Giuliani Biographer Points to ‘Humiliation’ in 2008 To Explain Why Rudy is So Loyal to Trump He’d Go to Jail For Him

For anyone who has followed the career of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, his seemingly unconditional loyalty to former President Donald Trump despite his mounting legal troubles is a conundrum. A former U.S. attorney who made a name for himself going after the mob is now being charged himself for alleged offenses under the same RICO laws, all while standing by the man who put him up to all of it. So, why does Giuliani remain so loyal to Donald Trump, even after 91 total charges across four criminal indictments?

This was the question asked by MSNBC host Chris Jansing to author and journalist Andrew Kirtzman, who has covered Giuliani for decades and wrote Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor in addition to an op-ed about Giuliani in Wednesday’s New York Times. And he explained that there was a turning point for Giuliani, who was left in “the political wilderness” after his failed run for president in 2008 and was immediately taken under the wing of Trump:

Jansing: Can you pinpoint a time when America’s mayor, when the guy who prosecuted RICO cases changed? And was it about Donald Trump?

Kirtzman: Well, there are two pivots in Rudy Giuliani’s life. One was 9/11, when he became more popular than the Pope, according to a poll at that time. And then the 2008 presidential race when he entered as a front runner and ended it in humiliation with just one delegate. And it was at that moment in 2008 when things kind of crashed around him, when he lost his 9/11 halo, was left in kind of the political wilderness. There was Donald Trump. And Donald Trump literally took him in to Mar-a-Lago right after his failure in 2008 and kind of shielded Giuliani when he was, kind of fell into a depression that I write about in my book. But also the two of them needed each other by 2016. Trump needed Giuliani because he didn’t have any political friends, and Giuliani needed Trump because no one was knocking at Giuliani’s door anymore to to endorse them. They each had a lot of reason to bond together. And they like each other. They like each other a lot. They respect each other.

Watch the full video via MSNBC.