(AFP) – Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is hospitalized in “critical but stable condition,” his spokesman said Sunday, without disclosing what ails the 81-year-old former politician. “Mayor Giuliani is a fighter who has faced every challenge in his life with unwavering strength, and he’s fighting with that same level of strength as we speak,” spokesman Ted Goodman said in an X post. Goodman did not say where Giuliani was receiving care or how long he had been there, but he asked “that you join us in prayer for America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani.”
The New York Times reported that Giuliani was hospitalized in Florida. Giuliani earned the moniker of “America’s mayor” for leading New York City through the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center buildings in Manhattan. Earlier in his career, he gained fame as the fearless Mafia-busting prosecutor whose aggressive use of racketeering laws brought down New York’s organized crime families.
But Giuliani experienced a stunning fall from grace in recent years, including in 2023 when a federal jury ordered him to pay $148 million to two election workers after defaming them by falsely tying them to alleged fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Giuliani, a Republican, became a fierce defender of President Donald Trump, joining his personal legal team in Trump’s first White House term.
He came under scrutiny by the Manhattan US attorney’s office in 2019 over his activities connected with investigations about Ukraine and apparent efforts to dig up dirt on Trump’s Democratic rival Joe Biden. Giuliani was also part of the effort to reverse his client’s clear election loss to Biden in 2020. But one by one, the post-election court challenges were withdrawn or dismissed as groundless.
He has since been disbarred in New York and Washington. Giuliani was facing criminal charges in Arizona related to the 2020 election and other legal issues when Trump issued him a sweeping pardon last November. On Sunday, Trump hailed Giuliani as a “true warrior” and New York’s best-ever mayor. “What a tragedy that he was treated so badly by the Radical Left Lunatics, Democrats ALL — AND HE WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!” Trump added. “They cheated on the Elections, fabricated hundreds of stories, did anything possible to destroy our Nation, and now, look at Rudy. So sad!”
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