Trump lawyer Giuliani claims Holocaust survivor Soros is ‘hardly a Jew’ in rambling interview

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has stirred anger online by claiming he is “more of a Jew” than 89-year-old Holocaust survivor George Soros.

Speaking to New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi in an interview published Monday, Mr Giuliani, who currently describes himself as President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, claimed the Hungarian-American financier, philanthropist and progressive donor employs FBI agents and “controls” Marie Yovanovitch.

Yovanovitch is the US foreign service officer who Mr Trump recalled from her post as America’s ambassador to Kyiv after Mr Giuliani and two now-indicted associates mounted a disinformation campaign to convince the president that the career diplomat opposed him.

But in the interview Mr Giuliani bristled at the idea that the idea that he was invoking a well-worn anti-semitic trope by casting Mr Soros as some sort of puppet-master.

“Don’t tell me I’m anti-Semitic if I oppose him, Soros is hardly a Jew. I’m more of a Jew than Soros is,” said Mr Giuliani, who was raised Roman Catholic and attended Catholic schools in his youth.

“I probably know more about — he doesn’t go to church, he doesn’t go to religion — synagogue. He doesn’t belong to a synagogue, he doesn’t support Israel, he’s an enemy of Israel. He’s elected eight anarchist DA’s in the United States. He’s a horrible human being,” Mr Giuliani continued.

The former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York also took aim at the men and women currently working in the office he used to lead, which is reportedly investigating whether he violated campaign finance and foreign agent registration laws.

“They’re absolutely assholes if they’re investigating me,” he said, adding that those investigating him at his old office are “idiots” and “a Trump-deranged bunch of silly New York liberals”.

“If they think I committed a crime, they’re out of their minds,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for 50 years. I know how not to commit crimes. And if they think I’ve lost my integrity, maybe they’ve lost theirs in their insanity over hating Trump with some of the things they did that I never would’ve tolerated when I was US Attorney.”

Mr Giuliani added that allegedly those investigating him are doing so out of jealousy and in retaliation for his political differences.

“They’re all — they’re all knee-jerk, now logically impaired anti-Trump people,” he said before noting that the office currently employs former FBI Director James Comey’s daughter Maurene as an assistant us attorney.

“You don’t think she’s bitter? Do you know the things that I’ve called her husband?” Mr Giuliani asked, briefly forgetting that Mr Comey is his daughter’s father, not her husband.

“I consider her father a disgrace. I’m embarrassed that I hired him. Never seen anyone run the FBI like that,” he said after correcting himself.