'Giuliani is the Screaming Baby': Trump's Lawyer Plans to Win by Being 'the Craziest Guy in the Room'
31 May 2018
CNN’s Dana Bash on Thursday reported on the strategy guiding Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. According to Bash, despite what critics say, the former federal prosecutor is “doing exactly what the president … brought him on board to do.”
Giuliani, Bash writes, was tapped to lead the president’s outside legal counsel in its effort to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
“[Giuliani’s] relationship with and understanding of the President allow him to speak fluent Trumpian,” Bash noted. “The fact that they're two Geminis in their early 70s from New York City helps make them kindred spirits.”
A source close to Giuliani’s thinking explained the lawyer’s approach as such:
"If there is a room full of people trying to have a discussion, and there is a screaming baby, what is everyone going to think about? The screaming baby. Giuliani is the screaming baby.
Who is going to get the most attention? The craziest guy in the room.”
Giuliani has kicked his “screaming baby” mode into overdrive in recent weeks, demanding Mueller “file his report by September 1, mid-September” or risk “meddling” in the 2018 midterms.
As Bash notes, the most clear-cut example of Giuliani’s “craziest guy in the room” approach came in the form of his disclosure that Trump repaid longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen the $130,000 spent to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Giuliani disclosed Trump’s repayment on Sean Hannity’s Fox News primetime show, prompting critics, like MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, to chastise the top Trump lawyer as “a monkey throwing poo against the wall.”
“Yet what looked like a mega-gaffe with Hannity turned out to be Giuliani taking a harpoon for the President,” Dash reports, noting “when the disclosure finally came, it didn't make as big a splash as it otherwise would have.”
Giuliani has also been clear about his approach to the Russia investigation.
“We are defending here is for public opinion because eventually the decision here is going to be impeach or not impeach,” Giuliani said last week, telling Bash the “jury” in Trump’s case will be the American people.