The former mayor of New York City is breathing on his own and battling respiratory complications from the Sept. 11 attacks, the spokesperson says.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is recovering from pneumonia but is still hospitalized in “critical but stable condition,” his spokesperson said on May 4.
Ted Goodman said in a May 4 post on X that Giuliani is currently “being monitored as a precautionary measure” in the hospital, noting that the former mayor had been diagnosed with an airway disease in the aftermath of 9/11.
“On September 11th, Mayor Giuliani ran toward the towers to help those in need, which later led to a diagnosis of restrictive airway disease,” Goodman wrote in the post.
The condition adds “complications to any respiratory illness,” and it caused Giuliani’s system to be overwhelmed by a viral lung infection that led to his pneumonia, Goodman said. He did not disclose what the viral infection was.
The 81-year-old former mayor required “mechanical ventilation to maintain adequate oxygen and stabilize his condition,” Goodman said. On May 3, he announced that Giuliani was hospitalized in critical condition.
In the May 4 statement, the spokesman announced that Giuliani was “breathing on his own, with his family and primary medical provider at his side.”
“Mayor Giuliani is the ultimate fighter—as he has demonstrated throughout his life—and he is winning this battle,” he wrote. “His family deeply appreciates the outpouring of love and support. The mayor believes in the power of prayer, and we are feeling that strength today.”
The initial announcement drew a response from President Donald Trump, for whom Giuliani had worked as a personal lawyer and whom Giuliani had helped with legal cases in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.
Trump, who described Giuliani as the “best mayor” in New York City’s history, wrote on Truth Social that the former mayor was “right about everything” relating to alleged voter fraud during the 2020 contest.
Giuliani, a Republican who served as the city’s mayor from 1994 until 2001, was widely praised for his leadership in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks and earned the nickname “America’s Mayor.” In the 1994 New York City mayoral election, Giuliani defeated incumbent David Dinkins, a Democrat.
