August 19, 2018

“Truth Isn’t Truth” and Other Bits of Wisdom from Rudy Giuliani

“This is going to become a bad meme.”

July 18, 2016 - Cleveland, Ohio, U.S - Former Mayor of New York CIty, Rudolph (Rudy) Giuliani addresses the Republican National Convention at the Quicken Arena in Cleveland, Ohio Mark Reinstein/ZUMA Wire

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One of President Trump’s lawyers, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, appeared on “Meet the Press” Sunday morning, where host Chuck Todd quizzed him about why the president hasn’t submitted to an interview by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and allegations that the president and his campaign obstructed justice.

After Todd suggested that Trump may be delaying Mueller’s report by refusing to sit for an interview with him, Giuliani pushed back. Here’s their remarkable exchange:

Rudy Giuliani: What I have to tell you is, look, I am not going to be rushed into having him testify so that he gets trapped into perjury. And when you tell me that, you know, he should testify because he’s going to tell the truth and he shouldn’t worry, well that’s so silly because it’s somebody’s version of the truth. Not the truth.

Chuck Todd: Truth is truth. I don’t mean to go like –

Rudy Giuliani: No, it isn’t truth. Truth isn’t truth. The President of the United States says, “I didn’t-“

Chuck Todd: Truth isn’t truth? Mr. Mayor, do you realize, what, I, I, I, –

Rudy Giuliani: No, no, no-

Chuck Todd: This is going to become a bad meme.

Watch the whole interview here:

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

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