GOP strategist Rick Wilson went to work for Rudy Giuliani in 1997 during his re-election campaign as Mayor of New York City. He remembers the Giuliani of that era, “Tireless, restless, aggressive, imperfect, hands-on all the time,” and the Giuliani of 9/11, a time which “broke him, rebuilt him, and changed something deep in his soul.” Having survived those rites de passage, Wilson sees Giuliani at yet another turning point. working for Trump. However, Wilson sees it as the Ides of May, and sketches out herein the final days for Rudy until Trump does what Trump must do and destroys Giuliani as, like some mad feral carniverous bird, he destroys everyone in his orbit. Rick Wilson, Daily Beast:
Trump follows a clear pattern with his employees, hangers-on, camp followers, and six-degrees-of-separation edge cases who trail him like chunks of matter kicked off some fecal comet hurling across the political firmament. The pattern is abundantly evident at this point, and it’s one Rudy should realize applies to everyone in Trump’s sphere of crapulous influence.
Here’s a preview, Mayor, of how this is going to go in the coming weeks:
You’re already out of the honeymoon phase, but I’m sure it was nice while it lasted. It always happens with Trump appointees: He praises you in his intense, hyperbolic way. Even if you’re a wily, hardened person, those blandishments tend to make his appointees drop their panties faster than a high-school cheerleader in the back of the quarterback’s van for a simple reason: the praise isn’t just from the president.
Sure, it’s nice when the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue sings your virtues, but the amplification mechanism of Fox News, Infowars, Breitbart, and others are so passionate and so fulsome that you really want to hoover up another rail of that ego powder. Then come the Trumpsplaining pieces in the gentry conservative outlets praising you as the One Who Got Trump Right and Is Turning Everything Around.
Then come the leaks. This White House has a singular leaker at the very top, and by now you should know that 70 percent of the time when “sources close to the president” bitchslap you to the press, you can just strike the words “sources close to” from the sentence. Trump is like some veldt animal at the edge of a muddy river, continually sniffing the wind for a scent; all he cares about is how the coverage reflects on him, so if he perceives an even slightly negative tone, the people sacrificing their reputations for him go under the bus.
Add to that the crew of Jared and Ivanka, hard at work with their Lil Machiavels playset. They hate you because haters hate. Duh. Throw in Hapless Leaker, and dead-man-walking John Kelly, Kellyanne von Munchausen, and the shitbird chorus on the outside of Trump’s political family and no one gets out of here alive.
Unlike in the past, there’s no Phoenix-like rise expected from this encounter. Rudy has been muzzled for days, only making one comment Tuesday when Michael Avenatti dropped his bombshell about Cohen’s involvement with AT&T, Novartis, et al., and that was to say, “He’s just trying to stink things up because Trump’s announcing withdrawal from the Iran deal.” Other than that, we’ve heard nary a peep.
A recent poll here gave Rudy until May 18. Let’s see how close we are to being correct.
This is a sad way for Rudy’s legacy to end but as Wilson predicts, he’s about to find out why nobody else wanted the job.
