Feminist Icon Rudy Giuliani Has Some Thoughts on Stormy Daniels

Trump’s lawyer plays the unexpected gatekeeper of the movement.

Chris Kleponis/ZUMA

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Fresh off an unfortunate dance party in Israel, Rudy Giuliani on Thursday defended a series of sexist attacks he made against Stormy Daniels, in which he claimed that the adult film actress had no “value” because of her profession.

“I respect women, beautiful women and women with value, but a woman who sells her body for sexual exploitation I don’t respect,” Giuliani, the former New York mayor and a member of President Donald Trump’s legal team, told an audience in Tel Aviv this week.

The remarks, which many viewed as an effort to discredit Daniels and her legal battle against Trump, drew instant condemnation. “You’re a misogynistic fool,” MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski said in response to the public comments. Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti slammed Giuliani as an “absolute pig.” 

The ire doesn’t appear to have swayed Giuliani. He went a step further Thursday, telling CNN’s Dana Bash that feminists “should turn in [their] credentials” if they support either Daniels or the porn industry. 

“If you’re involved in a sort of slimy business, that says something about you, says something about how far you’ll go to make money,” he said. He also admitted that his remarks were intended to portray Daniels as lacking credibility. 

During the same business conference where he blasted Daniels, Giuliani also claimed that first lady Melania Trump does not believe her husband had an affair with Daniels.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

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