Disgraced former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani broke down on his livestream as he paid an emotional tribute to his former sidekick and convicted fraudster Bernie Kerik, who died at the age of 69 on Thursday.
His voice cracked and squeaked with emotion at the end of a half-hour obituary, which relived their days together running New York City.
Kerik was the police chief who led “New York’s Finest” through 9/11 after being appointed by Giuliani. They had been close friends since Kerik served as his bodyguard during Giuliani’s 1993 mayoral campaign.
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Kerik served three years in prison from 2010 after pleading guilty to tax fraud and making false statements. But he received a pardon from President Trump in 2020 and went on to help Trump as he sought to illegally overturn his election defeat against Joe Biden.
“We’ve been together since the beginning. He’s like my brother,” Giuliani said through tears on his streaming show on Thursday. “I was a better man for having known Bernie. I certainly was a braver and stronger man.”
At the end of the show, Giuliani’s voice broke as he said: “I wish I was there for you, Bernie. You were always there for me.”
Kerik died aged 69 on Thursday in New York, where he had been hospitalized with cardiac problems.
FBI Director Kash Patel announced the news on his X account on Thursday. “Today, we mourn the loss of Bernard B. Kerik, a warrior, a patriot, and one of the most courageous public servants this country has ever known,” Patel wrote. “Bernie passed away tragically on May 29, 2025, after a private battle with illness.”
Monica Crowley, chief of protocol at the State Department, hailed Kerik as “a quintessential New Yorker, true patriot and an American hero.”
Andrew Giuliani, son of Rudy, said: “New York lost one of our greatest crime fighters this evening. Commissioner Bernard Kerik set the standard, turning the most dangerous correctional systems in the world into the gold standard. Then, as Police Commissioner, Bernie led from the front on that fateful September 11th day.”
He added: “Personally, I will always remember Bernie through the eyes of my seven year old self, as one of the toughest cops a boy could imagine. Rest in peace my friend, you rock, you great warrior!”
Trump administration adviser Kari Lake wrote on X “Bernie was a true patriot for decades! Just like President Trump, he had a YUGE love for America, his family, and New York City. He LOVED the MAGA Movement BEFORE it even had a name.”
Controversy hit Kerik long before he was charged with fraud. He was accused of using a Lower Manhattan apartment, which had been donated to shelter weary emergency workers after 9/11, to conduct an extramarital affair in the months after the attack.
After his stint as NYPD commissioner, Kerik went on to serve as interior minister of Iraq under the provisional coalition authority after the 2003 invasion.
In 2004 he was named by President George W Bush to lead the Department of Homeland Security, but had to withdraw his name after admitting to having employed an undocumented migrant, sparking a series of investigations into his finances.
In 2009 Kerik pleaded guilty to eight felony charges and served three years in federal prison. In the weeks after the 2020 election, Kerik and Giuliani worked together with Trump’s legal team to investigate claims of voter fraud. Kerik turned over thousands of pages of records to the federal investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Kerik had had his conviction wiped by Trump the previous February. “I started crying,” Kerik said at the time. Kerik was a frequent guest to the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
