http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/nyregion/rudy-giuliani-donald-trump.html 2016-09-30 03:42:52 No Stranger to Marital Strife, Giuliani Wags a Finger at the Clintons The former mayor of New York, whose affairs made the front pages, has publicly criticized Hillary Clinton on her response to her husband’s affair. === Most people probably can’t identify any senior advisers to presidential candidates, but one member of That would be Moving from television camera to camera as a Trump avatar after this week’s debate, Mr. Giuliani has held forth provocatively on “And after being married to Bill Clinton for 20 years, if you didn’t know the moment Monica Lewinsky said that Bill Clinton violated her that she was telling the truth, then you’re too stupid to be president,” Mr. Giuliani said earlier this week. In an interview on Thursday, he said that since he thought Mrs. Clinton was “highly intelligent,” he should have added: “Or you’re lying.” Mr. Giuliani said he was not attacking Mrs. Clinton for Mr. Clinton’s activities, but questioning her feminist credentials. Nevertheless, he invoked decades of rumors about Mr. Clinton’s behavior and linked Mrs. Clinton to them in various ways — but he introduced them with “If true,” and concluded, “I’m not telling you that’s true or not true.” Perhaps the standards for decent behavior during domestic turmoil are worthy of conversation in a presidential race. If so, it is still hard to think of two people with less standing to conduct public finger-wagging than Mr. Trump, whose affairs were carried out on the front pages, and Mr. Giuliani, whose second marriage came to a crashing end when, as mayor, he took an after-dinner stroll up Second Avenue with the woman who would become his third wife. Between Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump, their marriages outnumber the Clintons’ six to one, with no shortage of the miseries that go along with domestic wreckage. Those who lived in New York in 2000 may recall that Mr. Giuliani That ugly moment wasn’t his fault, Mr. Giuliani said: His lawyer was simply responding to something his wife’s lawyer had said, and had made those remarks without his authorization. “I told him never to do it again, and he never did it again,” Mr. Giuliani said. Nor, he added, has he ever spoken critically of his ex-wife in public. In an After the revelation of Mr. Clinton’s relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, a 22-year old intern, and before the president owned up to it, Ms. Lewinsky was the subject of negative stories circulated by Clinton surrogates. “Instead of just being silent and supporting him if that’s what you want to do, you become one of the major attackers of the person making the allegation,” Mr. Giuliani said. The actual public record of comments by Mrs. Clinton about Ms. Lewinsky is sparse, if not barren. She told a friend that her husband was to blame but also spoke disparagingly of Ms. Lewinsky, During the debate Monday night, Mrs. Clinton quoted nasty remarks Mr. Trump had made about a young beauty pageant contestant who had gained weight. “You know, she made that attack on Trump for the way he treated women,” Mr. Giuliani said. “She hasn’t treated women much better.” Mr. Trump renewed his insults of the beauty queen on the morning after the debate. The leaves of Mr. Giuliani’s own political career long ago browned and curled, but the Trump presidential campaign has offered him one more season in the sun. At the Republican National Convention in July, he spoke Having served as a preparation coach for Mr. Trump ahead of the debate, Mr. Giuliani told The Associated Press afterward that he believed there was no need to adjust their approach. “Why would we change if we won the debate?”