THE NOD-FATHER
Gotti backed Rudy for Prez: Victoria
No hard feelings.
Mob boss John Gotti supported Rudy Giuliani’s White House ambitions even though the former prosecutor tried repeatedly to put the Dapper Don behind bars.
Victoria Gotti, whose biopic “My Father’s Daughter” premieres Saturday on Lifetime, recalls one of the few times her dad talked about politics. Much to her surprise, it was to voice support for Giuliani amid rumors he might run for President.
“I was very surprised, because he looked at me and said, ‘Eh, maybe he’s got a shot? Let’s see. You never know,’ ” she recalled.
It’s unclear what motivated John to speculate about a Giuliani White House. Giuliani was mayor of New York from 1994 to Dec. 31, 2001, which was six months before John died in prison. In 2008, Giuliani unsuccessfully sought the Republican Party nomination, which went to the late Sen. John McCain.
Victoria was stunned by her father’s admission and didn’t agree with the endorsement.
“This was the man who prosecuted my father so I’m thinking . . . you know?” she said. “My father actually wanted him to win if he ran.”
In 1985, Giuliani indicted the leaders of New York City’s Five Families of organized crime, including Gotti’s boss, Paul Castellano.
Castellano avoided conviction when a team of hit men — allegedly organized by Gotti — gunned him down in front of a Midtown steakhouse. According to a 2007 FBI report, Gotti also wanted to have Giuliani assassinated, but was outvoted by the heads of the city’s other crime families.
Just the same, Victoria said Gotti would have voted for the former mayor had he made a run at the White House.
“He said it that day,” she said.
While Victoria makes it her “business never to talk about politics,” she knows President Trump from being a 2012 contestant on his reality show “Celebrity Apprentice.” It was recently brought up to the 56year-old Brooklyn native that Trump has been compared to a mob boss because of his bullying tactics. “I was laughing because I hadn’t heard that,” she said. “Donald can be a little heady. That’s for sure. But we got along.” In August, The New York Times ran 17 quotes and asked readers to guess whether each line was said by John Gotti or Trump. The Atlantic ran a story last year drawing parallels between Trump associates who turned on The Donald and mob figures who testified against the don. In 2017, Vanity Fair ran a story comparing the President’s ongoing battle with federal prosecutors to Gotti’s efforts to stay out of jail. Even the President’s supporters at “Fox and Friends” likened the way Trump and his associates are being investigated to the way Gotti was harangued by authorities.
In Victoria’s opinion, Trump, like her dad and — um — every other man, simply likes being in charge.
“I think every man would love that power and ability somewhere at some point in their lives — every man,” she said. “Its just an ego thing…some men have bigger egos than others… I think every man would love to be in a position of power and say ‘Do this and not that.’ ”
Wanting to wield power and wishing to be President aren’t synonymous, according to Victoria, who doesn’t think her dad would have been interested in the latter.
“I don’t think that would have been a job he would’ve wanted,” she said. “He was too much a people person. He believed politicians tell nothing but lies. It was all about games and the drama and the chutzpah — he didn’t buy that.”
However, if her dad were alive and ran for office in this day and age, she thinks he would have won.
“Today, yeah, I think he would,” she said.