That’s a hell of a headline. But we are nothing if not truthful when it comes to delivering what we promise with our titles, so here we go.
On Tuesday evening, one of our favorite White House reporters, Gabe Sherman of Vanity Fair, published an article with a quote in it so explosive we weren’t actually sure if “furious” in our own title was going to be enough. Apoplectic? Nuclear? On the verge of a full-scale meltdown? Not title-friendly words, unfortunately. But what Sherman was referring to were the statements from two Republicans close to Trump who told him that all was not well in Trumpworld after Rudy Giuliani’s most recent press appearances.
So is he fired? Not so much. But Rudy is probably going radio silent again for a while — ironic, since he hadn’t been heard from seemingly in weeks and weeks until he appeared back on America’s radar to fill the morning news shows with accidental admissions of guilt over the last week.
Trump is screaming. He’s so mad at Rudy.“
If that’s hyperbole, it’s not ours. That’s directly from one of Sherman’s GOP sources, and what they’re talking about, of course, is the fact that in the brief media window — between the time that Mueller’s office rebuked a news report about goings-on at the special counsel and before anything new was dug up about Trump’s increasingly incriminating involvement with Russia during his presidential campaign — where Team Trump could make it seem like Mueller was basically calling BuzzFeed fake news, Rudy instead filled the void with more unforced errors.
He wasted one of their only moments to let the narrative turn with minimal effort from them, and he did it while accidentally revealing that yes, the president totally talked to Michael Cohen about his testimony before Congress — that he’s now pleaded guilty to lying about. Did Rudy come out and say “Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress” directly? No, but he might as well have.
Worse still for the former New York Mayor is an emerging parallel narrative about the possible reason for his erratic appearances on the news networks: He might just be drunk.
That could be Trump insiders spreading rumors to try and frame a future narrative in which “Rudy is a crazy person and doesn’t represent us in any way,” but as rumors go, this one’s pretty on the nose. For one, it’s not the first time this kind of speculation has surfaced. Couple that with the fact that, well, Rudy kinda seems drunk all the time, and this could be a convincing way to throw Giuliani under the bus if Jared and Ivanka ever manage to convince the old man to get rid of him.
And that’s not National Enquirer stuff — an AP report from like half an hour before I wrote this article references the same rumor:
Some of Trump’s allies have suggested that Giuliani be barred from evening interviews because of concerns that he was going on TV after drinking, according to three Republicans close to the White House.”
We can’t imagine Rudy’s going to last much longer, one way or the other. Either Caesar’s advisers will convince the emperor to throw him to the lions, or perhaps he’ll just take the hemlock and face the lions in the afterlife.
Featured image via screen capture
