Giuliani's daughter explains how she came to the decision to break with her father and support Harris

CNN
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Caroline Rose Giuliani, the daughter of Donald Trump's former personal lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, said Wednesday that her decision to support Vice President Kamala Harris was not taken lightly.

In her first television interview after her endorsement of Harris, Caroline Rose Giuliani told CNN's Erin Burnett that she has had to endure a painful “emotional storm” in recent years as her father struggles with the fallout from his efforts to help Trump Overturn the 2020 election. She said she needed to figure out whether she had “the courage to share her thoughts” because she knew it could damage her relationship with her 80-year-old father “in the final years of his life.”

She said she didn't tell her father that she was writing an essay endorsing Harris over Trump that Vanity Fair published earlier this week, but that she has always made her opinions clear. Caroline Rose Giuliani previously supported Joe Biden and Harris over Trump in the 2020 election.

“I'm still worried it might hurt him and I hope he knows I love him. I hope that was clear, but yeah, we haven't talked about it and probably won't for a while,” she said on OutFront.

In her Vanity Fair piece, Giuliani described how she was “well suited to remind Americans how disastrous being associated with Trump can be,” and detailed how her father's life had collapsed. since he “aligned with the former president.”

“The last thing I want to do is hurt him, especially when he's already down. Plus, we never know how much time we have left with our parents. All in all, this makes this the most difficult piece I have ever written. But this moment and this choice are so much bigger than any of us,” she wrote.

Giuliani said in the essay that Harris was the country's “only chance for a better future.”

“Believe me, Trump destroys everything he touches. I saw it happen to my family. “Don’t let this happen to you or our country,” she added. “Kamala Harris will lead us to a better future, but only if we unite behind her.”

Since the 2020 election, Trump's former personal lawyer has faced a series of legal and financial problems. He has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges against him in connection with election subversion schemes in Georgia and Arizona. Two former Georgia poll workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, also won a $148 million defamation judgment against him over false allegations he made about them after the 2020 election. They are currently in court trying to force the sale of Guiliani's properties, including a penthouse co-op on Manhattan's Upper East Side and a Florida condo worth millions.

When asked Wednesday if she was afraid her father would go to prison, Giuliani said, “I mean, of course it's a terrible thing to think about and it's a fear and I don't like to think about it.” She added that she preferred to think about the future and reiterated her support for Harris.

Giuliani, the youngest of Rudy Giuliani's two children with ex-wife Donna Hanover, supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election while her father was a vocal supporter of Trump. During the 2008 election, when her father was seeking the Republican nomination, she joined a Facebook group supporting Barack Obama for president.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz and Tierney Sneed contributed to this report