Rudy Giuliani is famously bad with technology. We’ve long known this because, among other things: He doesn’t know how to use AirPods; his company website, when he was working as a cybersecurity expert, was extremely easy to hack; and stories of him butt-dialing reporters are legion. Now, though, we have another example to add to the list: He left his Zoom mic on when he went to the bathroom during an online arraignment.
That’s right: In an extremely cringeworthy moment—arguably even more cringeworthy than the Borat incident, the hair-dye deluge, the election-hearing farting, and the Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference—the former mayor of New York City left his mic on while being arraigned on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election in Arizona, and appeared to bring other participants into the bathroom while he relieved himself. As Intelligencer notes, “a stream of liquid hitting water” could be heard in a video before Giuliani asked, “Is that me?” It was.
Is this as bad as the time Robert Durst left his mic on during a bathroom visit and seemed to confess to murdering a bunch of people? Obviously not! But it’s a tough break for a guy whose life is just an endless series of tough breaks (of his own making) these days.
Nine things we read in the New York Times profile of Nicole Shanahan
The paper of record went deep on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate on Wednesday, writing that:
- Kennedy’s team did not fully vet her before he picked her to be his VP
- While the campaign’s website says that she earned an athletic scholarship to her private Catholic high school, the school says it has never offered scholarships
- She and Google cofounder Sergey Brin met at a yoga festival and “embarked on an affair weeks before her wedding” to technology investor Jeremy Kranz
- Kranz found out several days after the wedding and filed for an annulment; during this time, “she threatened to harm herself, three people said,” and the pair ultimately divorced
- She married Brin in 2018 and started “going out more without” him during the pandemic
- During a party in 2021, according to court documents, “Shanahan was so intoxicated by drugs and alcohol that she required an IV infusion”
- At a party in December 2021, she took ketamine with Elon Musk, and the two “disappeared together for several hours,” after which Shanahan reportedly told Brin “that she had had sex with Mr. Musk” and “also relayed the details to friends, family, and advisers” (both Shanhan and Musk have denied the affair)
- Shanahan and Brin separated roughly two weeks later, and he filed for divorce the following year, citing “irreconcilable differences”; the divorce was finalized after nearly 18 months, and during that time, Shanahan “threatened to harm herself, two people briefed on the matter said”
- During a dinner with Kennedy and his wife in March, Shanahan’s partner suggested her for VP
