Trump ‘Disappointed’ With Cohen For Secret Recordings, Not ‘Angry,’ Giuliani Says

After Michael Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, released the audio of one of the tapes that the former secretly recorded of President Donald Trump — in which both of them discussed a financial deal to be struck between the POTUS and ex-playboy model Karen McDougal — on Tuesday to CNN, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani immediately went into damage control mode.

The recording in question dated back to 2016 when Trump was running for president. In it, the-then Republican candidate can be heard asking Cohen what the best way was to buy McDougal’s silence about the alleged affair they had in the past.

Cohen told Trump he needed “to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David.” Then Trump was heard asking his lawyer, “What financing?” to which Cohen replied, “We’ll have to pay.”

This was followed by Trump mumbling something intelligible, which ended along the lines of “pay with cash.” Cohen is then heard vehemently advising him against taking that route.

When Robert Costa, a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, asked Giuliani about the president’s reaction to the tapes, the former mayor of New York said Trump was “disappointed” that “his own lawyer recorded him.” When Costa pressed Giuliani on whether Trump was “angry,” the latter said POTUS was not.

Giuliani also believed there was a possibility the president would choose to lash out at Cohen again after his initial tweet following the news of the tapes on July 21, where he refrained from mentioning Cohen by name. “He has Twitter…,” said Giuliani.

Also, Cohen seems to have lost all possibility of earning favors with the president as Giuliani said, “It would be extremely inappropriate at this point to talk about pardons. I’m certain there are no talks about pardons for [Cohen]. Any pardon is up to the president.”

Furthermore, Giuliani doubled down on his earlier view that Trump knew nothing about the deal struck with McDougal — something that was brought into question after the president was heard talking with Cohen about offering the playboy model hush money in one of the tapes.

“It doesn’t. That’s open to interpretation and we can have a fight about that. To me it sounds like Cohen is explaining something to [Trump] that he doesn’t understand,” Giuliani added.

His defense of the president did not stop there. In a telephonic interview with Fox News, Giuliani elaborated on why he thought Trump was innocent and that the content of the tapes were being taken out of context.

“There’s no way the president is going to be talking about setting up a corporation and using cash unless you’re a complete idiot and the president’s not an idiot," Giuliani said.

He then invited the public to listen to the tapes as he claimed he did multiple times to discover the truth for themselves.

“Look, we’ve been over the tape over the weekend about five times," he said. "What I urge people to do is go online and listen to your broadcast. Play the tape. Play it three times. The third time you play it, it will become clear."

"I've got 4,000 hours of mafia people on tape," he added. "I know how to listen to them, I know how to transcribe them. I’ve dealt with much worse tapes than this."

Davis also urged people to use their “commonsense” to make judgments about the tapes, which, according to him, proved it was Trump and not his client who suggested paying cash.

"Everybody heard just now Donald Trump say the word 'cash,'" Davis said. "After Michael Cohen mentioned financing. The tape contradicts Giuliani. The only people who use cash are drug dealers and mobsters.”

“These are people that scramble the truth up when they’re caught," Davis added. "Now they’re going to say the tape was made up, it’s all fake news. I’ll tell you, ladies and gentlemen, what is not fake: your own ears, commonsense."