NEW YORK—Faced with criticism over his role in pushing Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 campaign on behalf of President Trump, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said Friday that whenever the pressure gets to him, he seeks solace in his fond recollections of the events of Sept. 11, 2001. “Most of the time I have a pretty thick skin, but if I do start getting down on myself, I just let my thoughts go back to that fateful morning and how it forever changed my life for the better,” Giuliani told reporters as he looked wistfully out his office window and recalled his “heyday,” when he spent months basking in the praise of a nation and carefully leveraged his newfound influence to make himself a multimillionaire. “That’s where I find my strength. Anytime I need a little pick-me-up, all I need to do is look at a picture of Ground Zero and I’m right as rain. Do I wish I could go back and relive that day? Of course. But we can’t go back, can we?” Giuliani then reportedly set aside the congressional subpoena he had been reading through and spent the next several hours rewatching CNN’s live coverage of the second plane slamming into the World Trade Center.

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