical workers and others, something he reiterated on Sunday.“I’m obviously seeing consequences in what I believe is my informed decision on this,” he said, adding that if elected, he will “throw all of these mandates in the dust bin of history.” More

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      Rudy Giuliani Draws Fans to His Son Andrew’s Campaign Events

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      Andrew Giuliani’s bid to win the Republican primary for governor of New York has not drawn many donors, but it has drawn fans of Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor.HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. — On a blazing Saturday afternoon in eastern Long Island, after hours of sun-baked stump speeches by candidates of little renown, it was finally Giuliani time.As the strains of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” filled the air, the crowd of about 200 Republican voters swooned to the sounds of an extended harangue against government mandates, socialism and the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.Dozens of admirers crowded nearby, shooting video or hoping to get a selfie. After the speech was over, well-wishers lined up for a chance at an autograph and a red hat bearing the surname of the man who seemed to be the featured attraction: Rudolph W. Giuliani.Standing beside him was his son Andrew, the actual candidate in what is increasingly resembling a tandem campaign for governor of New York.With just over two weeks to go before the Republican primary on June 28, Andrew Giuliani’s unlikely campaign has remained visible and viable in no small part because of his famous last name and the continued prominence of, and appearances by, his father, formerly the mayor of New York City and a personal lawyer of former President Donald J. Trump.The elder Mr. Giuliani, 78, has regularly campaigned with his son since he began running for office last year, often serving as both his warm-up act and sidekick at the Israel Day Parade and at Memorial Day marches and news conferences outside City Hall.His efforts have been welcomed by the younger Mr. Giuliani, 36, who is running a shoestring campaign, driving up and down the state in a collection of donated vans and trucks emblazoned with his face, in hopes of upsetting the party’s anointed nominee, Representative Lee M. Zeldin of Long Island.Regardless of who wins the nomination, making it to the governor’s mansion will be an uphill battle for Republicans, who haven’t won statewide office in two decades. Their likely Democratic opponent is Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has more than $18 million in her campaign coffers, in a state in which registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than two to one.“I feel honored that he would take his time to help us get over the finish line,” Andrew Giuliani said about his father, after posing for dozens of photographs alongside him. “I feel very, very blessed.”At their joint appearances, the elder Mr. Giuliani often attracts more attention than his son.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesPolitical families are, of course, not uncommon in New York, where the former governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, was a son of another former governor, Mario M. Cuomo. Families like the Addabbos, the Weprins and the Diazes have all spawned father-son pairs who became lawmakers.Nor is it really that surprising that Andrew Giuliani, who famously mugged for the camera during his father’s first inauguration in 1994, would lean on him for support: He is making his first run for public office and has a limited record to fall back on.His primary political experience is the four years he spent in the Trump White House, serving as a special assistant to the president and working in the Office of Public Liaison — hardly classic preparation for Albany.A Guide to New York’s 2022 Primary ElectionsAs prominent Democratic officials seek to defend their records, Republicans see opportunities to make inroads in general election races.Governor’s Race: Gov. Kathy Hochul, the incumbent, will face off against Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi in a Democratic primary on June 28.The Mapmaker: A postdoctoral fellow and former bartender redrew New York’s congressional map, reshaping several House districts and scrambling the future of the state’s political establishment.Maloney vs. Nadler: The new congressional lines have put the two stalwart Manhattan Democrats on a collision course in the Aug. 23 primary.Questionable Remarks: Carl P. Paladino, a Republican running for a House seat in Western New York, recently drew backlash for praising Adolf Hitler in an interview dating back to 2021.Mr. Zeldin, a four-term congressman, remains far better financed, with more than $3.1 million in campaign funds as of late last month; Mr. Giuliani had about a tenth of that, according to campaign disclosure statements.Two other candidates — Rob Astorino, the former Westchester County executive, and Harry Wilson, a corporate turnaround expert — also have more to spend than Mr. Giuliani.And although Mr. Giuliani has a direct connection to Mr. Trump, getting his endorsement is far from assured. Mr. Zeldin is an avid Trump supporter who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election in key swing states, an effort, ironically, that Rudolph Giuliani led.A 2008 presidential candidate who was once hailed as America’s Mayor, the elder Mr. Giuliani saw his law license suspended and his public persona tarnished, at least in some circles, as a result of his work for Mr. Trump. Those activities, in service of a false narrative of a stolen election, were given a fresh airing last week during a prime-time hearing by the House committee investigating the Capitol assault on Jan. 6, 2021.In a recent interview on Newsmax, the right-wing network where he has appeared as a political analyst, Andrew Giuliani said that while Mr. Trump was “kind of like an uncle to me,” he did not expect an endorsement, and that he thought the former president was “probably going to sit this one out.”That doesn’t mean the Giulianis aren’t trying: Both appeared at a recent fund-raiser hosted by Representative Elise Stefanik at Trump National Golf Club Westchester, where a round-table discussion and photo op with the former president cost $25,000 a head. Mr. Astorino was also there, mingling near the back; Mr. Zeldin had a prior commitment.In remarks at an outdoor reception, the former president lavished praise on the younger Mr. Giuliani, but the compliments had nothing to do with his political future.