Giuliani Butt-Dials Reporter, Can Be Heard Saying He Needs "a Few Hundred Thousand"

By Daniel Politi, Slate

27 October 19

udy Giuliani inadvertently called NBC News reporter Rich Schapiro earlier this month at 11:07 p.m. The reporter was asleep so the call went straight to voicemail and President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer proceeded to leave a three-minute voice message recording the conversation he was having at the time. Giuliani, who runs a security consulting firm, was speaking to an unidentified person about businesses in Turkey and Bahrain. The former mayor then at one point declared that “the problem is we need some money.” After nine seconds of silence, Giuliani specified: “We need a few hundred thousand.” Earlier in the voice message, Giuliani seemed to be talking about woes facing someone named Charles. “You know. Charles would have a hard time with a fraud case ‘cause he didn’t do any due diligence’.” It wasn’t clear who Charles referred to.

As amazing as the voicemail must have seemed for Schapiro, it wasn’t the first time it happened. In September, Giuliani left a voice message where he can be heard blasting former Vice President Joe Biden’s family. That message didn’t come late at night but rather “when the NBC News reporter was at a fifth-birthday party for an extended family member in Central Jersey.” The three-minute voice message is almost entirely of the lawyer “railing against the bidents … recycling many of the unfounded allegations he has been making on cable news and in interviews with print reporters.”

Giuliani also said that “there’s plenty more to come out” about Biden’s business dealings, specifically mentioning China, Kazakhstan, and Russia. “It’s a sad situation,” he said. “You know how they get? Biden has been been trading in on his public office since he was a senator.” The president’s lawyer also specifically railed against Hunter Biden. “When he became vice president, the kid decided to go around the world and say, ‘Hire me because I’m Joe Biden’s son.’ And most people wouldn’t hire him because he had a drug problem,” he said.

It seems Giuliani really needs to learn how to lock his phone properly. After Schapiro published his story, lots of reporters came out to tell their own Giuliani butt-dial tales. “Everyone has a good Rudy butt dial story,” the Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey tweeted. “I’ve heard him on what sounded like a plane, at the airport, at what sounded like a bar.” Jonathan Swan of Axios tweeted that Giuliani once “texted me a voice memo recording of himself talking to a guy.”

Giuliani appears to know this is a problem—at least sometimes. The Daily Mail’s David Martosko tweeted that he once overheard Giuliani telling a Fox News producer: “And I butt-dialed him! Can you believe it?” And there are even hints this may be sort of a trend for lawyers in Trump’s orbit. In March, Politico’s Darren Samuelsohn wrote that “both Rudy and Lanny Davis, Trump’s former lawyer’s lawyer, butt dialed me.”