28 new york | november 25–december 8, 2019
a golf cart.” The second White House
reporter added, “I’ve definitely woken up to
a missed FaceTime call, which I can only
hope was inadvertent.”
Recently, Giuliani created a group chat
with me, Sinclair host Eric Bolling, CNN
senior political analyst John Avlon, and two
numbers I didn’t recognize to send an
unsolicited statement from his attorney.
Another time, I woke up in the middle of
the night to a long and angry text from
Giuliani, sent at 2:46 a.m., containing an
Apple News link to a story I’d written about
theformerveep.“J oeBidenis a goodman?
Are you so blinded by your own biases.
Everywhere he was named a PointMan by
Obama his family made millions,” he wrote.
I tried to respond, but my text wentthrough
to his email address instead of as an iMes-
sage. Had he blocked me? I senthim an
email asking if we could talk,and he
responded in the middle of the night a few
days later. He said I had “too many biases
to overcome.” Others have hadsimilar
experiences. A fourth reporter recalled
being blocked by Giuliani after his new
communications director, Christianné
Allen, answered his phone for the first
time. “I’ve found that the best way to get
Giuliani to respond is to push his buttons a
bit,” this reporter said. “Though it’s been a
lot harder for me to reach him lately.”
I asked the White House if anyone over
there is concerned about someone so erratic
having access to the president’s secrets. In
response, White House press secretary
Stephanie Grisham said, “Mr. Giuliani is a
private citizen, and as such, we haveno com-
ment on this.”
It would be impossible to honestly dis-
cuss Giuliani’s communication habits
without discussing his habits more gener-
ally. It’s well documented that he’s a night
owl and a creature of cigar bars in Manhat-
tan and Washington, and rumors have long
swirled about his drinking. (“I’m not drink-
ing for lunch,” Giuliani told Politico after
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough accused him of
drinking too much. “I may have a drink for
dinner. I like to drink with cigars.”)As Giuliani has transformed before our
eyes in the Trump era, longtime friends,
associates, and observers have asked, with
as much concern as contempt, What hap-
pened? The question and the theories it has
given rise to—some kind of decline or
dependence—seem as much about denial
as anything else, like a refusal to accept that
a person of sound mind would choose to
behave this way, to defend this president in
this manner, to throw away decades of
goodwill after a life in public service, and for
what? Proximity to power? All the wrong
kindofat tention?
“I think the reality is people perceive a
decline because they’re witnessing him being
extremely aggressive, persistent, and vocal
about a political issue that has polarized the
country,” former NYPD commissioner Ber-
nard Kerik told me. “I think people just see
his aggression as a decline. But I have to tell
you, in sitting with him and goingthrough
these details, names, times, places, all the
stuff that he has collected since last year, I
can tell you he doesn’t miss a beat.There is
no decline. It’s almost like he has reverted
back to his prosecutorial mind-set.”
A second longtime Giuliani associate
agreed with Kerik. “I’ve been around him a
lot. I haven’t seen him ever drink more than
two drinks,” this person said. The associate
called questions about Giuliani’sstate of
mind unfair and insisted that he’s as “razor
sharp” as ever. And besides, this person
added, Giuliani “takes the attorney-client
privilege very, very seriously” anddoesn’t
talk about his communications with the
president over text or email. Whenreached
for comment, Giuliani replied: “Garbage
your publication cannot be counted on to
report fairly on this salacious stupidity ... I
am a high functioning human being able to
outwork people half my age. Compared to
Biden and Pelosi, I’m a phenom.”
Still, some people who communicate
with him believe Giuliani’s behavior can be
almost predictable—if you know what you
ought to try to predict. “I usually try getting
him around eight, nine o’clock. After that,
he’s often too deranged,” the third White
House reporter said. “You want him to be
loose but not completely kind of unmoored.”
This reporter said that the process began
to feel fraught and unseemly—not in a Sam
Nunberg, Should we be talking to this guy
right now? kind of way, but becauseGiuliani
is “the most unreliable narrator ever.”
“There’s almost no point in talking to
him, but he’s objectively newsworthy and in
a position of great power. So you’ve gotta
talk to him, but most of the time, it’s like a
Breitbart comments page. You’re just deal-
ing with a troll. It’s funny, but aftera while,
it’s like, what’s the point?” ■described it. “I couldn’t make any sense of it
or figure out how he managed to text me a
recording inadvertently.” Or when he mis-
takenly texted what appeared to be a pass-
word to reporter Roger Sollenberger.
Giuliani is probably the most accessible
star of an international political scandal in
modern history, open to corresponding
directly with almost anyone, anytime, tell-
ing them information that may be repeti-
tive or mundane but that just as likely may
bea realdevelopment in the story that
determines the future of this presidency.
(Trump,too,isknownforcompulsively
usinghisphone, but to make calls, not to
text.) On big news days in Washington, it
can feel like everybody is texting with
Giuliani at the same time—and sometimes
it’s because we are. Or we sure hope it’s
Giuliani we’re talking to. “He changes
numbers somewhat randomly,” one White
House reporter said, “so you never really
know if you’re texting the right number.”
Personally, I have half a dozen numbers for
Giuliani saved. Which one is mostreliable
today? Only one way to find out, really!
Fortunately, there are tells. Giuliani uses
iMessage, and, like so many menover 50
who work for Trump, he has readreceipts
enabled and often uses iMessage’s reaction
feature to like questions sent to him instead
of providing an answer. Just as often, he
likes his own messages. On one occasion, he
scrolled back an entire day in our conversa-
tion to add a like to a message of his own.
He didn’t explain why. “It’s unclear what it
means,” the White House reporter said
before recounting a similarly odd, like-
related experience. “He once liked a ques-
tion I sent him about him being accused of
illegal lobbying, and then he didn’trespond
to the question about lobbying.”
A second White House reporter added,
“Every now and then, he might send some
variety of the smiley-face emoji,but he’s
much more likely to like his own texts. I
remember one time he gave his own text a
thumbs-down but then promptly switched
it to a thumbs-up.” On the subject of emoji:
During a news cycle that called into ques-
tion the state of his employment as
Trump’s personal lawyer, I texted back and
forth with Giuliani for the duration of my
flight from New Hampshire to Washing-
ton. When I asked him whetherhe’d be
surprised if Trump ended up throwing him
under the bus, he texted back, “Stop,” with
the stop-sign emoji (a deep cut on the
emoji keyboard).
Then there are weirder events. “He
sometimes sends text messages that are
clearly not meant for you,” the first White
House reporter said. “For example,he once
sent me a picture of him smoking acigar on“ He once sent mea picture of himsmoking a cigaron a golf cart.”intelligencer