From all available anecdotal data, President Donald Trump places a high premium on loyalty, so it’s no surprise that he would call on former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to front his personal legal team. And it’s little surprise that he would stick by his long-time friend even after months of questionable interviews during which Giuliani seemed, at times, befuddled and distant from the central message that Trump should be putting out into the ether. But after a weekend where Giuliani made a number of unforced, bizarre errors, it’s time for Trump to think again. With Mueller breathing down his neck and a shutdown stretching into its second month, Trump cannot afford to have this cartoonish character out on national TV muddying up the waters.
According to a new story from Politico (and echoed by the AP and others), Trump may be thinking the same thing.
From Politico:
Rudy Giuliani has a growing list of enemies in the White House — which now includes his boss, President Donald Trump.
Trump was apoplectic after a pair of weekend media interviews by his personal lawyer, in which Giuliani said that the president had been involved in discussions to build a Trump Tower in Moscow through the end of the 2016 campaign — a statement that enraged Trump because it contradicted his own public position, according to two sources close to the president.
Giuliani’s statement was the latest in a series of remarks over several months that has required walk-backs or reversals, and Trump spent much of Sunday and Monday fuming to aides and friends about his lawyer’s missteps. Most of those people share Trump’s frustration, noting that the former New York mayor often appears to lack a mastery of the facts of Trump’s legal headaches.
As always with the mainstream liberal media (and especially after a week like this one), we have to take this report with a grain of salt. For all we know, Trump and Rudy finish every day with a cigar on the White House patio, laughing about old times and devising new ways to explain to the public just how unprecedented and unfair the Mueller investigation has become.
But if Trump is angry, he has a right to be. Giuliani is nothing if not a loyal, fierce advocate for the president, and that certainly counts for something. But if the goal here is to move the needle on public opinion, then Trump needs someone who is both a tenacious fighter and a consummate professional. Someone who has a mastery of the facts, and who is also willing to demolish the left’s conspiracy theories with clarity and precision. From what we’ve seen so far, Rudy Giuliani is not that guy.
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