Rudy Giuliani spent Sunday morning playing the part of Donald Trump’s chosen defense attorney on network television. On Sunday night, he tried to play the part of Bill Clinton’s prosecutor on cable. The case he offered was … interesting.
In a postdebate interview in the spin room with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, Giuliani repeatedly shrugged off questions about Trump’s Access Hollywood video—“Men say stupid things in locker rooms”—in order to talk about Clinton’s alleged sexual crimes. “How come he wasn’t prosecuted for raping Juanita Broaddrick?” Giuliani asked. “Or why wasn’t he prosecuted for taking advantage of an intern in the White House?”
Matthews responded by pointing out that there was no tape of Clinton saying he did those things, whereas there very much is tape of Trump bragging about grabbing women “by the pussy.” (Other counterpoints Matthews could have offered but didn’t include that: Hillary Clinton is running for president, not her husband, and for a law-and-order lover like Giuliani, it’s quite the leap to drop the word “allegedly” from Broaddrick’s serious accusations against the former president.)
Giuliani, though, had his response locked and loaded. “There was semen on her dress, which proved he lied to America!” he yelled in the spin room of a presidential debate, referring to Monica Lewinsky’s infamous blue dress. It was as fitting an ending to Sunday night as I can imagine.
