The Appalling Last Act of Rudy Giuliani

There was a moment during Rudolph Giuliani’s extended exchange with Chris Cuomo, on CNN, last Thursday morning when the former mayor had the look of a man posing for a portrait to be titled, simply, “After.” The “Before” could’ve been taken at nearly any moment prior to Giuliani’s endorsement of Donald Trump, his near-deafening Convention speech in Cleveland, or the frantic grasping for relevance that has defined his recent public presence. Trump’s campaign has compromised so many prominent conservatives—particularly the troika of Reince Priebus, Mitch McConnell, and Paul Ryan—that it’s almost possible to overlook the way it has initiated the grim denouement of Giuliani’s career. “After” began at the precise moment that Giuliani, a man whose own political career was marked by a defense of undocumented immigrants, hitched his political fortunes to the most prominent xenophobe in recent American history.