The heated exchange, one of many that occurred during the roughly 20-minute long interview, began shortly after Giuliani raged about the amount of “false reporting” on the Russia investigation.
“Mr. Mayor, false reporting is saying that nobody in the campaign had any contacts with Russia,” Cuomo responded. “False reporting is saying that there has been no suggestion of any kind of collusion between the campaign and any Russians.”
Giuliani jumped in.
“You just misstated my position,” Giuliani said. “I never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or between people in the campaign.”
Cuomo’s face contorted into an expression of disbelief. “Yes, you have,” he shot back.
As recently as July, Giuliani was
asked by Fox News contributor Guy Benson, “Regardless of whether collusion would be a crime, is it still the position of you and your client that there was no collusion with the Russians whatsoever on behalf of the Trump campaign?”
“Correct,” Giuliani responded at the time.
But on Wednesday, Giuliani appeared to amend his previous comments on the subject.
“I said the president of the United States,” he protested, arguing that he had only ever said Trump himself was not connected to any Russian meddling in the 2016 election. “There is not a single bit of evidence the president of the United States committed the only crime you can commit here, conspired with the Russians to hack the DNC.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment early Thursday.
