LAUGHINGSTOCKS:

"He's gotten more and more extreme in his views, but what's troubling is the views are also foundationally different than they used to be," an ex-aide says. "I mean, I cannot imagine the Rudy Giuliani I knew attacking F.B.I. agents. If you told me Rudy was on the wrong side of some racial-discord issue, I wouldn't be surprised. But the rhetoric on Hillary, the rhetoric on Comey, the sloppiness of his statements on Hannity--that stuff is not recognizable."

Some see the changes as rooted in Giuliani's demeanor. "He just doesn't seem as mentally sharp as he was," says the former adviser. "It started after 9/11, when he was talking about, 'I have to take control of the city, we've got to change the law, I'm the only one who can save the city.' He literally thought he was Winston Churchill. It was bizarre. The progression really was after 9/11, and it has continued."

Giuliani's grandiosity and megalomania may have worsened, but those qualities weren't new even in 2001. Whatever may have changed in his personality recently, and whatever the doubts about his legal skills, the one sure thing when Trump hired Giuliani was that Rudy was going to be a high-profile media presence. Way back in 1997, when Giuliani was being mentioned as a vice-presidential possibility on a G.O.P. ticket headed by George W. Bush, his old antagonist Rev. Al Sharpton sized up the situation. "I pity the guy who takes Rudy for vice-anything. He'll need a food-taster," Sharpton told New York magazine's Mark Jacobson. "The minute he gets a head cold, Rudy'll be calling an act of Congress. Giuliani would make Alexander Haig look bashful."

Sure enough, Giuliani may have caused his new client some unneeded legal problems this week with his statements--but it was the way Giuliani delivered those statements, on a media blitz, talking about how he will make the decisions regarding a possible presidential interview with Robert Mueller, that could become the real threat to Giuliani's job security. If there's one thing Trump can't tolerate, it's someone pulling focus away from him.

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