Since being added to the game of musical chairs otherwise known as the president’s legal defense team, Rudy Giuliani has embarked on a media tour that is either evidence of a psychotic break, a secret plot to get Trump impeached (a girl can dream), or a desperate attempt to steal the media spotlight from Kanye West and Kim Kardashian-West – I mean, Jong-Un. While Giuliani’s interviews are objectively hilarious, I assume you have better things to stream than Fox & Friends all day. (Congrats! You have more to do than the president!) Because we still want you to be able to talk shit about Giuliani with your coworkers, we recapped ten of the most outlandish claims he’s made to the press this week. Let the crazy Giuliani quotes begin.
1. The First Admission: Trump Reimbursed Cohen for Paying Stormy
An oldie but a goodie. Giuliani began his media circuit last Wednesday with a Fox interview with Sean Hannity. In the exchange below, America’s Mayor admitted that Donald Trump reimbursed Michael Cohen for the $130k he paid to keep Stormy quiet about her affair with the president.
GIULIANI: Having something to do with paying some Stormy Daniels woman $130,000? Which, I mean, is going to turn out to be perfectly legal. That money was not campaign money. Sorry, I’m giving you a fact now that you don’t know. It’s not campaign money. No campaign finance violation.
HANNITY: They funneled it through a law firm.
GIULIANI: They funneled through a law firm, and the president repaid it.
HANNITY: …Oh. I didn’t know that. He did.
GIULIANI: Yep.
So, Trump’s months of denials that he paid for Stormy’s silence were basically a huge lie? Yep! The fact that the president’s lawyer couldn’t even get through a Fox News interview without incriminating himself says a lot.
2. Very Regular Bribery
In the same interview, excerpted below, Giuliani repeatedly insists that paying off your client’s alleged mistress is a “very regular thing” for lawyers. Sure, super normal, not like lawyers are supposed to abide by the laws that make corruption illegal or anything.
“The settlement payment, which is a very regular thing for lawyers to do. The question there was, the only possible violation there would be: Was it a campaign finance violation? Which usually results in a fine, by the way, not this big stormtroopers coming in and breaking down his apartment and breaking down his office. That was money that was paid by his lawyer, the way I would do, out of his law firm funds or whatever funds — it doesn’t matter.”
Yes Rudy, it totally doesn’t matter what funds were used to hide information about a presidential candidates’ alleged mistress from the voting public. Also, seems like a great idea to admit you would do the exact same thing Michael Cohen is currently being investigated for!
3. Everyone Loves Michael Cohen
Giuliani and Hannity then spent a few minutes gushing about their shared love of Michael Cohen. Cute.
GIULIANI: I like Michael a lot, you like Michael a lot —
HANNITY: I’ve known him a long time.
GIULIANI: I feel very bad he’s been victimized like this. The president feels even worse.
Raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimized by the fake news media!
4. Very Busy People
When asked if Trump knew exactly what he was paying Michael Cohen for, Giuliani claimed that Cohen probably didn’t give Trump the specifics, because lawyers like Cohen and Giuliani don’t want to bother their incredibly busy clients with unimportant details about what they’re being paid for. It must be nice when your lawyer takes care of minor obstacles like a porn star who claims you had an extramarital affair, and doesn’t interrupt your busy schedule of other affairs and colluding with foreign governments to tell you about it!
He didn’t know about the specifics of it, as far as I know. But he did know about the general arrangement, that Michael would take care of things like this. Like, I take care of this with my clients. I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people.
5. Trump Might Testify
On Sunday, Giuliani said on ABC that he has no idea whether Trump will testify, and he probably can’t convince him not to. At least he’s honest! When asked directly if Trump would testify and try to plead the 5th, he said:
How can I ever be confident of that?… I’m facing a situation with the president and all the other lawyers are, in which every lawyer in America thinks he would be a fool to testify, I’ve got a client who wants to testify.
Casual reminder that Donald Trump once said that “only the mob” pleads the 5th.
6. Don’t Fuck With Ivanka (Sorry Jared)
When asked whether the special counsel might investigate Jarvanka, Giuliani literally acts like he’s a medieval knight tasked with protecting the crown prince and princess, which tbh is kind of accurate at this point in our non-democracy:
I think I would get on my charger and go right into their offices with a lance if they go after Ivanka. … Now, I think if they do do Ivanka, which I doubt they will, the whole country will turn on them. They’re going after his daughter? … Jared is a fine man, you know that. But men are, you know, disposable. But a fine woman like Ivanka? Come on.
My charger?! A lance?! Cool, the American government is basically being run by the Knights Templar. While I agree with the statement that men are disposable, I’m not so sure that Trump does. Also, Giuliani should probably remember that Trump considers his own daughter a fine “piece of ass,” not a woman.
7. Trump Probs Forgot He Paid Cohen
In an interview with the Washington Post, Giuliani waffled on when exactly the president was told about the payments by Cohen, before bizarrely claiming that regardless of when he was told, he wouldn’t have remembered it:
He wasn’t, since it was somewhere between ten and five days before the election. And he wasn’t told. But even if he was told, he wouldn’t have remembered it, like I wouldn’t have remembered it.
Because who would remember that their lawyer paid off one of the multiple women who want to expose your affairs and sexual escapades days before getting elected to the highest office in the land? Honestly seems like a minor detail in the grand scheme of covering up the pee tape and your children’s attempts to get dirt on Hillary from Russian operatives.
8. 100k is Pocket Change
On Fox & Friends last Thursday, GIuliani literally said that $135,000 is “pretty close” to pocket change. Considering a single Presidential visit to Mar-A-Lago can cost $3.5 million, Giuliani isn’t wrong, he’s just extremely offensive to the vast majority of Americans. Is “pocket” code for “bank accounts of Russian oligarchs”???
I know $135,000 — and I don’t want to demean anyone — but $135,000 seems like a lot of money. It’s not when you are putting $100 million into your campaign. It isn’t pocket change, but it’s pretty close to it at the end…And I think when Cohen heard $130,000, he said, ‘My God, this is cheap.
9. Shocker: Giuliani is Not an Expert
Giuliani explaining how little he knows about Trump’s legal status sounds like me trying to get out of an exam I didn’t study for:
This is, you know, 1.2 million documents. I’ve been in the case for two weeks. Virtually one day, in comparison to other people. So I’m not an expert on the facts, yet. I’m getting there.
“I’m not an expert on the facts.” – The President of the United States’ lawyer.
10. He Might be Getting Fired
To wrap up this list of unhinged commentary, we have Giuliani’s manic response to the question of whether he is likely to be the next addition to the ever-growing list of fired or retired Trump lawyers:
No, no, no! I’m not going to get fired (laughs). But if I do, I do. It wouldn’t be the first time it ever happened. But I don’t think so, no. (laughs)
Rudy’s manic laughter here makes 2007 Britney look calm and collected. At this point, it is impossible to predict what he is going to do next. I honestly feel like he might Instagram story the pee tape next week. It’s Giuliani, bitch.
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