the idea that rudy giuliani has put on the table for scrutiny exactly how this all went down between the president, michael cohen, and stormy daniels. i don t know that he helped the president s cause much. that s a very restrained way of describing the premiere of the giuliani story. i mean, when the president is out there cleaning up after his lawyer, that kind of has things a little bit backwards. i think there s two different questions here. one is the public relations aspect to the question and one is the legal aspect. as a public relations matter, these constantly shifting stories and unraveling tales and the new york times story that says the president had known for months about the payment to stormy daniels, duh it s a great story, congratulations to my friends at the new york times but that s the only narrative that really makes any sense.
washington post this week, rudy giuliani said the president had reimbursed michael cohen for the stormy daniels payment and indicated that trump had reimbursed cohen for other matters as well. quote, he was paid by donald trump s personal funds and he was paid out of personal funds which covered that and possibly a few other things, you know, would be considered incidental. the repayments took place over a period of time, probably in 2017, probably all paid back by the end of 2017, that and probably a few other situations that might have been considered campaign expenses. giuliani also said this week that cohen resolved other problems similarly for trump. he didn t specify what they were or the source of funds that were used. joining us is one of the wall street journal reporters who broke tonight s story, michael rothfeld, thank you for being it us. thank you for your reporting on this. what s the implication here. michael cohen ended up taking $774,000 combined in home equity
with stormy daniels or other things, whatever. there could be things about the stormy daniels affair that cohen knows and trump knows and trump doesn t want to get out. you know, but and i think michael cohen, through donny deutsch, was kind of reminding everybody, i m over here, i have a story to tell too. meanwhile, you have the extraordinary situation as ruth alluded to, the president essentially devising his own legal communication strategy. at times not even bothering to let his lawyers know what this is. certainly not cueing in his new lawyer, rudy giuliani, as to exactly what the script is supposed to be. this is you know, this is a he has a he s representing himself. so he has a fool for a client. this is ridiculous and he will only get himself in more trouble, not less trouble, by