Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg says President Trump’s new attorney Rudy Giuliani deserves an “A” for a daylong media blitz, even if “everyone else wants to give him an F.”
Giuliani dominated news coverage after saying late Wednesday that Trump repaid attorney Michael Cohen $130,000 for an October 2016 nondisclosure deal with porn star Stormy Daniels. The claim may put Trump at risk of prosecution for a campaign-finance violation.
“I think the mayor is doing the president a service,” Nunberg told the Washington Examiner. “Lawyers are allowed to say whatever they want in public. If it’s inaccurate, it’s inaccurate. It’s not a crime.”
“He carries a lot of authority and he’s going out on a line for his client,” he added. “I don’t see [fellow Trump person attorney Jay] Sekulow out there. Rudy has the moxie to do it and the gravitas. Otherwise you have Sarah Sanders.”
The media’s fixation on Giuliani echoed wall-to-wall coverage of Nunberg’s March 5 claim he would refuse to comply with a subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller.
Like Nunberg, Giuliani followed an initial bombshell interview — in which he also said Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey because he “would not, among other things, say that he wasn’t a target” of the FBI’s Russia probe — with a series of additional interviews.
“I think he did a good job. But nobody could have done what I did. That was one of the best stunts ever,” Nunberg said. “I was the hottest thing that day. One of the biggest media blitzes ever. I melted down the media.”
Nunberg said he always intended to testify before Mueller’s grand jury, which he subsequently did, but objected to sorting his emails in response to a second subpoena. He said he’s upset when people call his TV tour “a meltdown,” and that he may sue if he hears more speculation that he was drunk. He’s particularly enraged hearing it on Fox News.
“At the end of the day I vented and that was that,” he said. “If anyone continues to say in was drunk on air, I don’t know how they are an expert.”
Nunberg, fired multiple times by Trump, has mixed feelings about his former boss.
“If somebody’s shit stinks, somebody’s shit stinks. And the president’s shit stinks,” he said regarding possible malfeasance involving Russia. “Donald is a hybrid of Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon and he is playing Ronald Reagan.”
Still, Nunberg added, “I don’t like Donald but I respect Donald but I think Donald respects me.”
“Two attorneys called and offered to help me sue the president … I said ‘fuck off,'” he said.
Nunberg said he sees his on-air blitz and Giuliani’s as “apples and oranges,” viewing his appearances as educating the public about the effects of the Mueller probe on people who are not targets, and Giuliani’s as serving as Trump’s spokesman.
But Nunberg said Giuliani should be careful.
“Rudy knows what to do. Rudy’s good at media. Rudy’s doing the best he can with what he has,” Nunberg said. “But the president is going to send you out there under false notions, so be careful. He’s never going to tell you the full truth. Rudy has to be careful. Everyone has to be careful.”
Although he said he doesn’t personally know of crimes Trump committed, he said “with the president, one way or another, what is going to bite him in the ass is he doesn’t treat his people well.”
“John Kelly could become his worst nightmare. He’s lucky Steve [Bannon] didn’t become his worst nightmare,” he said. “Plenty of us have been screwed over by Donald. … I think they need to be careful about what they say about Michael Cohen. Michael holds the cards and the leverage right now.”
