In some ways, Rudy Giuliani has done exactly what President Trump hired him to do as his attorney: publicly defend him while discrediting Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Giuliani has stalled on whether the president will sit for an interview with Mueller, attempted to move the goalposts by emphasizing that “collusion is not a crime,” and even employed dramatic facial expressions to suggest that it’s Mueller’s team, not the White House, that’s being kooky and unreasonable.
But of course, there’s a flip side to Giuliani’s attention-grabbing performances. Shortly after his hiring he was on Hannity revealing that Trump knew about the Stormy Daniels payment, despite his denials, and since then he’s continually found new ways to stick his foot in his mouth.
Last week, Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman reported that after a particularly gaffe-filled spate of media appearances, even Trump was losing his patience. “Trump thinks he’s saying too much,” said a Republican close to the White House.
But Giuliani has yet to be sidelined, and he’s continued to demonstrate that much like his boss, he’s incapable of reeling it in. On Monday night, Giuliani continued teasing the possibility of Trump talking with Mueller while attempting to severely limit the scope of their discussion. Giuliani told the Washington Post that Trump’s legal team is about to send a letter to Mueller rejecting his offer of an interview that includes limited questions about obstruction of justice — which appears to be the primary topic the special counsel wants to address with Trump.
“We have a real reluctance about allowing any questions about obstruction,” Giuliani said. He acknowledged this could annoy federal investigators while offering a contradictory explanation for why he can’t talk to Mueller, though supposedly, he’d like to.
“Sure, it could,” Giuliani said of irritating prosecutors. “But they are trying to get something on perjury and that’s not going to happen. The answers, with regard to [former national-security adviser Michael] Flynn and the firing of [FBI Director James] Comey are already well known and they’re not going to change. He’d say the same thing in the interview that he’s said publicly.”
So Trump’s attorneys are both worried about Trump perjuring himself, and so confident that his private statements would match his public comments that an interview is unnecessary.
After a long day of working to thwart Mueller, Giuliani tried to unwind by tweeting attacks on Rahm Emanuel, misspelling the Chicago mayor’s last name and falsely claiming that 63 people were murdered when in reality 11 people were fatally shot over the weekend.
Then he raged at a random Fox guest who suggested he’s a smoker.
But Giuliani only invited more mockery when he accidentally typed “hate ‘me” instead of “hate ‘em.” Twitter users were happy to oblige:
