Giuliani's ex-wife says the former mayor was afraid he'd become irrelevant after losing the 2008 GOP presidential nomination: NYT

• Judith Giuliani said her ex-husband was fearful of irrelevancy after ending his 2008 White House bid.
• Her feelings were detailed in an essay adapted from an upcoming book about the former NYC mayor.

Judith Giuliani, the former wife of Rudy Giuliani, said in the adaptation of an upcoming book that her ex-husband was concerned about becoming irrelevant after leaving the 2008 Republican presidential contest and throwing his support behind then-Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Earlier in his career, Giuliani had been the hard-charging US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and a two-term mayor of New York City, but the demise of his White House bid led him to do a lot of soul-searching, which Andrew Kirtzman detailed in "Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America's Mayor."

Immediately after leaving the race, Rudy Giuliani began to shun social situations, according to an essay by Kirtzman published Monday in The New York Times essay.

The former mayor had been in the spotlight for decades, but as his 2008 campaign ended, he suddenly found himself without the platform for higher office that seemed to be within reach just one year earlier.

"Mr. Giuliani's ex-wife Judith, who was with him at the time, told me that what gnawed at the former mayor most was a creeping fear of irrelevancy. The flameout forced him to lower his sights from how to amass power to how to hold on to what he had left," the essay said.

In 2009, reflecting on the race, he told New York magazine that he should have put more effort into winning the Iowa Republican caucuses.

"I think I should've fought Iowa harder," he said at the time. "That was the beginning of becoming irrelevant."

Giuliani would once again regain a prominent role in American politics as the onetime personal attorney to former President Donald Trump and supporter of the former president's debunked claims about the 2020 election.

He never launched another presidential campaign after his 2008 loss.

Judith Giuliani and Rudy Giuliani divorced in 2019.