Andrew Kirtzman

Andrew Kirtzman is the author of Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City (2000). From his interview with Slate's Issac Chotiner:

What was Giuliani’s relationship with Trump like when he was mayor?

A lot of us New York reporters have been talking to each other about when this all began. None of us could recall any moment when the two of them were particularly close during his time as mayor. The most high-profile collaboration was the video of Giuliani in drag going shopping with Donald Trump, and it was obvious from that that they were pretty simpatico. But I don’t recall them being close. Giuliani’s friends at the time tended to be the people who were close to him politically. It is a very small crew wherever he has gone, and Trump was not it.

I am not asking you to diagnose him, just to be clear. But when you watch him on television now, versus 15 years ago, how do you think he seems?

The brilliant thing about Giuliani from the time he was prosecutor through Sept. 11 was this very lawyerly, factual way of communicating. Even when he was attacking someone, he was extremely persuasive. And that persuasive quality really disappeared at the Republican convention for Trump. It was just a horrible, horrible spectacle. I can’t get into his head as to what happened, but it is depressing. I was with Giuliani on Sept. 11 and experienced that morning with him. I was overwhelmed by his leadership and his calm and his methodical approach to putting things back together, and the inspiring way that he calmed the city and lifted our spirits. It’s always been kind of fashionable in certain liberal circles to hate Giuliani, but I was never on that bandwagon. At all. I have seen him display greatness, and that is why it is so sad to see what...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue