Rudy Giuliani had a tough Monday. In a series of bizarre morning show interviews, Donald Trump’s top lawyer didn’t do his client any favors when he repeatedly tried to argue that even if the president did “collude” with Russia, it’s not like it’s a federal crime or anything.
Early in his “A Closer Look” segment Monday night, Seth Meyers cited a recent Daily Beast report that chronicled Trump’s split from his one-time fixer Michael Cohen. One source who knows both men said they are “dead to each other” now that Cohen has decided to cooperate with an investigation into the president’s finances. Two more said Trump could be heard hurling “expletives” at Cohen after he released the first of several audio tapes of their conversations.
“I love that they reported that Trump used expletives, as if that’s newsworthy,” the Late Night host said. “I mean Michael Cohen seems like a guy you use expletives with even when you’re on good terms.”
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But Meyers spent most of his time Monday night focused on Giuliani’s attempts to discredit Cohen, who now claims Trump knew of the infamous Trump Tower meeting with his top campaign staff in the summer of 2016. “So now Trump’s team is trying to paint Cohen as a liar desperate to cut a deal,” the host said. “Trump’s current lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, lurched out of a fog bank to go on CNN last week to make that case.”
Giuliani now characterizes Cohen as a “proven liar” who has been “lying all his life,” while at the same time ignoring the fact that just a few weeks ago he was praising Cohen’s “honesty” and disputing Trump’s own serious credibility problems. In response, Meyers said of the president, “He’s a liar whose lawyer is lying about his lying lawyer’s lies.”
“Oh my god, you don’t need to secretly tape these guys to catch them in a lie,” the host added. “Just point a camera at them and say, ‘You’re on TV now.’”
And now, Meyers said, Giuliani has “moved the goalposts even further, arguing that even if collusion did happen, it’s not a crime.” Instead, Giuliani said on CNN, “The hacking is the crime. And the president didn’t hack.”
“Nothing make me happier than imagining Donald Trump personally doing the hack,” Meyers said. But “just because Trump didn’t do the hacking,” he added later, “doesn’t mean he isn’t complicit in a crime.”
The host then pointed to the moment during one of Trump’s general election debates with Hillary Clinton when he suggested that the hacking may have been committed by a “400-pound” guy “sitting on his bed in New Jersey.”
With that, Meyers casually reminded viewers that Trump does like to play golf in New Jersey and is “just shy” of obese. “Oh my god.”
