CNN reports that President Donald Trump continues to support his attorney Rudy Giuliani, even after a series of blunders on national television.
CNN reporter Shimon Prokupecz, citing unnamed sources, said on Tuesday that while some presidential allies are irked with the lawyer, the same can’t be said of Trump himself.
“I think it’s fair to say that most of the people close to the president obviously have some concern about the way Rudy Giuliani is doing things, but really, the client ― President Donald Trump ― is pretty happy with what Rudy Giuliani is doing, according to the people that we’ve talked to,” Prokupecz said. “They say that he’s the one person that the president right now at least in the last 48 hours is not mad at.”
The CNN account is further explained in an article on its website citing one insider who said, “Rudy’s not getting fired.”
Articles by The Associated Press and others reported Trump hasn’t mentioned axing the lawyer, but they did say Giuliani’s boss was unhappy with his interviews, and aides were discussing whether to temporarily sideline him from media appearances.
Giuliani, during interviews over the weekend followed by clarifications, raised serious questions over the timeline of Trump’s discussions to build a Trump Tower Moscow, suggesting talks may have continued up to November 2016.
According to the AP, the president was frustrated that the attorney’s on-air gaffes were distracting the public from special counsel Robert Mueller’s pushback on a BuzzFeed News scoop alleging Trump directed former fixer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow project. Trump griped that Giuliani’s appearances had “changed the headlines” for the worse, AP reported.
Despite the distress, Prokupecz reported that Giuliani still has support.
“Obviously some people on the legal team are not always happy with the way Rudy Giuliani goes about messaging and how he says things and mixes things up, but certainly there are people that are close to the president who think what he’s doing is effective,” Prokupecz said.