Interviewee: Rudy Giuliani
Interviewer: Katie Couric
Date: 29 November 2007

Katie Couric had an opportunity to scrutinize Rudolph “Rudy” Giuliani during the height of his candidacy for the 2008 presidential elections in the US. In this interview, he strongly denies accusations about him embezzling taxpayers’ money when he was the mayor of New York City.

Allegedly, Rudy Giuliani billed a number of dubious trips from 1999 to 2001 to a number of New York offices, including the NYC Loft Board, Office for People with Disabilities and Assigned Counsel Administrative Office—supposedly to cover an extramarital affair. The destination of the trips in question was South Hampton, New York, where his would-be third wife Judith Nathan lived. The expenditures amounted to well over $440,000. The affair, which culminated in a marriage in 2003, cast an inauspicious light on Giuliani.

Throughout most of 2007, since filing his statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission on February 5, Giuliani led polls among Republican nominees. However, on January 30, 2008, Rudy Giuliani officially dropped out of the race, due to his poor showing in the Florida primary that month.

Observers blamed his strategy of not campaigning in the states Iowa and New Hampshire in the early primaries. Conservative Republicans were not also on the same page with the former New York mayor, who supported abortion rights, same-sex civil unions, gun control and embryonic stem cell research.

Rudy Giuliani was first elected mayor in 1993. Largely due to his drive in bringing down the city’s crime rate, he was elected to a second term in 1997.

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Rudy Giuliani surfaced as a unifying presence in the midst of the calamity, earning him the moniker “America’s Mayor.” Rudy Giuliani was promptly conferred with an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II, while Time honored him 2001’s Person of the Year.