August 1, 2021

Rudy Giuliani Is Reportedly Close to Broke—and Donald Trump Isn’t Taking His Calls

That’s what happens when you go to bat for a notoriously cheap, friendless, crappy businessman.

Matias J. Ocner/ZUMA

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Having raised more money than anyone else in the Republican Party so far this year, new filings show Donald Trump is flush with cash. Absolutely swimming in it. But even as the money flows in, the former president is reportedly stiffing one of his fiercest allies and loyal political surrogates, Rudy Giuliani, as the former New York mayor becomes increasingly ensnared in a federal investigation that’s reportedly costing him millions in legal fees.

Here’s the latest on the apparent fallout between the two men:

That’s particularly worrisome for Giuliani, whose legal defense fund has effectively failed to raise anything in his fight against the federal probe into whether he worked as an unregistered lobbyist for Ukrainian officials. Giuliani, who was recently suspended from practicing law in New York, is also facing a separate lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems over his relentless election lies. And despite his penchant for conspiracy theories and misinformation, it appears, as Haberman notes, that Giuliani does seem to understand the gravity of his precarious legal situation.

“I’m more than willing to go to jail if they want to put me in jail,” he told NBC New York’s Melissa Russo in an interview last week. “And if they do, they’re going to suffer the consequences in heaven, I’m not. Because I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Those remarks came despite the fact that the interview, as Russo explained in the segment, was supposed to focus on the upcoming 20th anniversary of September 11th. That Giuliani instead nervously discussed his legal jeopardy doesn’t exactly exude confidence in his chances of escaping jail time—or how he’s going to pay for all of this. But that’s what happens when you go to bat for Donald Trump, isn’t it?

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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