Credit...Al Drago for The New York TimesHow Trump Entrusted His World Cup to Another GiulianiAndrew Giuliani, the son of Rudy and a longtime Trump loyalist, is overseeing American hosting duties for the World Cup next month. It’s a big promotion.Credit...Al Drago for The New York TimesSupported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTListen · 21:13 min Share full article112By Matt Flegenheimer and Rebecca R. RuizMay 19, 2026Andrew Giuliani was haggling in a Florida hospital room, defending his presence to his recently comatose father — a man so stricken a short time earlier that a priest had been called.At least dad sounded like himself again.“What are you doing here?” former Mayor Rudolph W.
Giuliani asked after waking earlier this month, according to Andrew Giuliani, who had scrambled south from Washington, where he holds a senior federal post conferred by a president whom he has described as a second father figure. Giuliani the top-ranking administration official who once smiled at the boss through baby teeth.ImageAndrew Giuliani, second from left, with President Trump and others in the Oval Office in November. Giuliani “you better do well.”Credit...Allison Robbert for The New York TimesMr.
Giuliani, 40, is the executive director of the White House Task Force on the FIFA World Cup 2026 — the nation’s steward for what he has billed, with Trumpian (and not inaccurate) flair, as “the largest sporting event in the history of the world,” which begins next month.The job would have been complicated enough before the war in Iran, one of the countries competing in the draw; or the 76-day homeland security shutdown that waylaid vital funding (and left Mr. Giuliani and much of his team unpaid); or the jittery incoming messages from blue host cities unsettled by Mr. Trump openly musing about relocating matches that have been planned for years.But it has fallen to Mr.
Giuliani, a Trump super-loyalist and regular golf partner who once played professionally, to reassure the soccer-loving masses that he is on the case, that the president hears their concerns, that everything will probably be fine.“This guy,” Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, said in a recent Instagram video, pointing double finger-guns at Mr. Giuliani, “is in charge of making sure it goes smooth.”To which more than a few MAGA-skeptical counterparties initially wondered: This guy is in charge of making sure it goes smooth?“One didn’t know,” Mayor Quinton Lucas, Democrat of Kansas City, Mo., one of 11 American host cities, said diplomatically, “the seriousness with which the position would be taken.”It is a golden age of world-conquering fathers and the sons who want their shot, of power and fortune accrued and expanded for the next generation without apology.David Ellison, son of Larry, is building his media mega-empire. Alex and Zach Witkoff, sons of Steve, are pitching Middle East investors while their father negotiates regional peace.
Jared Kushner, son of Charles (and son-in-law of the president), and Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have leveraged their connections in service of the evolving family business.“As men,” Andrew Giuliani observed last year, suggesting that Barron Trump’s soccer fandom had rubbed off on his father, “we’re always either trying to make our parents or our kids proud of us.”ImageIt was the young Andrew Giuliani who inspired a “Saturday Night Live” sketch featuring Chris Farley. Here, Andrew gesticulated during the inauguration speech of his father, Rudy.Credit...Andrea Mohin/The New York TimesAnd as a man whose father’s associates still reflexively call him “kid” in interviews — whose early reputation congealed as the boy who famously interrupted his dad’s City Hall inauguration, charging the lectern to blow kisses and step on punchlines — Mr. Giuliani has procured the careful-what-you-wish-for job of a lifetime.Weeks before the first match in the United States, outside Los Angeles on June 12, he is navigating the daily triage as Mr.
Trump’s de facto ambassador to the world’s game and its grandest showcase: boundless security threats; visa concerns among the more than five million expected international visitors; local angst about aggressive immigration enforcement upending the tournament; relentless complaints about runaway ticket prices; and delicate coordination with the World Cup co-hosts, Canada and Mexico, whose relationships with the administration can be volatile.“I can only liken it to juggling chain saws,” said Jason Miller, a longtime Trump adviser.“We try to catch the handle as much as possible,” Mr. Giuliani, who served in Mr. Trump’s first term as a liaison to sports leagues, said in an 85-minute interview.He prefers a different analogy, comparing himself to an offensive lineman in American football, mostly anonymous unless he bungles something.“If I’m the story of the World Cup,” Mr.
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