New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday scoffed at Rudy Giuliani’s account of being violently slapped at a supermarket, accusing the city’s former mayor of exaggerating the severity of the Sunday incident. Giuliani, meanwhile, has told Adams to “f— off.”
Surveillance video of the moment shows ShopRite employee Daniel Gill touching Giuliani’s back but does not support the former Trump lawyer’s claims that he was hit so hard he nearly fell over.
“I looked at the video and someone needs to remind former Mayor Giuliani that falsely reporting a crime is a crime,” Adams said during a press conference in East Harlem when asked if he would look into reducing the charges against Gill.
He added, “From what [Giuliani] stated about being punched in the head, [that it] felt like a bullet, what he stated, there was a lot of creativity. And I think the district attorney, he has the wrong person that he’s investigating.”
Gill, who is now free with no bail, is facing misdemeanor charges of assault in the third-degree, menacing in the third-degree and harassment in the second-degree, a reduction from the original charges of second-degree assault.
In response to Adams’ dig, Guiliani told the told the New York Post: “Tell Adams to go f— himself. What a f—ing scumbag.”
“Scumbag” is also what Gill is said to have called Giuliani as he told the self-proclaimed “pro-life” politician that women will die because of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.
Giuliani, who served as Gotham’s mayor from 1994 to 2001, has been campaigning for his son Andrew as he runs for governor of New York. He — and the degree of his involvement in Trump’s attempted coup — has been frequently mentioned as the Jan. 6 Committee hearings continue.