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New York: US President Donald Trump has announced he will award his former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, the nation’s highest civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a day after the ex-New York mayor was injured in a highway car crash.
A polarising figure who was credited with uniting New York City and the nation after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Giuliani later became Trump’s personal lawyer and played a pivotal role in several scandals, including numerous attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani at a rally for Donald Trump in New York in October 2024, shortly before the election.Credit: nna\riwood
“As President of the United States of America, I am pleased to announce that Rudy Giuliani, the greatest Mayor in the history of New York City, and an equally great American Patriot, will receive THE PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM, our Country’s highest civilian honor,” Trump posted on Monday, the Labor Day holiday in the US. “Details as to time and place to follow.”
The announcement came as Giuliani, 81, recovers in hospital after being involved in a car crash in New Hampshire, in which he suffered a fractured vertebra and other injuries.
According to the head of Giuliani’s security detail, Michael Ragusa, the former mayor’s car was struck from behind at high speed after he had earlier been flagged down on the side of the road and rendered assistance to a woman who was “the victim of a domestic violence incident”.
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Ragusa’s initial statement appeared to imply the accident might have been related to Giuliani’s decision to render aid to the purported domestic violence victim. But Ragusa later told the Associated Press the crash was “entirely unrelated”.
“This was not a targeted attack,” he said, adding Giuliani was in good spirits and recovering well.
Upon receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Giuliani will join the likes of entrepreneur Steve Jobs, former senator John McCain and another former New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg, all of whom were among the recipients of 57 medals awarded by Joe Biden.
Trump awarded 24 such medals in his first term, including to baseball legend Babe Ruth, golfer Tiger Woods and political pundit Rush Limbaugh.
Giuliani served as mayor of New York, the US’s most populous city, from 1994 to 2001, and became widely known as “America’s mayor” after a national outpouring of sympathy that accompanied the September 2001 terrorist attacks in Manhattan. He was also named Time magazine’s “person of the year”.
Giuliani at the notorious Four Seasons press conference in Philadelphia in 2020.Credit: AP
However, in the years since, his image and reputation has suffered as he tied himself to Trump’s more outlandish legal escapades, including ill-fated attempts to deny and overturn the results of the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Biden.
One of his more memorable moments in that campaign included holding a press conference in the outdoor parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping, a small business in Pennsylvania, where he aired unfounded claims of election fraud. Journalists had assumed the event was meant to be held at the Four Seasons hotel.
A few weeks later, Giuliani appeared to have hair dye streaking down his face at another news conference, making him the butt of late-night television jokes and internet memes.
This year, he settled a defamation case in the American state of Georgia in which he had been accused of traducing election workers by spreading claims of widespread election fraud. He was also named as a co-conspirator in a stalled criminal case against Trump on racketeering conspiracy charges in Georgia.
Hair dye runs down Giuliani’s face during a 2020 press conference.Credit: AP
“The man that I knew 20 years ago, the hero of September 11, bears no resemblance to this man,” Giuliani’s third ex-wife, Judith, said in 2023. “I actually feel sorry for him. It’s sad. He’s not the person that he used to be to any of us.”
With AP
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