Her father, best known as a former mayor of New York, was one of former President Donald Trump’s strongest supporters through and after the 2020 election, guiding Trump’s legal challenges to the election and traveling to Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan, among other places. He was disbarred in New York and Washington, and lost a defamation lawsuit against two Georgia election workers for falsely accusing them of manipulating ballots in 2020.
While Giuliani said that she and her father still have open conversations with each other, she explained that her father’s loyalty to Trump is hard to get past.
“I think the reason I get asked about this so much is that it is so relatable to have this chasm in your family over Trump, and I think with Trump in office, those chasms are not going to be able to heal,” she continued.
Giuliani, who recently got engaged, also implied that one of the biggest factors in her speaking out was the possibility of children in the near future.
“I do love him, and I want him to know that, but I want to have children, and I’ve been thinking a lot about what that means in this world,” she said. “It’s really a scary prospect as it is with everything that is happening to the climate and with reproductive rights under assault. When I thought about the future that I want to be able to give my children, it just became very clear that I needed to get this message as far out there as possible, and I knew that sharing my personal story would be effective in doing that.”
In her Vanity Fair endorsement, Giuliani wrote about the difficulties of speaking up against her own father, making it “the most difficult piece [she’s] ever written.”
However, she is not only voting for the next four years, she told Witt, but for the rest of her life because “the damage that Trump can and will do to our institutions will last after he dies. He will pave the way for future autocrats also to run our country.”
“It is really important to think about the people who worked alongside Trump [who] are not supporting him,” Giuliani said. “His own former vice president is not supporting him. People who work in the Defense Department are saying he is a danger, he is not fit to serve. Republicans who are in his administration are saying do not elect this man. That does not benefit those people. That is political suicide. We need to listen to those people. They are telling the truth, and they are trying to warn us.”
When asked if she is concerned that her father might go to prison, Giuliani said yes.
“Of course that is a fear. It’s a really difficult thing to think about. I think the thing I am focusing on now is the future of our country, and who I want my children to be able to look up to in the office of the presidency,” she said, comparing Harris’ “optimism and joy” with Trump’s “hate and anger.”
“I want my children to look up to Kamala Harris,” Giuliani said.