“He did talk about him, but it was all about golf,” said Gerard Kassar, the chairman of the New York Conservative Party, which has endorsed Mr. Zeldin. “I do not believe the president is getting involved in the race at all, as much as the Giuliani people want him to.”Andrew Giuliani spent four years in the Trump White House, working in the Office of Public Liaison and as a special assistant to the president.Jonathan Ernst/ReutersThere has been little definitive polling on the race, though Mr. Giuliani has taken to calling himself “the front-runner” as a result of a single online poll from May, something that the Zeldin campaign scoffs at, citing other polls that show Mr. Giuliani with higher unfavorable ratings than Mr. Zeldin. (Mr. Giuliani, however, has higher name recognition, with better favorable ratings than Mr. Zeldin.)Katie Vincentz, a spokeswoman for the Zeldin campaign, said that the congressman intended to “run up the score” on Primary Day to prove that he could beat Ms. Hochul.“Lee Zeldin is going to win this race, because New Yorkers need him to win this race, and save our state,” she said.Mr. Giuliani and his supporters have cast his run as an outsider’s campaign, arguing that his lack of experience in New York politics and policy is actually a positive.His platform leans heavily on tackling crime, promising a $5 billion fund for police forces around the state while also pledging to cut the state budget. He is not averse to Trumpian nicknames, dubbing Ms. Hochul “Crime Wave Kathy.”His father has employed some of the same imagery on the campaign trail as Mr. Trump, calling Albany “a swamp” that’s “got to be cleaned up,” echoing the former president’s own rhetoric about Washington in his 2016 campaign.Curtis Sliwa, last year’s Republican nominee for New York City mayor, has been stumping for the campaign as well. He supported the elder Mr. Giuliani’s first unsuccessful run for mayor back in 1989, “when Andrew was just a little tot,” he said.Nowadays, he said, he backs Andrew because of his focus on crime, something that Republicans feel is a winning issue this election cycle, particularly in New York, where opposition to bail reform has been a potent issue for conservatives.“It is the talk of everybody that I deal with,” said Mr. Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, the citizen patrol group. “And it’s not just in the five boroughs; it’s throughout the state. They want to know what the next governor is going to do about the high crime rates.”Mr. Giuliani declined a request for an interview, but at various events on Long Island and in Albany and outside Rochester, he was friendly and open to brief questions from a New York Times reporter. (The elder Mr. Giuliani did not return requests for comment.)But he also told Newsmax last week that he felt “legacy outlets” had a liberal bias and claimed that he had chided the Times reporter about it. (For the record, he had not.)“I told him that, ‘You remind me more of Pravda than you do a free press right now because you are so tilted on one side,’” Mr. Giuliani said. “I don’t mind tough questions, but just make sure they’re fair on both sides of the aisle.”As for how he might manage a state of 20 million people with no executive experience, his father suggested that he had learned — as many children do — by observation.“He watched me do it,” the elder Mr. Giuliani said during his remarks on Long Island, talking about how to lower crime rates, adding, “He knows how to do it.”Still, some New York Republicans say that the younger Mr. Giuliani is overreaching by starting his political career running for the state’s highest office.“If his name was Andrew Smith, obviously he wouldn’t be running for governor,” said John J. Faso, a former Hudson Valley congressman and the 2006 Republican nominee for governor, who called Mr. Giuliani’s candidacy a “sideshow.”Mr. Giuliani, at a recent event in Manhattan with Curtis Sliwa, left, has highlighted divisive culture-war topics on the campaign trail.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesMr. Giuliani has impressed some with his natural political skills: He’s comfortable and affable on television and in front of crowds, with a wide smile and a more easygoing demeanor than his sometimes temperamental father.But his campaign rhetoric is cast in the Trump mold, emphasizing divisive culture-war topics, railing against critical race theory and a “war on cops,” and professing disdain for phrases like “gender dysphoria.”“I’m not a biologist,” Mr. Giuliani said during a campaign stop in Conesus, N.Y., south of Rochester. “But I do know the difference between a man and a woman.”Married with a young daughter, Mr. Giuliani is an avid golfer who once sued after being left off the Duke University golf team.He says that he has had little time to hit the links since the campaign started, telling a prospective voter, Keith Hilpl, that he’d played infrequently in the last year, though he had caught a round with Mr. Trump.Mr. Hilpl had driven about 80 miles to see Mr. Giuliani at the event in Conesus after hearing him on Steve Bannon’s podcast and visiting his campaign website.“I always liked his father,” said Mr. Hilpl, a software programmer. “And I wanted to see if he was made of the same stuff.”Sure enough, he seemed impressed, leaving the event with a campaign hat and a lawn sign.Mr. Giuliani has seemed at ease in public, more affable and easygoing than his father.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesBack at the event in Hauppauge, a Suffolk County hamlet that sits on the edge of Mr. Zeldin’s district, many in attendance expressed unequivocal adoration for the elder Mr. Giuliani.“He saved New York,” said Penny Cialone, 60, adding, “And I think Andrew could do exactly what his dad did.”The younger Mr. Giuliani happily joked with his father, briefly jumping up as he began to speak.“We have a tradition of me interrupting his speeches,” he said. “I haven’t matured at all.”At the same time, the candidate also seemed aware of his father’s star power, even as the former mayor handed him the microphone.Taking it, Andrew Giuliani said he was thankful his father wasn’t running for governor.“Because I’d be in a whole lot of trouble,” he said, “if he could.”Nicholas Fandos More