'The safety of the world is at stake': Rudy Giuliani cites North Korea in dramatic rebuke of Mueller's effort to interview Trump
- Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a recent addition to President Donald Trump's legal team, said he was leaning toward postponing a possible interview between President Donald Trump and special counsel Robert Mueller.
- Giuliani cited national security concerns, such as the upcoming summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as one reason why the Mueller interview should be shelved for now.
- He wrote off the forthcoming Mueller-Trump interview as "bullsh--t."
Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and a recent addition to President Donald Trump's legal team, said he was leaning toward postponing a possible interview between Trump and special counsel Robert Mueller until after the upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Citing national security concerns, Giuliani suggested that having Mueller interview Trump for his ongoing Russia investigation before the summit could have a negative impact and derail the progress in North Korea relations.
"The safety of the world is at stake," Giuliani said, according to The Wall Street Journal. "I can't possibly tell the president or Gen. [John] Kelly or Mike Pompeo, or John Bolton, give me two days to prepare for a bulls--t interview that should never be taking place anyways."
The meeting, set to take place in late May or early June, has been highly anticipated due to its historic significance and the diplomatic engagement that stands in contrast to the bellicose rhetoric exchanged between Kim and Trump last year - Trump is set to become the first sitting US president to meet with a North Korean leader, and secretary of state Mike Pompeo visited North Korea and met with Kim in April.
Trump echoed Giuliani's sentiment in an early-morning tweet by quoting a remark from John Dowd, one of his former attorneys, that was published by The Washington Post on Tuesday.
"This isn't some game," Trump quoted Dowd as saying from The Post. "You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States."
"With North Korea, China, the Middle East and so much more, there is not much time to be thinking about this, especially since there was no Russian 'Collusion,'" Trump continued.
Trump has frequently bristled at Mueller and the Russia investigation, describing it as a "witchhunt" and insisting that there was no collusion between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russian operatives.
Mueller reportedly threatened Trump's legal team with a subpoena in March, if Trump chose to decline a voluntarily interview with federal prosecutors.