U.S. News
Rudy Giuliani Is in the Hospital. Here’s How Far He Has Fallen.
By Mike Harper · May 4, 2026
On Friday night, Rudy Giuliani hosted his online show from Palm Beach. His voice was raspy and he coughed repeatedly. “My voice is a little under the weather,” he told viewers, “so I won’t be able to speak as loudly as I usually do, but I’ll get closer to the microphone.”
By Sunday evening, his spokesman announced he was in critical condition in a Florida hospital.
Giuliani is 81. He has not had a good few years.
Spokesperson Ted Goodman posted on X Sunday that “Mayor Rudy Giuliani is currently in the hospital, where he remains in critical but stable condition. Mayor Giuliani is a fighter who has faced every challenge in his life with unwavering strength, and he’s fighting with that same level of strength as we speak.” The statement did not give a reason for the hospitalization or say which hospital admitted him.
Trump responded on Truth Social in the way Trump responds to most things — by making it about himself and his enemies. “Our fabulous Rudy Giuliani, a True Warrior, and the Best Mayor in the History of New York City, BY FAR, has been hospitalized, and is in critical condition,” Trump wrote. “What a tragedy that he was treated so badly by the Radical Left Lunatics, Democrats ALL — AND HE WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!”
For people who have not tracked Giuliani’s last several years, the gap between what he was and where he is now is genuinely striking.
He was one of the most celebrated prosecutors in American history. As the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in the 1980s, he dismantled five of the most powerful organized crime families in New York simultaneously — a legal achievement that was compared at the time to Eliot Ness taking down Al Capone. He made himself famous doing it, appearing on magazine covers and talk shows, and the fame carried him into politics. He was elected mayor of New York in 1993. He served two terms. The city’s crime rate fell dramatically on his watch. When the World Trade Center was destroyed on September 11, 2001, Giuliani walked through the smoke and the debris and addressed the city with a composure that earned him the nickname “America’s Mayor” and a Time Person of the Year award.
He ran for president in 2008 and lost. He built a consulting and law firm. He became a television presence. Then he became Trump’s lawyer.
The 2020 election destroyed what remained of his professional reputation. He led the legal campaign to overturn the results — filing dozens of cases that were uniformly dismissed, making claims in press conferences that he could not support in court, and specifically targeting two Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, with accusations of fraud that a federal jury found to be completely false. Freeman and Moss were awarded $148 million in defamation damages. Giuliani declared bankruptcy. A federal bankruptcy judge authorized the sale of his Manhattan apartment to partially satisfy the judgment. His law licenses were revoked in New York and Washington, D.C.
In August 2025, he was injured in a car accident in New Hampshire, sustaining a fractured vertebra and multiple lacerations. He recovered. He kept doing his online show. He appeared at the 9/11 memorial in New York last September, his final major public appearance.
Trump pardoned him in November 2025 for his federal role in the false elector scheme. The pardon did not cover state charges he still faces in Arizona. His legal exposure is not fully resolved.
He was in Palm Beach Friday. He is in a Florida hospital in critical condition today. No cause has been given. No prognosis has been offered. The hospital has not been named.
Former NYC Mayor Eric Adams wished him “strength, good health, and a full recovery.” His son, Andrew Giuliani, is currently executive director of the presidential task force for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
No further statement has been released as of this morning.