A bruised Rudy Giuliani returned to his show in an upper body brace after being released from hospital following a serious car crash.
The former New York City mayor sounded upbeat as he joked about his harness-like brace, but admitted he was still in pain and remains ‘injured pretty badly.’
‘I like this outfit. This may become permanent,’ he said opposite his America’s Mayor Live show co-host Ted Goodman.
Goodman replied: ‘It is similar to football equipment, if you’ve played hockey or football or one of those sports.’
‘I was thinking more like a gladiator, you know?’ Giuliani added, while playing a gladiator song from his iPad and pounding his chest.
Giuliani then clarified the bizarre story of how he ended up in the hospital, which began as he and Goodman were flagged down by the side of the road in Manchester, New Hampshire by the victim of a domestic violence situation.
He said Goodman, who was driving, pulled over to ‘evaluate her’ as they called 911.
‘I looked at her very, very carefully, and professional instincts kick in. So you watch every single thing about her,’ Giuliani continued.
Goodman recalled that the woman said she was being ‘attacked’, adding: ‘The mayor did invite her in the car. I didn’t like that… Come on, this is Mayor Rudy Giuliani.’
In a twist to the original story, Goodman explained that police told them the woman may have actually been the one who had attacked her partner.
After she was placed in an ambulance, Giuliani said they were given the OK to leave by police, only for their car to quickly be rear-ended by another vehicle.
The same cops who had tended to the woman witnessed the collision and raced to their aid, with the former mayor saying he was left in severe pain from the impact.
‘The whiplash of my body was brutal,’ he said. ‘The pain was excruciating.’
The driver of the vehicle that crashed into the mayor was subsequently named as Lauren Kemp, 19, from Concord. No charges have been filed.
Giuliani said on his show that he ‘felt very sorry for her’ and hoped she would not end up facing any charges.
‘I don’t think she’s a bad actor here at all,’ he said.
‘If you say she was driving fast, everybody in New Hampshire drives fast. I’m sorry. She wasn’t driving any faster than anybody else. Was she driving too fast? Probably. But I’m not gonna hold that against her. How could she know?
‘I would tell her as a lawyer, don’t make a statement about this… I would be very upset if they charged her, and I would stop it. I would do everything I could. I wouldn’t even testify against her. I just think the woman made a mistake.’
Giuliani suffered a number of injuries including a fractured vertebrae in his neck, lacerations to his upper body and an injured left arm and lower leg.
‘I’ve got a permanent– not a permanent, but one that has to be resolved over a period of time injury. In a hospital for a couple of days. But we’re out, we’re doing our show, and God was very, very good to us,’ he said.
Giuliani also took aim at his critics who seemingly celebrated his injuries on social media, saying that he could tell ‘the Democrats are happy that I’m in a certain amount of pain.’
‘It hurts. I’m gonna tell the Democrats that. If you guys wanna get a little lust, bloodlust, this was really painful, guys.
‘You know, you never did any pain to me like this. I could always handle your pain because you’re a bunch of phony bastards. Boy, are you terrible.’