Donald Trump is reportedly considering a move that would make a lot of people very unhappy: pulling Rudy Giuliani off the TV interview circuit. While Trump likes that Giuliani defends Trump and attacks his enemies with the vigor of a crazed ferret, he’s not so happy about how Giuliani keeps opening up new questions about Trump’s history with Stormy Daniels, the hush money to Daniels, and, potentially, other women who’ve been similarly paid off:
Trump, who has denied the affair with Daniels, was angry that Giuliani had given the impression that other women may have made similar charges of infidelity, according to the people familiar with his views.
Additionally, Trump has grown agitated in recent days by replays of Giuliani’s interview with Sean Hannity, in which he said that Trump knew about the payment but that it wasn’t a campaign violation. A clearly surprised Hannity then asked, “Because they funneled it through the law firm?”
To which Giuliani responded, “Funneled it through the law firm, and the president repaid him.”
Trump snapped at both men in recent days, chiding Hannity for using the word “funneled,” which he believes had illegal connotations, according to the people who spoke to The Associated Press.
So now we know that Trump is either sitting around replaying the Giuliani-Hannity interview himself or is watching enough cable news to have seen that specific news-making part of the interview, out of all the other news-making parts of the interview that are being frequently replayed, to get specifically agitated about that. And how interesting that someone whose real estate deals bear some of the hallmarks of international money laundering might be so upset about the word “funneled.”
If Trump benches Giuliani, Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti will be high on the list of people upset to lose the constant stream of information about what Trump knew and when and how his arrangements with Michael Cohen worked. One big question, of course, is what other lawyers—from federal and state prosecutors to special counsel Robert Mueller—are taking an interest in what Giuliani keeps offering up.