Trump suggests Rudy Giuliani's crusade to overturn the election results is 'more important' than when Giuliani led New York's 9/11 response

• President Donald Trump on Monday said Rudy Giuliani's campaign to overturn the 2020 election results was "more important" than Giuliani's tenure as mayor, when he oversaw New York City's response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
• "Greatest mayor in the history of New York, and what he's doing now is more important, and he will admit that," Trump told reporters.
• Giuliani was widely praised for his management of New York's response to 9/11 and was nicknamed "America's mayor" as a result.
• But his public image has cratered in recent years as he's made headlines for spinning incoherent conspiracy theories; accidentally implicating Trump on national television; participating in a pressure campaign that got his client impeached; and interacting with foreign-intelligence operatives.
• Most recently, Giuliani has spearheaded the Trump campaign's flailing legal effort to nullify the 2020 election results but hasn't managed to win a single case.

President Donald Trump on Monday said Rudy Giuliani's efforts to nullify the 2020 election results were "more important" than when Giuliani as mayor oversaw New York City's response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"Rudy's doing well," Trump said of his personal lawyer, who on Sunday was admitted to Georgetown University Medical Center after testing positive for the novel coronavirus. "No temperature. He actually called me early this morning. It was the first call I got."

Trump continued: "Greatest mayor in the history of New York, and what he's doing now is more important, and he will admit that."

—Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) December 7, 2020

Giuliani was widely praised for his oversight of New York's 9/11 response and was nicknamed "America's mayor" as a result.

But his public image has devolved in recent years as he's made headlines for spinning an increasingly incoherent web of conspiracy theories; acknowledging on national television that Trump was involved in an illegal hush-money payment to a porn star; assisting Trump in a Ukraine pressure campaign that eventually got the president impeached; interacting with Russian intelligence operatives while digging for dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine; and more.

Most recently, Giuliani has spearheaded the Trump campaign's legal team working to overturn the election results, a group of attorneys that one lawyer on the team described as an "elite strike force" but that hasn't managed to notch a single victory in more than two dozen legal challenges it's filed since Election Day.

In his capacity as Trump's lead attorney, Giuliani held a news conference last month in which black liquid was seen trickling down his face while he used the comedy film "My Cousin Vinny" to try to prove the campaign's legal case.

—The Recount (@therecount) November 19, 2020

Before that, he held another press conference outside Four Seasons Total Landscaping, a Pennsylvania landscaping company that was sandwiched between a crematorium and a sex shop. Afterward, it was reported that a man Giuliani asked to speak at the conference about purported voter fraud was a convicted sex offender.

In the weeks since, the former New York mayor crisscrossed the country to attend Republican events focused on revealing supposedly rampant fraud in battleground states such as Georgia, Michigan, and Arizona. At all of the indoor events, Giuliani was frequently seen maskless and disregarding social-distancing guidelines as he shook hands with Trump supporters and posed for photographs with them.

Trump announced on Sunday afternoon that his lawyer had tested positive for the coronavirus, though it's unclear when Giuliani received the diagnosis and whether the White House had started contact tracing to gauge who else may have been exposed. Giuliani's son, Andrew, who is a special assistant to Trump, also tested positive for virus last month.