An ex-official in former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s administration said Tuesday that some of Giuliani’s recent remarks to the media have been “jarring.”
Susan Del Percio, a New York-based Republican strategist, told CNN that Giuliani has behaved like “a different person than what we all knew 20, 25 years ago” and suggested the shift in demeanor is likely because of Trump.
“I think he’s kind of moved into the Trump model, which is exactly what you don’t want from someone who’s your spokesperson,” she told CNN Tuesday. “You’re suppose to compliment and temper them, not do — not play into their worst attributes. … What we see now, so many years later, it is jarring.”
Del Percio said she could not “guess the state of mind” of Giuliani right now, but offered that he’s likely navigating a new state of transition as a recent addition to Trump’s legal team.
“Elected officials are very ego driven,” she said. “It’s usually about them, of course, it’s how they get up every day and face the negative stuff as well as the positive, but it is very hard to make that transition and most of them really just want to stay relevant in the conversation.”
In a series of stunning interviews in recent days, Giuliani has compared the FBI to a military wing of the Nazi party, criticized former FBI director James Comey and made wildly conflicting claims about Trump’s knowledge of the $130,000 payment his personal attorney made to porn actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election.
Del Percio is not the first former Giuliani associate to criticize the ex-mayor for his recent comments to the media. Former Justice Department inspector general and former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Michael Bromwich called his “stormtrooper” remarks “unhinged.”
For those of us who worked for Giuliani 30+ years ago, his decline over the past 10 years has been sad and embarrassing to watch. His recent unhinged attacks — on the FBI, Comey, Mueller, the SDNY—have brought him to the lowest point yet. https://t.co/0yCOCDYjgW
— Michael R. Bromwich (@mrbromwich) May 6, 2018
