Did ‘Borat’ warn us about Rudy Giuliani’s further fall from grace?
His recorded remarks recall an infamous cameo in Sacha Baron Cohen’s film
Rudy Giuliani, leaves the U.S. District Court on May 19, 2023 in Washington, D.C. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
By PJ Grisar August 3, 2023
It’s only Aug. 3, but already it’s been a tough month for Unindicted Co-Conspirator Number One, America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Nothing coming out now should surprise us — and we have Borat to thank for the heads up.
If you’ll recall, back in late 2020, a short time before his leaky, flatulent Total Landscaping gaffes, Giuliani was caught with his pants down (almost). In a scene in Borat 2: Subsequent Moviefilm, director Jason Woliner and star Sacha Baron Cohen laid out a scenario that guided Giuliani into a New York hotel room with a young reporter (Maria Bakalova, playing Borat’s daughter, Tutar).
What exactly was happening in the footage — Giuliani said he was tucking his shirt in, Baron Cohen and many watching believed he was about to do something much worse — remains unknown. But, in light of new evidence, the clip is a lot more unsettling.
On Tuesday, audio transcripts of Giuliani were filed as part of a lawsuit by his former staffer Noelle Dunphy, who is alleging sexual harassment, including claims that Giuliani exposed himself to her and demanded sexual favors. The transcripts indicate different, far less ambiguous hot mic moments than Borat, with Giuliani caught making vile sexual remarks — and some downright weird ones.
The transcripts are consistent with an initial complaint from May, which accused the lawyer and former New York mayor of bizarre rants about how the parting of the Red Sea was no big deal and how Jewish men have smaller penises than Italians. (Also he called Matt Damon an anti-gay slur, stated the Oppenheimer actor was considerably shorter than he actually is and ended the tirade by saying Damon’s “eyes are blue. Coochie-coochie-coochie-coo.”)
The exact statement regarding Jews and Passover, because I don’t want to put any words in Giuliani’s mouth, is as follows:
“Jews want to go through their freaking Passover all the time, man oh man. Get over the Passover. It was like 3,000 years ago. The Red Sea parted, big deal. It’s not the first time that happened.”
When my colleague Jacob Kornbluh asked Giuliani’s representatives in May about their client’s alleged remarks about the Passover miracle, spokesperson Ted Goodman said in an email: “It’s an absurd accusation to make against someone who served two-terms mayor of New York City, home to the largest Jewish community in the world. Mayor Giuliani twice visited Israel as mayor at the behest of the Israeli’s following serious attacks and he famously tossed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat out of a UN event in New York.” (This Arafat mention seems to be a reference to a 1995 concert at Lincoln Center held for world leaders.)
Re: Jewish manhood, we now know Giuliani said this:
“The way natural selection works. Jewish men have small cocks because they can‘t use them after they get married. Whereas the Italian men use them all their lives so they get bigger.”
Kornbluh asked Goodman if he had a rough estimate of how many Jewish men’s genitals Giuliani had seen to have reached this conclusion. Goodman replied, “So just because a disgruntled ex is making claims, you are automatically assuming it’s all 100% factual?” When Kornbluh followed up, asking if Giuliani made the comments transcribed from the recording and about his Jewish penis sample size, Goodman didn’t respond.
But, in its way, this brings us back to Borat. In the film, Baron Cohen, in character as Borat, interrupts what he believes to be a sexual assault-in-progress by Giuliani on his underaged daughter. He did so in a skimpy pink getup that left little to the imagination (though not so little as Borat’s iconic green G-string or the nude wrestling scene from 2006’s Borat: Cultural Learnings of America).
We knew then that Giuliani, who told Page Six he loved the first film, has seen at least one Jewish penis up close. It’s not a great argument for his phallic theory, but the clip may serve as useful evidence for the plaintiff.
Jacoh Kornbluh contributed reporting for this story.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
