Rudy Giuliani appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show Thursday night and praised President-elect Donald Trump for his relationship with the press.
“It is refreshing and it is very good for our democracy that we have a president that is trying to get us back to a free press,” Giuliani said while discussing the president-elect’s handling of the media during his first news conference in 167 days.
Trump’s unorthodox relationship with the media is widely seen as a threat to journalism ethics and a free press.
During the Wednesday press briefing, Trump refused to take a question from CNN’s Jim Acosta and called the cable news network “fake news.” CNN had published a report Tuesday that said intelligence officials presented Trump and President Barack Obama with claims that Russian operatives had compromising information about the president-elect. Trump also called BuzzFeed a “failing pile of garbage” for publishing the 35-page document of unverified claims.
Giuliani has been one of Trump’s top surrogates throughout the president-elect’s campaign and transition into office. Speculation had the former New York City mayor on a shortlist for Trump’s top Cabinet positions, but he says he turned down two offers for top posts because he “didn’t want to do it.”
On Thursday, Trump announced that Giuliani would advise the president-elect’s incoming administration on cybersecurity issues, a role the New York Times said represented a “diminished place in Trump world.”