Rudy Giuliani’s cell phone accidentally called an NBC News reporter on October 16, leaving a voicemail in which he was clearly heard discussing the kingdom of Bahrain and saying, “The problem is we need some money.”
The call came in at 11:07 p.m. while reporter Rich Schapiro was asleep. In the audio, portions of which were published by NBC News on Friday, Giuliani can be heard saying “Charles would have a hard time with a fraud case, because he didn’t do any due diligence.” It’s unclear who Charles is.
Giuliani can also be heard telling an unidentified person “Tomorrow I gotta get you to get on Bahrain,” then telling the person they need to contact another person named Robert because “the problem is we need some money. We need a few hundred thousand.”
The other person in the conversation was largely inaudible, though he does say “if you want options, I got options, I got options,” to which Giuliani replies “yeah give me options, yeah.”
It wasn’t even the first time the former New York City mayor accidentally called Schapiro and left a voicemail. The previous butt-dial and subsequent voicemail happened on Sept. 28 at 3:37 p.m. In that message, Giuliani railed against the Biden family, accusing former vice president Joe Biden of “trading in on his public office since he was a senator” and son Hunter Biden of trying to get high-profile jobs because of his father’s position.
“And most people wouldn’t hire him because he had a drug problem,” Giuliani added.
That was just one day before Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign sent out a letter to multiple TV network heads, calling on them to stop booking Giuliani on their news programs because “his relationship with the truth is casual at best.”