Omnishambles

Giuliani's Quest to Confuse Us Into Submission

Episode Summary

On this week’s episode of Omnishambles, host Sam Stein welcomes The Daily Beast’s White House and Trumpworld reporting duo Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng. The topic of outrage and fascination for this week is President Donald Trump’s lead attorney for the Russia probe, Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who refers to Suebsaeng as “Mr. Swin.”

Episode Notes

On this week’s episode of Omnishambles, host Sam Stein welcomes The Daily Beast’s White House and Trumpworld reporting duo Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng. The topic of outrage and fascination for this week is President Donald Trump’s lead attorney for the Russia probe, Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who refers to Suebsaeng as “Mr. Swin.”

The trio get into how Giuliani’s wild, at times seemingly flailing public defenses of the president are merely an extension of Giuliani’s client and Team Trump as a whole, and how Trump’s lawyers essentially try to confuse the media into submission. The host and his guests delve into how Trump’s West Wing has long been anesthetized to this kind of chronic disarray and “noise”—as have, sadly, many of the correspondents covering it. And Markay, campaign finance and corruption expert, breaks down exactly why Team Trump’s excuse-making for the president in Michael Cohen and AMI’s ongoing legal sagas might actually not be as batshit insane as they at first sound.

And, of course, we end with a game: Can you tell the difference between a fake Giuliani quote and a real one? Take our quiz (and don’t forget to subscribe).