Giuliani told to ‘get his facts straight’ on Stormy Daniels

US President Donald Trump is suggesting that Rudy Giuliani, the aggressive new face of his legal team, needed to “get his facts straight” about hush money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election.

Mr Trump on Friday chided Mr Giuliani while insisting “we’re not changing any stories” about the $130,000 settlement paid to Daniels to keep quiet about her allegations of a sexual encounter with Mr Trump, one he has denied.

Hours later, Mr Giuliani backed away from his previous assertion that the October 27 settlement had been made because Mr Trump was in the home stretch of his campaign.

“The payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the president’s family,” Mr Giuliani said in a statement. “It would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not.”

A day earlier, Mr Giuliani had told Fox News: “Imagine if that came out on October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton”.

Mr Trump said Mr Giuliani was “a great guy, but he just started a day ago” on the defence team, and the former New York mayor was still “learning the subject matter”. Mr Giuliani disclosed this week that the president knew about the payment to Daniels made by Mr Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and the president repaid Mr Cohen.

He insisted that Mr Trump did not know the specifics of Mr Cohen’s arrangement with Daniels until recently, and he told Fox and Friends on Thursday that the president was unaware of all the details until “maybe 10 days ago”. Mr Giuliani told The New York

Times that Mr Trump had repaid Mr Cohen $35,000 a month “out of his personal family account” after the campaign was over. He said Mr Cohen received $460,000 or $470,000, all for expenses related to Mr Trump.

Mr Trump said last month that he had not known about a settlement with Daniels.

His irritation was plain on Friday when reporters reminded him of his previous denial. He blasted the media for focusing on stories such as the Daniels matter and the special counsel’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

He claimed that “virtually everything” reported about the payments has been wrong but declined to elaborate.

In his statement, Mr Giuliani said his previous “references to timing were not describing my understanding of the president’s knowledge, but instead, my understanding of these matters”.

Mr Giuliani’s statement came a day after he said, “You won’t see daylight between me and the president.”

Mr Giuliani said Mr Trump did not know the specifics of the arrangement with Daniels until recently