It’s hard to reconcile the life and career of Rudy Giuliani. In the wake of 9/11, he experienced a worldwide boost in popularity where he was dubbed “America’s Mayor” and named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year. Yet he also spent nearly 15 years married to his second cousin.
While he’s always been a polarizing public figure, the past several years have definitely not been kind to Rudy’s public image. So when news broke that the FBI came knocking at Giuliani’s door at 6 a.m. on Wednesday to serve search warrants for both his home and office, few people were surprised. And while Seth Meyers joined in the public mockery, he also pointed out that Rudy’s downfall is largely a disaster of the former mayor’s own making.
On Thursday night, Meyers dedicated more than 13 minutes of his show to “A Closer Look” segment about the raid on Giuliani’s apartment, the cartoon-like gang of goons he has surrounded himself with, and a brief history of how Giuliani has repeatedly invited suspicion to fall on him, particularly in his role as Donald Trump’s personal attorney, by outing his misdeeds for all the world to see.
Meyers took a stroll down criminal misdeeds memory lane to remind viewers of Rudy’s many public gaffes. Like the time he accidentally butt-dialed an NBC reporter and left a long voicemail in which he can be overheard complaining about the Bidens and telling an associate that he was in need of lots of cash. Or when he left an obsequious voicemail for Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville in which he attempted to get him to drag his feet on a vote so that Rudy and Donald Trump could try and overturn the results of a completely legitimate public election… but made a whoopsie and left the message for a different senator (who promptly released it to the public).
While a big part of the FBI raid story has been that Rudy’s electronic devices were confiscated, Meyers rolled footage of the many, many times the former president’s lawyer popped up on Fox News and openly scrolled through his own screens for all the world to see. “No wonder they never asked Rudy to wear a wire,” Meyers said. “He is a wire.”
That said, when you think about the many blatant blunders Rudy has made out in the open, who knows other secrets those devices might hold.
You can watch the full clip above, complete with the pretty spot-on Owen Wilson imitation mentioned in our headline.