A Brief History of Things That Did Not Get Rudy Giuliani Banned From Fox News
Rudy Giuliani has been banned from appearing on Fox News. He’s reportedly “really sad” about it, too, which is understandable considering how frequently he’s appeared on the network over the course of his political career, especially since he hitched himself to Donald Trump.
Fox News has declined to comment on Giuliani’s ban, but it appears it is a result of his repeated contention that the 2020 election was rigged and the lawsuits that resulted. It’s a worthy reason to ban someone, but then again, so is pretty much everything Giuliani has said and done during the Trump era and beyond. Here’s a partial list.
RACISM
Giuliani’s has a long history of bigoted statements, particularly against Muslims. In 2016, he bragged to The Intercept that “he was the mayor who put police officers in mosques,” and later described tagging Muslims on the federal government’s watch list with GPS devices as an “excellent idea.” He also said Black Lives Matter is “inherently racist.”
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Giuliani doesn’t discriminate when it comes to racism, either. In October 2020, Giuliani — notoriously tech … what’s the opposite of “savvy”? — posted a video of himself doing a racist impersonation of an Asian person.
It may be asking a lot for Fox News to have banned Giuliani over racism, though. Tucker Carlson, the host of the network’s most popular primetime show, has been pushing white supremacist rhetoric for years.
UKRAINE
Well, the whole scandal about Giuliani lobbying the Ukrainian government to declare it was investigating Joe Biden is probably grounds to stop having him on the network. Giuliani even admitted on Fox News in 2019 that he forced U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich out of her position. In April 2021, federal authorities raided Giuliani’s apartment as part of an investigation into whether Giuliani lobbied for Yovanovich’s removal at the behest of the Ukrainian government.
GENERAL CREEPINESS
Giuliani embodies old-man creepiness like few other politicians. This doesn’t pair well with his lack of self-awareness. Earlier this year, Giuliani told a bizarre, very creepy story about looking at golfer Michelle Wie’s underwear while she was putting. “She bends all the way over. And her panties show. And the press was going crazy,” Giuliani said on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. “They were trying to take pictures of her panties.”
THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Giuliani has long defended Trump’s 2016 campaign, for which he served as a surrogate. While stumping for Trump, he praised the candidate as a “genius” for finding ways to avoid paying federal income tax, said Trump would be a better president than “a woman,” and accused Barack Obama of hating America, claiming he “wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up.” Once Trump was in office, Giuliani defended how the campaign questionable practices, saying in 2019 that “there’s nothing wrong with taking information from Russians,” while also implying that there are circumstances in which a presidential campaign could accept stolen materials. It was reported in August 2021 that Giuliani told investigators in 2018 that it was OK to lie during a presidential campaign. “There’s no obligation to tell the truth,” he said.
THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION… AND EVERYTHING AFTER
Giuliani has been pushing the false idea that the 2020 election was rigged in Biden’s favor, and reportedly played a crucial role in stoking Trump’s fixation on the possibility that the presidency was stolen. He embarrassed himself and the campaign by hosting a press conference challenging the results in a landscaping company’s parking lot. Days later, his hair started leaking during another press conference, this one conducted alongside Sydney Powell, the attorney who would claim that George Soros and Venezuelan communists interfered in the election on Biden’s behalf. This should have been enough for Fox News to stop bringing Giuliani, a veritable clown, on to discuss serious issues.
It wasn’t, though. The ban of Giuliani seems to be a result not of the conspiracy theories he was pushing about the election, but the fact that these conspiracy theories led to legal action from Dominion Voting Systems, which in turn could lead to legal issues for Fox News if they brought on Giuliani, who is liable to shove his foot in his mouth at a moment’s notice.
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