Rudy Giuliani's daughter: Trump took my father away from me. Please don't let him take over our land too

I keep wondering how America is doing here again given the opportunity to choose Donald Trump again, after all the damage he has done both in office and since. While Kamala Harris Although the fact that the election is filled with vitality and hope has gained extraordinary momentum, I fear that too many Americans remain disconnected from the visceral, psychologically distressing memory of Trump's deeply destabilizing presidency. If enough people actually remembered what that chaos felt like, another Trump term wouldn't even be on the table. But for those open to seeing the naked and unvarnished truth, there are unmistakable reminders of Trump's destructive trail all around us, and it broke my heart to see my father become one of them.

As Rudy GiulianiUnfortunately, as Trump's daughter, I am well placed to remind Americans how disastrous being associated with Trump can be, even for those who are convinced he is on their side. Watching my father's life crumble since he joined Trump has been extraordinarily painful, both on a personal level and because his death seems linked to a dark force that threatens to engulf America again. We do not want to discount individual responsibility in the slightest, but it would be naive for us to ignore the fact that many of those closest to Trump have entered a catastrophic downward spiral. If we let Trump take the reins again this fall, our country will be no exception.

My father and I have a strangely complicated relationship. But he is still my father and despite his flaws, I love him. I have seen him experience surreal highs and now unimaginable lows. 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.

From reproductive rights and the economy to foreign and environmental policy, we need experienced, sensible and fundamentally decent leaders who will fight for us instead of against us – who will protect our democracy instead of destroying it. And as a newly engaged 35-year-old who is more excited than afraid of the possibility of becoming a parent myself, I must commit to a future worth bringing children into, which is why I voice my unwavering support for Kamala Harris out and Tim Waltz.

I'll never forget the night my father told me he was considering becoming Trump's lawyer. I was with him at the Grand Havana Room, a cigar bar upstairs at 666 Fifth Avenue, an address too fitting given the unholy alliance my father was about to form.

Surrounded by thick smoke and powerful men, I cried for a few minutes, then spent the next three hours vehemently convincing my father that he should not go down this morally dangerous path.

It was extremely rare for my father to tell me he was going to do something before he actually did it. That's why this moment of connection with him also felt like a cosmic opportunity to do my part to curb the spread of Trump's dark shadow. I didn't hold anything back. I have expressed all my concerns about Trump's blatant racism, his rampant misogyny, and his complete lack of empathy. I even told my father that I was already ashamed of my last name when I saw headlines associating it with Trump, and that this escalation would only deepen that feeling. For the rest of that night, I held on to the hope that a daughter's emotional plea could actually influence a father.

That fantasy was dispelled the next morning when a message popped up on my feed: Rudy Giuliani was going to work for Donald Trump. The pit I felt in my stomach at the time was a warning, but I had no idea how much destruction my father would face because of his one-sided loyalty to an impostor. Growing up in Gracie Mansion, I always knew I had a privileged life. But being the daughter of Rudy Giuliani presented its own challenges, and by this point in my life I had mostly learned how to deal with them.

But nothing I experienced prepared me for the very public and unstoppable implosion of my father's life.

As someone who has overcome a deep-rooted eating disorder and worked through various other manifestations of anxiety and depression, I am no stranger to processing complicated feelings. But this new albatross left me overwhelmed with a powerful mix of fear, anger, confusion and sadness that often made me cry for my father and for him at the same time. I always saw flaws in my father that people blinded by his fame couldn't see, but in some ways the absurd extent of his success and fame also made it hard to believe that anything could actually bring him down . I have spent much of my life wishing my father had less power. But I never wanted anything like that to happen The. And the deeper my father gets into the quicksand of his problems, the more fleeting our opportunities to connect as father and daughter become. After months of feeling the kind of grief that comes with the death of a loved one, I realized that I was grieving the loss of my father to Trump. I can't bear to lose our country to him too.

I know some people may question whether I really care about my father, since another Trump presidency could theoretically help some the problems he faces. It bothers me to think that my father could even wonder that. But when you zoom out, Trump's presidency was the worst thing that ever happened to my father, my family, and our country's modern history. The consequences will only be more serious – and irreversible – the second time around. Thanks to the extremist Supreme Court he installed, Trump would take office with complete immunity: no checks on his power. If the president is not supposed to submit to the law like every other citizen, which still remains incomprehensible to me, then our president had better have a moral compass. A 34-time convicted felon who has been found liable for sexual abuse, attempting to steal elections and demeaning people based on their race, sexuality, disability status and gender falls well short of the standards we must set for ourselves as a country. Fortunately, we have another choice in this election: a lifelong public servant who has spent her career pursuing justice and fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves.