Trump's aides believed Rudy Giuliani was always buzzed, 'in the mumble tank,' and on the verge of becoming senile, new book says

• Trump aides thought Giuliani was "in the mumble tank" and on the cusp of senility, a new book said.
• They thought he was "always buzzed," with "focus issues, memory problems," and "simple logic failures."
• But Giuliani enjoyed unlimited access to Trump as he told him what he wanted to hear, the book said.

Former President Donald Trump's advisors believed that his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was usually drunk and on the verge of senility, according to "Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency," by Michael Wolff.

"Giuliani was, many around Trump believed, always buzzed if not, in the phrase Steve Bannon made famous in the Trump White House, hopelessly 'in the mumble tank,'" Wolff wrote in the book, an early copy of which Insider obtained. "Many believed he had the beginnings of senility: focus issues, memory problems, simple logic failures. A vast disorganization of papers and files and tech malfunctions followed in his wake."

The book said that Giuliani's weight had "ballooned" and that "his popping eyes and poorly dyed hair made him seem like a pre-television age character, a past-his-time and gone-to-seed former official hanging around the courthouse steps regaling anyone who will listen with tall tales and wild theories of the shameful secrets and gothic underbelly of politics."

Wolff wrote that Giuliani's life "seemed to be singularly sustained by his being on television."

Giuliani's longtime personal assistant did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and texts to multiple phone numbers associated with the former New York mayor went unanswered.

Wolff's reporting about the Trump administration in his 2018 book "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" drew sharp scrutiny after fact-checkers found that many of the details in it didn't add up. Wolff stood by the book and has said that "Landslide" features only episodes confirmed by Trump's staffers and backed up by multiple sources.

The book said Trump's advisors worked hard to restrict, if not cut off, Giuliani's access to Trump in the wake of his blunders during Robert Mueller's investigation and Trump's first impeachment. "There was not just concern over Rudy in the West Wing, but deep resentment and even hatred of him," Wolff wrote.

"'Everything Rudy has touched in the four years of this presidency,' said [Trump advisor] Matt Morgan in disgust one afternoon as the election challenge began to unfold, 'has gone bad,'" the book said. "You would have been hard pressed to find anyone in Trumpworld who had not thought or said as much."

Despite their best efforts, Trump's aides couldn't block Giuliani from showing up at the White House, especially after Trump's election loss, and he often enjoyed unfettered access to the Oval Office because he was "willing to tell Trump not only that he could do whatever he wanted to do, but that he could go beyond this" and "offered Trump vastly more power, right, and discretion than even Trump himself thought possible," the book said.

That relationship wasn't always equal; according to Wolff's reporting, Trump often criticized Giuliani even though the 77-year-old former New York City mayor was one of his most loyal disciples.

During one conversation with a caller shortly after the 2020 election, Wolff wrote, Trump said Giuliani drank too much and often said things that weren't true.

"But Rudy would fight," the book said. "He could be counted on to fight even when others wouldn't. And, too, he would work for free."

The Wall Street Journal's Michael Bender painted a similar picture of Trump and Giuliani's imbalanced relationship in his latest book, "Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost."

Trump routinely mocked Giuliani for falling asleep during meetings and gave him harsh feedback on his TV interviews, telling him he "sucked" and was "weak," Bender reported.

Giuliani, for his part, no longer serves as Trump's personal attorney. He's made headlines in recent months in connection with a criminal investigation into whether he violated foreign lobbying laws. And an appellate division of the New York Supreme Court recently suspended his law license, pending review, after finding "uncontroverted evidence" that he "communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large" about the 2020 election results.

Giuliani's lawyers slammed the ruling as "unprecedented," and the former New York mayor defended himself to reporters outside his Manhattan apartment last month.

"How can they say I lied without a hearing? They haven't questioned me," he said.

On Wednesday, an appeals court in Washington, DC, also suspended Giuliani from practicing law in the district.