Trump just threw Rudy Giuliani under the bus and says he will 'get his facts straight' on the Stormy Daniels saga
- President Donald Trump said his new lawyer Rudy Giuliani will "get his facts straight" about the payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
- Giuliani said Trump reimbursed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen for the $130,000 payment, something Cohen had earlier denied.
- The revelation ignited a strange, furious news cycle and sparked charges the president had misrepresented the payment in earlier comments.
President Donald Trump told reporters Friday that his new outside attorney, Rudy Giuliani, will "get his facts straight" on the payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Trump's comments came after Giuliani went on a media tear this week and said Trump reimbursed his longtime lawyer Michael Cohen for the $130,000 he paid Daniels, shifting the administration's narrative on the payment.
Before boarding Marine One outside the White House, Trump called Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and US attorney, a "great guy" who "really has his heart in" handling Trump's legal work. But he said of Giuliani, who began representing Trump last month, "he just started a day ago."
"He's leaning the subject matter," Trump continued, adding, "He started yesterday. He'll get his facts straight."
Moments later, speaking to reporters at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, Trump insisted that his team was "not changing any stories" about the Daniels payment. He then lamented that the press was focusing on the "kind of crap" like the Daniels payment instead of news about the nation's economy.
Giuliani sparked a firestorm
The latest episode in the ongoing saga involving Trump, Cohen, and Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, began Wednesday night.
Giuliani made a bombshell revelation to Fox News host Sean Hannity, saying that the president personally reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 payment. Earlier this year, Cohen said Trump did not reimburse him for the payment. Cohen also said he used a home equity line of credit to make the payment to Daniels so that she would keep quiet about her allegation of a 2006 affair with Trump while his wife Melania was pregnant with their son Barron.
Meanwhile, following his interview with Hannity, Giuliani went on a media blitz. He said his revelation about the president reimbursing the payment was made with Trump's approval. Cohen was reimbursed through a series of payments that began last January, Giuliani said, adding that Cohen was paid back in 12 installments of $35,000.
In an interview with NBC News Thursday night, Giuliani suggested that "you're not going to see daylight between the president and me."
"We're going to work hard to have a consistent strategy," he added less than a day before Trump made his comment about Giuliani getting his facts straight.
In that interview with NBC News, Giuliani said Trump only learned that he had reimbursed Cohen about a week ago.
"I don't think the president realized he paid him back for that specific thing until we [his legal team] made him aware of the paperwork," Giuliani said, adding that Trump responded, "'Oh my goodness, I guess that's what it was for.'"
Michael Cohen pushes back
At the same time, Cohen apparently doesn't agree with what Giuliani is saying.
MSNBC contributor Donny Deutsch, who spoke to Cohen on Thursday, said Cohen said Giuliani "doesn't know what he's talking about." Cohen is currently under criminal investigation by federal authorities for possible bank fraud and campaign finance violations. He has not been charged with a crime.
The Daniels payment, made within weeks of the 2016 presidential election, has led to questions over whether it was a violation of campaign finance laws. The Trump campaign did not report the payment to the Federal Election Commission, and it far exceeded the amount an individual can give to a presidential campaign.
Cohen has insisted it was not a campaign donation because the purpose of the payment was not to boost Trump's candidacy but to protect his family from the damaging information being made public, though both Cohen and Trump aides have denied an affair took place. Giuliani, however, said during a "Fox and Friends" interview Thursday morning that such an allegation coming out would have been politically damaging.
Giuliani later told NBC News that the contribution had nothing to do with the campaign and was instead to prevent "personal embarrassment and heartache."