Politics

Watch: White House takes questions following Rudy Giuliani's media blitz

Key Points
  • The White House is set to field reporters' questions Monday.
  • The briefing follows a series of interviews from Rudy Giuliani, a recent addition to President Trump's legal team, who said Trump did repay his lawyer for a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement before the election.
  • Giuliani also said that Trump fired FBI Director James Comey "because Comey would not — among other things — say that he wasn't a target of the investigation."

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The White House is set to field reporters' questions Monday, in the wake of a media blitz from former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, a recent addition to President Donald Trump's legal team.

Giuliani gave a streak of media interviews beginning Wednesday and continuing through Sunday on a weekend morning show. In a lengthy interview on Fox News Wednesday night, Giuliani revealed that Trump had repaid his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels as part of a nondisclosure pact barring her from discussing an alleged affair with Trump.

"Funneled through a law firm, and the president repaid it," Giuliani told talk show host Sean Hannity.

Trump had denied knowledge of the payment when asked about it in April. Cohen has previously said that "neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign" was involved in the transaction.

During the previous press briefing on Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Giuliani's remarks about the repayment were "information that the president didn't know at the time but eventually learned."

Sanders said at the Thursday briefing she found about the reimbursement the night before. "The first awareness I had was during an interview last night," Sanders said.

Trump acknowledged Cohen's reimbursement in a trio of tweets the day after Giuliani spoke with Hannity.

Trump tweet 1

Trump tweet 2

Trump tweet 3

Giuliani also provided an explanation for Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey that appeared to conflict with past statements from the White House and the president himself.

"He fired Comey because Comey would not — among other things — say that he wasn't a target of the investigation," Giuliani said during the Wednesday night interview.

The administration has said Trump fired Comey over his handling of the investigations into Hillary Clinton during the campaign. Trump, in an NBC Nightly News interview shortly after the firing, said he fired the FBI head because "I said to myself, I said, 'You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.'"

Sanders, in the previous press briefing, said Trump "doesn't have to justify his decision" to fire Comey. "The president has the authority to fire and hire and I think every single day we've seen that he made the right decision," she said.

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