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Trump Backs Lawyer Rudy Giuliani's Attacks on Stormy Daniels

Trump Backs Lawyer Rudy Giuliani's Attacks on Stormy Daniels

(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump said Friday he has no problem with comments by his lawyer Rudy Giuliani attacking the credibility of Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had a sexual encounter with Trump and is suing him for defamation.

Speaking at a business conference in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, Giuliani denigrated women in the adult film industry, and contrasted them with the president’s two former wives and current wife, who he called attractive and women of substance.

“I’m sorry, I don’t respect a porn star the way I respect a career woman, or a woman of substance, or a woman who has great respect for herself as a woman and as a person, and isn’t going to sell her body for sexual exploitation,” Giuliani said. “Stormy, you want to bring a case, let me cross-examine you.”

The former New York mayor also said First Lady Melania Trump believes her husband, who claims Daniels is lying. But Melania Trump’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said in response to Giuliani’s remarks: “I don’t believe Mrs. Trump has ever discussed her thoughts on anything with Mr. Giuliani.”

Trump, departing the White House for a G-7 summit in Quebec, told reporters Friday morning that he took no issue with Giuliani’s comments about Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford.

“Rudy is great, but Rudy is Rudy,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “Rudy is doing a very good job, actually.”

Giuliani joined the legal team representing Trump in the probe by Special Counsel Bob Mueller nearly two months ago and in recent weeks has made headlines with a series of television interviews that at times contradict his client’s statements, including his confirmation of a $130,000 payment to Clifford the president denied making.

His remarks about Clifford were met a day earlier with fierce criticism by female Democrats, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has emerged as a key Trump foil, and Senator Claire McCaskill.

“It’s the slurs against Stormy Daniels that somehow suggest that because Donald Trump has good-looking wives that means that he wouldn’t be a serial abuser of women,” Warren said in an interview on MSNBC. “Every part of that is wrong. It is wrong and it is an insult to every woman in this country.”

--With assistance from Shannon Pettypiece.

To contact the reporter on this story: Terrence Dopp in Washington at tdopp@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Joshua Gallu

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.