Rudy Giuliani, the disgraced former Mayor of New York City and personal attorney to Donald Trump, has been suspended from WABC Radio and his radio show canceled. The suspension comes after Giuliani repeatedly violated the station’s ban on discussing discredited claims about the 2020 presidential election. Despite warnings from station management, Giuliani continued to address these topics on his daily talk show, leading to the cancellation of the program.
Giuliani, a rabid supporter of former president Donald Trump before, during and as evidenced by his repeated claims of the “Big Lie” (that the 20202 election had been “stolen” from Trump) has seen his reputation destroyed as a result of his unwavering support of Trump. Disgraced, possibly disbarred, mocked, indicted and self-declaredly bankrupt, this is only the latest price that Giuliani is paying for his allegiance to the former president.
John Catsimatidis, the billionaire Republican businessman who owns ABC station, said he had made the decision to cancel Giuliani’s show after many warnings to avoid the topic.
Giuliani has faced financial ruin and calamitous damage to his reputation, nevertheless, the formerly respected Giuliani remains defiant and resistant to any curtailment of his propagation of lies and claims of conspiracies against the GOP and Donald Trump.
In December 2023, he was ordered by a jury to pay $148 million in a defamation case brought by two former Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss. Giuliani called the charges of defamation “absurd” and vowed to appeal. But the verdict was widely seen as a new low point for the man once praised as “America’s mayor”.
Nick Akerman, a New York attorney who briefly worked alongside Giuliani in the federal prosecutors’ office there, stated, “It’s like everything is crashing down on him. He hasn’t come to grips with what he has done to his life. He has completely destroyed himself.”
To add insult to injury, Giuliani eventually also had a falling out with Donald Trump, a man who is infamously known to demand loyalty from his grovelers but not to give any in return. The conflict emerged when Trump refused to pay Giuliani’s legal fees. Giuliani has been from the start a key figure in Trump’s attempts to challenge the 2020 election results, and reportedly Giuliani put in claims for $20,000 a day in fees. His claims were ignored. In the end, reports in 2024 revealed that while Trump’s political action committee did not pay Giuliani’s attorney fees directly, it did cover a mere $300,000 for his archived records related to court cases, a sum that was far short of what Giuliani expected. Additionally, Giuliani claimed that Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee owed him approximately $2 million for his legal efforts post-election.
To defray some of these sums, and to avoid paying out any of his own money, Donald Trump has hosted a number of fundraisers to cover Giuliani’s legal fees.
Following the court order to pay the $148 million, Giuliani filed for bankruptcy with his attorney stating that paying the requested damages “will be the end” of him financially. Whether this is true is debatable. Giuliani’s net worth, once in the multimillions thanks to a successful career in the private sector post-mayoralty, is still estimated to be worth about $50 million. The radio show and a podcast add considerably to his revenue stream, but with the cancellation from ABC station, one more source has been eliminated.
Added to the financial collapse of Rudy Giuliani are his past and pending legal troubles. As of June 24, 2021, the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court suspended Giuliani’s law license, citing “uncontroverted evidence that respondent communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020”.
While this suspension is not equivalent to disbarment, which is a more severe form of disciplinary action that would completely remove his ability to practice law, it prevents him from practicing his profession in New York and therefore cuts off his principal stream of revenue. The disbarment process, which is long and complicated, is still underway in Washington DC, where a disciplinary panel for the DC Bar Association recommended on July 7, 2023, that Giuliani be disbarred due to his actions following the 2020 election. The recommendation by the panel is a step in the process, and the final decision rests with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
The cancellation of the ABC talk show is only the latest low point in Rudy Giuliani’s life, all caused by his unconditional loyalty to Donald Trump.
However, Catsimatidis’ decision reflects the broader media landscape’s ongoing struggle with balancing free speech and the dissemination of misinformation, especially with the approach of the 2024 election as the political climate becomes even more charged with rhetoric that twists and bends the truth.
