A former Giuliani top aide, who has known the former New York mayor for at least 26 years, says his ex-boss has become a 'right-wing conspiracy nut'
- The former press secretary of Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney of President Donald Trump, has launched a series of attacks against his old boss.
- Ken Frydman, who worked for Giuliani during his New York mayoral campaign in 1993, told MSNBC that Giuliani had become a "right-wing conspiracy nut."
- Frydman also wrote in a New York Times op-ed that "America's Mayor" - as Giuliani was called after the 9/11 attacks - had become President Donald Trump's "bumbling personal lawyer and henchman, his apologist and defender of the indefensible."
- Giuliani's role in putting pressure on Ukraine to probe Trump's domestic political rival, Joe Biden, has come under increasing scrutiny.
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A former top aide to Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney of President Donald Trump, has called his old boss a "right-wing conspiracy nut" and "defender of the indefensible" in a series of scathing attacks.
Ken Frydman, who served as Giuliani's press secretary during his New York mayoral campaign in 1993, made his views known in an MSNBC interview and a New York Times op-ed this week.
"The old Rudy listened because he wanted to win," Frydman said. "The new Rudy doesn't listen anymore because he won and you can't tell him anything he doesn't know."
He also shot down speculation of Giuliani's health, saying: "I don't think, as many people think, he's unhinged or suffering from dementia. I think that he is zealously trying to protect his golden goose, frankly, the president."
Giuliani's impassioned and animated defense of Trump in recent weeks has prompted mockery, with a recent ad on New York's subway ridiculing him as "crazy Rudy."
Read more: Giuliani gave a wild interview saying he 'will be the hero' of the Ukraine scandal
Frydman said, however, that he believes Giuliani is "not telling the truth and it's clear that he is fumbling and bumbling in his attempts to do that."
"He was very good at message discipline and control, back in the day," said Frydman.
In an op-ed in The New York Times, published Monday, Frydman also compared Giuliani's popularity as "America's Mayor" after the September 11 terror attacks on New York City with his current role defending Trump.
"'America's Mayor,' as Rudy was called after Sept. 11, is today President Trump's bumbling personal lawyer and henchman, his apologist and defender of the indefensible," he wrote.
Frydman had stood up for Giuliani as recently as 2018, when he wrote in the New York Daily News that Giuliani's fierce advocacy for Trump reflected "his instinctive hardball personality," but he said Monday that the Ukraine scandal had swayed him.
"Watching and reading Rudy's ferocious lying for Mr. Trump, whether on Fox or CNN, forced me to re-examine his last 25 years, especially the profiteering from Sept. 11," Frydman wrote.
"But Ukraine was the coup de grâce. We who admired him for so long expected much more from Rudy Giuliani and his legacy."
Giuliani did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment on Frydland's comments, which was submitted through his attorney.
Giuliani has come under immense scrutiny in recent weeks for his role in the Trump administration's attempt to have Ukraine investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Those attempts, which were made public by an explosive whistleblower complaint, have sparked a House impeachment investigation into Trump.
Giuliani has also been criticized for citing debunked conspiracy theories to justify his actions on Ukraine.
He has also sought to defend pressuring Ukraine to investigate Biden in a series of combative - and sometimes contradictory - interviews in recent weeks.