politics

Rudy Giuliani’s daughter issued a stark warning about a second Trump presidency, using her father’s “implosion” as an example of what happens when someone is caught up in the former president’s “destructive trail”.

Giuliani has gone from a revered prosecutor and New York mayor that led the city through the devastation of the 9/11 attacks to a bankrupt and disbarred attorney since becoming one of Trump’s staunchest allies.

This fall from grace exemplifies how Donald Trump “destroys everything he touches”, according to Caroline Giuliani.

“Watching my dad’s life crumble since he joined forces with Trump has been extraordinarily painful, both on a personal level and because his demise feels linked to a dark force that threatens to once again consume America,” the 35-year-old wrote inVanity Fair Monday.

The writer and filmmaker said her father’s very public “implosion” has only caused her already “cartoonishly complicated relationship” to become more fraught.

Caroline wrote: “After months of feeling the type of sorrow that comes from the death of a loved one, it dawned on me that I’ve been grieving the loss of my dad to Trump. I cannot bear to lose our country to him too.”

She recalled when her father told her at a Fifth Avenue cigar bar that he was considering becoming Trump’s personal lawyer. In response, she begged that he not “go down this morally perilous path,” citing Trump’s “open racism, rampant misogyny, and total lack of empathy.”

“I even told my dad that I already felt ashamed of my last name whenever I saw headlines connecting him with Trump, and that this escalation would only deepen that feeling,” she wrote.

But she wasn’t able to convince him. Rudy Giuliani was added to Trump’s legal team in April 2018 during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

From November 2020 through February 2021, records suggest that Giuliani was tasked with a nationwide effort to try to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss.

Those efforts have resulted in him being disbarred in Washington, DC and his home state of New York, and indictments in election-related lawsuits across the country. Giuliani was also found liable in a defamation suit that plunged him into bankruptcy.

“Trump being the president was the worst thing that ever happened to my dad, to my family, and to our nation’s modern history. The consequences will only be more severe—and irreversible— a second time around,” Caroline Giuliani wrote.

Her article also referenced recent Supreme Court opinions, in part due to Trump’s conservative appointees; New York court judgments against the former president; and his tendency to “[demean] people based on their race, sexuality, disability status, and gender.”

Caroline Giuliani said that she would be voting for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris because “she is the only candidate who cares about my rights as a woman.”

The younger Giuliani also mentioned the “draconian” abortion bans that have cropped up since the Supreme Court reversed Roe.

These state-level bans are personal, she wrote. “As a woman in my 30s struggling with long-covid-related health issues, there’s a possibility that my soon-to-be husband and I will need to rely on surrogacy or fertility treatments if we want to have children of our own.”

She also praised Harris’ position on fighting the climate crisis, calling her “our only chance for a better future.”

Caroline urged voters to cast their ballot for Harris on November 5. “Take it from me, Trump destroys everything he touches. I saw it happen to my family. Don’t let it happen to yours, or to our country.”