Rudy Giuliani's Bizarre Speech On The 9/11 Anniversary Is Turning Heads

Today we know Rudy Giuliani as former president Donald Trump's sketchy former lawyer who is seemingly always under investigation. But on September 11, 2001, Giuliani — then the mayor of New York City — became an American hero.

But until that day, Giuliani wasn't exactly seen as warm and fuzzy. Before catapulting into the national spotlight, he was known in New York as a former prosecutor who was tough on crime, deploying the "broken windows" theory, which cracked down on minor crimes like marijuana possession or public urination in an effort to thus deter more serious crimes. But as Gothamist reports, critics saw the crackdown on crime as a way of controlling and over-policing poor Black people. A 1998 article in The New York Times even referred to Giuliani as "The Mussolini of Manhattan."

All of that changed on September 11, when Giuliani stepped up and became the national face of healing after the deadliest terrorist attack in American history. At a 9/11 prayer service held two weeks after the attack, Oprah Winfrey introduced Giuliani as "America's mayor," a moniker that stuck with him through the rest of his tenure, per Gothamist. Later that year, Time Magazine named him Person of the Year, calling Giuliani "Mayor of the World."

Twenty years later, at a dinner commemorating the tragic event, Giuliani gave a truly bizarre speech that left everyone scratching their heads. Here's what he had to say.