The son of Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's former personal lawyer and former mayor of New York, declared himself a candidate for governor of New York State, considered a Democratic stronghold, on Tuesday.
Read also: The apartment of Rudy Giuliani, former Trump lawyer, raided by the federal police
"
Together we will bring New York back to life
," tweeted Andrew Giuliani, 35, who is a Republican and was an assistant in the White House during the four years of the Trump presidency. “
I was born into politics, it's in my DNA,
” he said in an interview with the conservative
New York Post
.
If Andrew Giuliani wins the Republican primary for the election of governor, he would risk finding himself facing the outgoing Democrat Andrew Cuomo, in office since 2011. “
Giuliani against Cuomo (...) it's like Mohamed Ali against Joe Frazier, you can sell tickets in Madison Square Garden
”, he says, referring to the“
fight of the century
”of 1971 in New York, lost by Mohamed Ali, favorite. The third term of Andrew Cuomo, 63, expires at the end of 2022, but he who was considered in 2020 as a hero in the fight against the pandemic has been weakened recently by a series of scandals.
He was accused of having sexually harassed several of his collaborators, of having hidden the extent of the deaths of the pandemic in retirement homes and of having collaborators work on his book of memoirs on the pandemic. For this book released in 2020, he received an unusual advance of $ 3.1 million, and was to receive another two million by 2022, according to New York media. Called to resign by many Democrats earlier this year, Andrew Cuomo refused, dismissing all charges against him.
The New York State Attorney General is investigating the charges, as is a parliamentary commission, but no date has been set for their findings. The announcement of the candidacy of Andrew Giuliani comes while his father is in the crosshairs of federal justice. Manhattan prosecutors raided his New York home and offices in late April, as part of an investigation into his activities in Ukraine. The ex-mayor of New York, and his son Andrew, denounced the operation as politically motivated.